Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] OLPC - next generation with SDR?

[David Young]

On Mon, Dec 24, 2007 at 02:11:34PM -0800, John Gilmore wrote:
> I'm glad you-all are pointing out low volume prototypes.  I hope we'll
> get someone interested who has designed high volume digital radio
> electronics.  High volume ~= million-unit.  (Do any people like this
> exist?  Perhaps Matt's bluetooth design has shipped in that quantity;
> WiFi does too.)  There's already an entire high speed digital radio
> transceiver in the existing XO: it's the Marvell "Libertas" WiFi
> 88W8388 controller chip and 88W8015 radio chip.  It's reprogrammable,
> though the ARM code that runs in it isn't open source yet (the high
> level code can be open sourced, but it runs on a proprietary RTOS).

You may be disappointed what you can accomplish with the ARM
microcontroller.  It is not responsible for mod/demod.  Those functions
are in silicon.

If Marvell would publish the 88W8388 and 88W8015 documentation, it
would jumpstart some open-source development.  Source code is a poor
replacement for proper chipset documentation.

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
address@hidden      Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933 ext 24