I saw the STM32F429 Discovery kit, a little bit more cpu, 64 Mb ram,
a TFTP display so could display the constellation, at about € 20.

Who is the first to port to that board?

G

On 08/21/2014 12:29 AM, glen english wrote:
> Nice work David.
> Maybe some one can let me know what the scope of topics of this forum
> is. Hopefully, forum users will accept this brief off topic discussion.
> I apologize in advance.
>
> Agreed with all on development cost. Depends on the market I guess.  The
> STM32 is actually right at the high end of complexities for the MCU
> market. It is a complex device.  But effective.
>
>   From my aristocratic POV, 60mA at 3V is a real power hog for a battery
> device, but- as you say David - IT MEETS THE OBJECTIVES , and that is
> really what it is all about . Something either meets objectives, or it
> doesn't . Anything else is just fluff.
>
> For a box that does not have to do much- simple sequential processing,
> IE convert ADC, filter microphone samples- encode audio - add framing
> bits - generate modulator samples, a simple interrupt driven job is fine.
>
> Now, throw in a bunch of asynchronous  peripherals, peripherals that
> must be talked to loaded with data, waited up for events to finish  and
> now you have a real problem with the sequential system, and the simple
> kernel that provides waitable semaphores and timers and some basic co
> operative multitasking is the answer, rather than a complex state
> machine. And a basic kernel will only cost less than 100 cycles on a
> context switch.  In 2000 I wrote basic kernel for the AVR that  did a
> context switch in about 60 cycles.  So, OS need not have much overhead,
> and it is ideal when different people are writing for different
> jobs/peripherals on the one chip.
>
> glen english
> VK1XX
> "yes - I do this for a living"
> Altium- ModelSim, Matlab, Vivado, Rowley.
>
>
>
> On 21/08/2014 8:12 AM, David Rowe wrote:
>> Hello Glen,
>>
>> Yes I agree re the STM32F4's DSP capability.  It doesn't have proper
>> single cycle MACs.  However it's fast and cheap and has float so it does
>> the job nicely.  Curiously, no operating system ends up being kinda
>> helpful on a CPU of this size.
>>
>> I measured 60mA at 3V on the STM32F4, that's the lowest power CPU I have
>> ever played with!  I estimated 24 hours operation on a pair of AA's.
>> Plenty.
>>
>> I think if I was doing a multi-channel FreeDV device I'd use .... a PC.
>> Just throw MIPs at the problem.  Dead easy to develop on.  I/O would be
>> the only hassle.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> David
>>
>> On 21/08/14 07:27, glen english wrote:
>>> indeed Bruce.
>>>
>>> Consider I might be aiming at a portable device, or other low power, low
>>> count silicon platform. (5$)
>>> and bear  in mind, I might want a heap processing power left over for
>>> modulator/demod, error correction, some audio processing , noise
>>> reduction etc.
>>>
>>> For those that know real DSPs, they'll recognize that the Cortex M4
>>> (stm32 4...) is NOT a real DSP. It has some handy instructions, they
>>> call DSP, sure. But start throwing it alot of filtering tasks and you'll
>>> run out of cycles.
>>>
>>> It is a very good general purpose processor though, excellent  in fact.
>>> I use it for all sorts of things when I don't care about power
>>> consumption. The CODEC2 is not a simple DSP task, it is much more a
>>> complex algorithm that doesnt get alot of help from a real DSP. The
>>> STM32M4 is not a low power processor.
>>> A real FP processor like the latest low power SHARCs ($10) for similar
>>> money might do the job for less power, depending on the efficiency of
>>> the coder- that's the thing to get the advantage of the real DSP, you
>>> got to know what you are doing. The M4 will make fairly good throughput
>>> out of junk coding.  I use the Rowley Associates toolchain.
>>>
>>>
>>> glen english
>>> VK1XX
>>> "yes - I do this for a living"
>>> Altium- ModelSim, Matlab, Vivado, Rowley.
>>>
>>> On 21/08/2014 5:44 AM, Bruce Perens wrote:
>>>> The reasoning is indeed that floating point is easier to develop and
>>>> that our development time is more expensive than CPUs.We don't know
>>>> the table sizes offhand.
>>>>
>>>> However, the assumption that both of the codec and modem would fit in
>>>> really small and relatively low-power floating point chips was
>>>> optimistic and as of this moment it's right on the edge of working in
>>>> the STM32F405 that David has built into his SmartMic project. The
>>>> STM32F405 is an ARM Cortex M4F at 168 MHz, 1 MB FLASH, 126K
>>>> instruction/data RAM, and 64K data RAM.
>>>>
>>>> Over the past weeks David has torn through the code working on
>>>> optimization, and at this moment the receive speed is "borderline".
>>>>
>>>>       Thanks
>>>>
>>>>       Bruce
>>>>
>>>> CPOn 08/20/2014 11:42 AM, Steve wrote:
>>>>> I think the reasoning is, that floating point and memory are so cheap
>>>>> now, that trying to fit a design into a restricted space would just
>>>>> lengthen the time to profit.
>>>>>
>>>>> Why design to a fixed point $30 DSP when you can buy a $5 CPU with
>>>>> hardware FP.
>>>>>
>>>>> 73,Steve
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> Slashdot TV.
>>>>> Video for Nerds.  Stuff that matters.
>>>>> http://tv.slashdot.org/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Freetel-codec2 mailing list
>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freetel-codec2
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Slashdot TV.
>>>> Video for Nerds.  Stuff that matters.
>>>> http://tv.slashdot.org/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Freetel-codec2 mailing list
>>>> [email protected]
>>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freetel-codec2
>>> --
>>> -
>>> Glen English
>>> RF Communications and Electronics Engineer
>>>
>>> CORTEX RF
>>> &
>>> Pacific Media Technologies Pty Ltd
>>>
>>> ABN 40 075 532 008
>>>
>>> PO Box 5231 Lyneham ACT 2602, Australia.
>>> au mobile : +61 (0)418 975077
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Slashdot TV.
>>> Video for Nerds.  Stuff that matters.
>>> http://tv.slashdot.org/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Freetel-codec2 mailing list
>>> [email protected]
>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freetel-codec2
>>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Slashdot TV.
>> Video for Nerds.  Stuff that matters.
>> http://tv.slashdot.org/
>> _______________________________________________
>> Freetel-codec2 mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freetel-codec2
>>


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Slashdot TV.  
Video for Nerds.  Stuff that matters.
http://tv.slashdot.org/
_______________________________________________
Freetel-codec2 mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freetel-codec2

Reply via email to