[hpsdr] Blackfin

[Philip Covington]

On 7/11/07, Philip Covington <p.covington at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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

Ooops... OK here is the updated website for BlackfinOne:

<http://blackfin.uclinux.org/gf/project/bf1/wiki/?action=index>

73 Phil N8VB

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