Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] $89 EZ-USB 2.0 FX2 devel board

[David Carr]

Eric et al,

I'll keep you guys posted on my progress. I should have the hardware in 
about 2 weeks. In the meantime I'm developing the ADC module to plug 
into the USB board. I'm currently laying out a design based on the 
MAX1422 20Msps 12bit ADC. I'm mostly interested in it because its free 
(sample), has a package thats big enough to work with (TQPF-48) and runs 
on 3.3V. Maxim also has the MAX1418, a 15bit 65Msps converter I'm 
considering. It only comes in a 56-pin thin QFN package which I think 
would be difficult to work with given by home-brew PCBs and hand 
soldering. The dynamic range improvement from switching to a 15bit 
converter may be quite valuable however... decisions, decisions.

Last thing I promise. I'd also like to add an inexpensive fpga module to 
this system. I've not designed anything with FPGA's before. What FPGA's 
have specs in the right ballpark but are not that expensive (<$30-40)? 
I'm biased towards Xilinx parts because they officially support their 
tools under wine on linux. What are the details on the part used on the 
USRP?

Thanks again,
David Carr



Eric Blossom wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 04, 2004 at 01:47:08PM -0500, David Carr wrote:
>  
>
> > I just found this board at http://elrasoft.hostcolor.com/hsusbm.htm
> >
> > It brings out all 16 bits of the GPIF and the control lines along with
> > several other signals.  With a fast host chipset this chip can move data
> > at greater than 30MBytes/sec continuously.  Open source linux tools and
> > programming via the USB port should make this easy to work with.  This
> > board would be an excellent interface module for the a poor man's
> > ($120-170) USB 2.0 10-12Msps 12bit ADC or DAC.  I've found other boards
> > with this chip in for $400+ and one for $200 but the configuration of
> > this board is better suited to continuous high speed transfer and its cheap.
> >
> > Hopefully I'll have one to play with soon,
> > -David Carr
> >    
>
> Let us know how it goes.
>
> You'll probably find the USRP firmware and host side code useful for
> making it do something.  FYI, we use the free SDCC 8051 C compiler
> for the firmware.
>
> Eric
>
>