[Discuss-gnuradio] Re: "Open-Hardware"

[Patrick Strasser]

schrieb Marcus D. Leech on 2011-01-12 01:16:

> For certain classes of high-bandwidth applications, you're willing to
> sacrifice
>   number of bits for bandwidth.

For sure. But you have to commit that your usecase is more the corner
case then the mainstream. With your CPLD mentions below this should not
be a big deal.

> the FX2 has an external FIFO interface, intended to handle storage
> devices, but interfacing to a high-speed
>   dual-channel-simultaneously-sampled ADC shouldn't be that hard--might
> require an uber-cheap CPLD to
>   handle some of the handshaking.

AFAIK the SSRP is just shoveling bits from the ADC to the FX2.

>> An other way would be to change the interface, which would very likely
>> be Gigabit-Ethernet.
>>
>>
> I haven't found a "cheap" way of doing GiGe.

GiGe is for high end. It adds comlexity on the network and host side
(configuration...) and is IMO unnecessary. Of course you get speedup by
2.5 over USB, but as ham and hobbyist you hardly need all the USB capacity.

What I'd like to have is something like the Digilent Basys2/Nexys2. A
capable USB interface, some CPLD/FPGA for the hard stuff, maybe a
microcontroller, some memmory, buttons, 7-segment-display, and
connectors like SD card etc. With examples and modules like for the
Digilent parts this would make it easy to start all kinds of projects.
The board are already cheap, but not OS. If it was compatible with the
PMOD module, this gave a good starting point for working strait and for
custom modules like the Charleston SDR. If people agree on a bus,
modules could be stacked: AD module, mixer module, filtering module, LNA
or transmitter module.

Regards

Patrick