[hpsdr] Blackfin

[Philip Covington]

On 7/11/07, Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan <vu3rdd at gmail.com> wrote:
> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
> Is there any interest in an Atlas-pluggable Blackfin board to replace
> the PC and an alternative to Sasquash ?
>
> Sasquash Vs Blackfin based board [yet to be named]
>
> Good:
>  - Blackfin has free (as in both free beer and free software) tool
> chain, C67xx has a $2000 (or more ?) toolchain.
>  - Blackfin can run linux kernel (2.6.22 has it officially merged in).
>  - Costs $14.51 for 1 unit (on digikey for BF532).
>  - Available in LQFP package (BF532 ?).
>  - Most importantly has a community around it.
>  - Designed for very low power consumption. May be useful for portable
> operations.
>  - low cost devel jtag (homebrewable?). TI DSPs need proprietary jtag
> which costs $1000+.
>
> Bad:
>  - Blackfin is fixed point processor. Makes programmer's life more
> tough. C67x is floating point.
>  - TI codegen tools may be better than gcc toolchain for blackfin at
> the moment. This may change in the future.
>  - There are devices in the C67xx family which has got much much more
> horsepower than Blackfin.
>
> and so on..
>
> disclaimer: I am an ex-TIer. This is not meant as a criticism for TI
> DSPs. I still use them and admire them at work. But for amateur use, I
> feel availability of Free toolchain is essential for further
> experimentation and advancement.
>
> Any ideas? My PCB skills are not so good, but if there is enough
> interest, I can take it up. But it will take a while for me to start,
> as I am rght now busy with my Ozy/Janus build and bringup.
>
> If someone else want to take it up, BkackfinOne board is a good
> starting point. It is a neat 2-layer board design and is under the GNU
> GPL.
>
> --
>   Ramakrishnan - VU3RDD
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I've been looking around the http://blackfin.uclinux.org/gf/ website
since I saw the announcement that 2.6.22 no officially supports the
Blackfin.  Thanks for the reference to the BlackfinOne board.  Here is
a link I found:
<http://www.tearsoffire.org/twiki/bin/view/Projects/BlackfinOne>

73 Phil N8VB

 1184171978.0