I'm asking my contact there, but they just came out with their newest
offering, the SmartFusion2. It's only available in one package right now,
with lots and lots of gates on a BGA-848 socket.
It still has an ARM Cortex-M3, at double the processor speed. The FGPA can
hit lower power sleep states by merging their IGLOO FPGA fabric into the
SmartFusion. They also replaced the specific analog co-processor with
18-bit MACC blocks which make more sense for a radio. The smallest SF2 has
5 hard multipliers which isn't packaged yet, but due later this year.
There's a possibility of putting a FPU co-processor into the FPGA but it
hasn't felt like the right solution. But, if it saves component count and
board space, it may be worth looking at. It all depends on how
synthesizable an open source FPU implementation is.
On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 12:10 PM, Bruce Perens <br...@perens.com> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> Could you ask SmartFusion about Cortex M4F? It should not be a stretch
> from what they are presently offering.
>
> Thanks
>
> Bruce
>
>
> On 4/17/2013 11:00 AM, Chris Testa wrote:
>
> I agree that the lack of FPU means it's a lot harder to support all the
> software that would ideally live in a baseband modem. I'm not clear what
> the solution is yet, except that the fixed point gmsk modem could make it
> into the baseband processor. At this point, my plan is to offer up this
> project I've been working on: schematics, source, and docs as open source.
> Hopefully, lessons will be learned and some part of this will be valuable
> to the community at whole.
>
> The board that I'm manufacturing for Hamvention is a full-duplex
> quadrature-bits to RF board with sleep states in mA range (10 bits
> resolution). Operating range should be 5MHz to 1000MHz w/ 1MHz bandwidth,
> though right now you'll have to change parts on a few matching networks to
> optimize signal integrity for a given band. Based on the CMX991, it fits
> in a 38mmx57mm "room" at 3.3V. This could be connected to any processor
> you want to try.
>
> The baseband processor I'm trying is an ARM Cortex-M3 SoC processor that
> has an integrated FPGA called the SmartFusion. This is doing DSP to/from
> the quadrature rf transceiver. I think the SmartFusion is a really
> interesting hybrid chip that allows for low power sleep modes and the
> agility of a reconfigurable radio, with Linux in the package. In practice,
> I think the FGPA will end up being a co-processor for FIR, IIR, FFT just
> like the functions in the SHARC DSP.
>
> I'm into creating an open project, and both Verilog and ARM C have cross
> vendor support. There's ARM SoC FPGA's from Xilinx Zynq, Actel
> SmartFusion(2), and very recently Altera Cyclone V. Expect the SDR
> manufacturers using FGPA's to come out with radios built on these chipsets.
>
> I definitely think you could hook up a DSP processor but I'm not sure
> which one to try. I'd be interested to see your results.
>
> Chris KD2BMH
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 5:13 AM, Greg Troxel <g...@work.lexort.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I know the Elecraft KX3 is not Open Source, but it's interesting to look
>> at the CPU choices because it does an amazingly good job at
>> functionality per dollar and per watt. There's an 18F87K22 and an AMD
>> floating point DSP (ADSP-21479) and no conventional CPU. It manages to
>> receive HF with 200 mA. For a handheld, battery life is going to be a
>> huge consideration. So if I were going to build something that was like
>> an FM handheld and also had DV (and probably a GPS chip and APRS, like
>> the VX8), I'd avoid SDR and put the codec2 modem in the DSP.
>>
>>
>> http://www.analog.com/en/processors-dsp/sharc/ADSP-21479/products/product.html
>>
>> My guess is that once codec2 is on that DSP, and maybe the container
>> protocol (like D-STAR) replacement, then the PIC can do the rest of the
>> UI.
>>
>>
>>
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>
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