MicroZED

No, only the big ZED at our church. This one:

A common problem with open source community projects.

Now I really don't want to belittle community-based projects, they are excellent tools to get youngsters into tinkering again and our society really needs that. But I never use one of those products in designs that have to run for years or decades. There usually isn't much of a long term supply chain guarantee.

If it's open-source can't you just make your own if they stop selling them?

All the schematics and PCB layouts are published, open-source. Ditto lots of code. We could make our own if we had to... if the parts were still available.

It can be done but that requires time and effort, for a project that was never planned to even happen.

And can you make it as cheaper as they claim?

Z7010 $50 + SDRAM $15x2 + ...

BOM is at least $100. Conservative multiplier of 3 gives a reasonable retail price of over $300. Even if you make them yourself, you have to compare with what you can buy.

The time and effort that I'm trying to avoid is buying a BGA FPGA and an Arm CPU, and designing and laying out a board with DRAM, flash, ethernet, switching regulators, jtag, and all the things you need to make a complex signal processor, and then starting in on the software.

Arm

tching

How about a soft CPU core? There are IP cores for 8051, 6502, z80, AVR, MI PS and ARM, as well as non-standard one like ZPU and single customer core l ike BellMac32. We were just discussing this a few days ago in C.A.E. You can even make something in-between.

Spartian 6 ($20) based evaluation board sells for $400+ I don't believe Zynq ($40) boards will last too long for less than $200.

Do you NEED a BGA FPGA? Xilinx still has plenty of decent FPGAs in TQFP leaded packages. Spartan 3A and 3AN for instance.

Also, the Beagle Bone Black is a great board, with excellent support, and a bunch of great peripherals that may make adding an FPGA unnecessary. I just did a project with the Bone Black, and it went very well. I think there are ~65K of these Bone Blacks already sold.

Jon

We do need an FPGA to do signal processing and a decent CPU, like an ARM, to do the ethernet ans such.

We prefer BGAs to leaded parts.

The soft cores eat a lot of FPGA resources and tend to be slow. Zynq has two hard ARM cores, 800 MHz, pretty spiffy. And an on-chip ADC.

Avnet is selling and supporting ZED, so it's not entirely an amateur thing.

an Arm

switching

MIPS and ARM, as well as non-standard one like ZPU and single customer cor e like BellMac32. We were just discussing this a few days ago in C.A.E. Y ou can even make something in-between.

two

That's why the chip retails for more than $50. I worry about putting a $10 chip in a product. $20 FPGA is at the top end. $50 is not my cup of tea.

If you really need the speed, then go for it.

g.

Yes, but their goal is to sell chips, taking losses in boards. As long as you realize the real cost and not counting on the intro pricing on these bo ards for long.

te:

d an Arm

, switching

al

R, MIPS and ARM, as well as non-standard one like ZPU and single customer c ore like BellMac32. We were just discussing this a few days ago in C.A.E. You can even make something in-between.

2. >

s two

it of course depends on what the product is going to sell for, but if that 50$ part does the job of five 10$ parts with less hassle and in the case of fpga+cpu on a single chip potentially more performance I'd say it is a winner

ing.

indeed, but as long as you take the real price in to account you'll be saving until you might have to do you own production

The end user license for the STM32F4Discovery development board actually says you cannot use it in a product, whether that is enforceable or not is probably debatable

-Lasse

But a $50 FPGA can do a pretty good CPU. No question about it, single chip CPU+FPGA is a good idea. However, dual core GHz CPU with 24K FPGA is a big mismatch. I just think that they went overboard with the CPU cores.

But they have a tendency to go non-stocking or no-stocking when you need them.

That's not the point. Better be up front about the fact and not getting your customer angry, the exact customer/designer you are trying to target.

Den søndag den 20. oktober 2013 20.06.38 UTC+2 skrev snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com :

a $10

tea.

ip

ig

They went with something that can reasonably run android/Linux,

the older CPU/FPGA combos were more like an FPGA with a CPU tacked on, you had to use FPGA resources to implement stuff like memory controllers, stand ard peripherals etc. before you could even get it running afaiu Zynq is different in that it basically a full microprocessor similar to what you might find in a cell phone or tablet just with an FPGA as a per ipheral

-Lasse

On Sunday, October 20, 2013 11:30:29 AM UTC-7, Lasse Langwadt Christensen w rote:

om:

ng a $10

f tea.

chip

big

Linux and/or Android can run with far less. Single core 800MHz can do almo st everything including low res video.

u had to use FPGA resources to implement stuff like memory controllers, sta ndard peripherals etc. before you could even get it running

r to what you might find in a cell phone or tablet just with an FPGA as a p eripheral

The $89 LX9 evaluation kit also claim to run Linux. Sure, a z80 Linux, if you can still call it Linux. To run a true 32 bit machine, you need at lea st the LX16. Unfortunately, the LX16 kit is loaded with junks for $289.

My point is: don't believe everything they are advertising.

Den søndag den 20. oktober 2013 20.42.03 UTC+2 skrev snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com :

.com:

ting a $10

of tea.

if

e chip

a big

most everything including low res video.

sure, I have one of those cheap chinese 1GHz android tablets and it works but I can see why they went with something that is a bit more future proof the area is probably dominated by the big memories anyway

you had to use FPGA resources to implement stuff like memory controllers, s tandard peripherals etc. before you could even get it running

lar to what you might find in a cell phone or tablet just with an FPGA as a peripheral

east

but once you get a microblaze, memory, memory controller and the usual peri pherals implemented how many fpga resources are left?

:)

-Lasse

if

least

ripherals implemented how many fpga resources are left?

I am not using the microBlaze, but a subset of BM32, which is around 200K Q in full size. I can probably strip some instructions and addressing modes .

The BM32 is a 32 bits CPU with 16 registers. First 9 are general purpose. Others are special registers such as AP, FP, SP, PC, PSW and PCB. I don't think we need the Process Control Block pointer, so we will change it to P ort Control Block pointer. Any port I/O should be relative to the PCB poin ter. AP and FP should be general purpose pointers as well.

R0-R8:GP R9:FP R10:AP R11:PSW R12:SP R13:PCB R14:ISP R15:PC

Immediate Mode MOVW &0x12345678,% r2 84 4F 78 56 34 12 42

Deferred Displacement Mode MOVB *0x30(% r2),% r3 87 D2 30 43

On a sunny day (Sun, 20 Oct 2013 12:15:18 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote in :

There is an add on board with FPGA for the Raspberry Pi:

Maybe for some stuff that need fast processing, say crypto, this solution also gives you Linux, no bloat Debian, and support for say 50 $ total.

I have not tried it, came to my attention a few weeks ago..

But I would use it anytime above vaporware, or say more expensive stuff, I did look at the Xilinx product.

Plus you can use the Raspi in a user product.

mm maybe the SRAM blocks could replace the expensive FIFO chips in my Raspi DVB-S modulator... I should not look at these things, makes me want to order one.... :-)

Oh, and replace the other glue logic, hey!

Den søndag den 20. oktober 2013 21.25.25 UTC+2 skrev snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com :

x, if

at least

peripherals implemented how many fpga resources are left?

s.

and that includes how much memory and what peripherals?

-Lasse