[hpsdr] OT: Blackfin Development

[Darrell Harmon]

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Jonathan Wagner
<jonathan at jonathanwagner.net> wrote:
> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
>
> I know this is sort of offtopic, but I've noticed a few people here, including Mr. Harmon have experience with Analog Devices Blackfin DSPs.  Plus this list seems more open to learning opportunities than some others.
>
> I am currently mentoring a group of undergrad students building an SDR for flight on a future CAPE satellite (UL Lafayette) and we are looking for a JTAG programmer available in the US which will work with open source tools such as urjtag tools.  I have a couple Xilinx Platform Cable USB and Olimex Arm-OCD-USB emulators, but both of these lack the Blackfin specific EMU~ line.  First, will either of these work (is the EMU~ pin absolutely necessary; will the standard TMS, TCK, TDI, TDO lines be enough).  Second, what is a recommended emulator.
>
> Thanks for your time and sorry for the noise,
> Jonathan
>
> P.S. I would prefer a US distributor as my employer is sponsoring the project and will fund any purchases.  If an international distributor only product (such as the gnICE) then cheapest is best as the funds will come from my own pocket.

I don't find the Blackfin to be very useful as a DSP but more as a
high powered microcontroller. I used it for buffering data between a
PC and FPGA as well as some management of a spectrum analyzer
frontend. 16 bit fixed point can be quite limiting for software
defined radio.

I have not used JTAG with the Blackfin. At the time I started using
the Blackfin, the only option was the $4000 Visual DSP and $2000 JTAG
cable from Analog Devices. It was far simpler to directly program the
SPI flash. I used a 74LVC245 bus buffer to reset the Blackfin and
drive the SPI bus to write the flash. The other side of the 74LVC245
was connected to my PC parallel port, and I wrote a simple application
to program the flash. Contact me off list if you would like a copy of
my Blackfin tools. This was 4 years ago, so things may have changed. I
have no idea what the best way to program a blackfin is today.

Note: Directly programming SPI flash with the parallel port or a USB
microcontroller also works with the Xilinx Spartan 3E parts. I find
this quite useful. In the case of a USB microcontroller, no
specialized programming hardware is required.

Darrell Harmon

 1230595492.0