An open source DAC is a worthy project.  And there is demand for DACs.  But
can we make it a commodity prices?  I think we'd have to do a full custom
and make millions of them to make it cost-effective.


On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 6:17 PM, Troy Benjegerdes <[email protected]> wrote:

> I'd rather design an open-source high-speed DAC silicon where
> you have control over all the transistors and can just make
> resistors exactly how you want them in silicon, instead of
> trying to deal with the unknown black box of driver stuff
> that's inside a digital I/O pins.
>
> If someone will commit to buying a lot of.. I don't know,
> 10,000 DACs, then I can start working backwards from that
> and tell you how much they will cost and when you can expect
> to get them.
>
> What interface do you want on the digital side? I was thinking
> a Gigabit ethernet DAC would be a pretty cool toy.  ;)
>
> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 09:17:41PM +0000, Jack Carroll wrote:
> > To make a parallel DAC that's monotonic and doesn't have oversize steps
> at the major bit carries, you need switches that introduce very small
> voltage errors (less than 1/2 LSB worth of voltage at the MSB carry) or
> else errors that are reproducible within 1/2 LSB from bit to bit.  Generic
> output pins from logic chips don't do that.  I've done some designs of fast
> parallel DACs with R/2R ladders and variant architectures, and getting the
> right switches and a stable reference rail is the biggest challenge.  Doing
> it at a high update rate just makes everything tougher, and building it out
> of separate switch chips and resistor arrays just makes everything harder,
> because the physical size of the PCB interconnects between components adds
> stray inductances and capacitances.  If you can buy the DACs and line
> drivers, it's a lot easier.
> >
> > Jack Carroll
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Timothy Normand Miller" <[email protected]>
> > To: "Ing. Daniel Rozsny??" <[email protected]>
> > Cc: [email protected]
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 9:48:35 AM
> > Subject: Re: [Open-graphics] The next OGA card?
> >
> >
> >
> > Actually, if we have lots of I/Os to spare, we might be able to do
> > analog video using a resistor network and a low-pass filter.  Someone
> > with a better EE background could answer that.
> > _______________________________________________
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>



-- 
Timothy Normand Miller, PhD
Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Binghamton University
http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~millerti/<http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti>
Open Graphics Project
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