Rockbox Development > New Ports
Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player
spark:
AVR32 may be less power hungry than an ARM7/9.
The logic for choosing the processor must be a good blend of the following in the given priority
-low cost & QFP package
-easy to port
-low power consumption
-good support (documentation, sample code, etc)
-integrated peripherals
i haven't gone through RB code yet. i have a small question.
Does it use assembly instructions anywhere in any of the codecs?
if yes then i guess we should stick to ARM.
if no, then we can use any processor cause gcc is gonna do the tedious work. But make sure that AVR32 can handle the most complex audio codec (purely in C) at the selected Clock frequency.
Bagder:
--- Quote from: spark on January 02, 2008, 08:36:09 AM ---Does it use assembly instructions anywhere in any of the codecs?
if yes then i guess we should stick to ARM.
--- End quote ---
Yes it uses asm on numerous places.
As I've mentioned repeatedly, the codecs and other parts have been hand optimized (with asm but also plain C code) for the existing architectures. It really doesn't matter if AVR is faster than its ARM version in regular C code tests, as the existing code has been worked on a lot to run this fast on the existing archs. Assuming that rebuilding it for AVR will run as fast or faster is missing a lot what I'm trying to express.
Again: using AVR will require a whole lot of optimizing of code to get the performance you want. That optimizing much likely involves asm writing and/or using the AVR DSP instructions. If using ARM, you can take advantage of already done optimizations.
casainho:
I did read the document that spark attach. I think there is a good opportunity that http://www.in-circuit.de/ , that have an online shop - http://ic-board.de/, and sells dev boards, will make one for this project, tailored for this project, more or less.
If they pretend to build a dev board for $50 and we can use that, good!! Don't know If that dev board must be with AVR32 or not, I will ask. I hope that dev board can have an ARM...
About LCD, that looks good and was already mentioned here. I asked by e-mail to http://ic-board.de/ If they have experience with some LCD and that they can assembly. Buying that LCD on Sparkfun will be for almost $50, LCD+ carrier board.
I have no problem at using ARM, it's clear for me now that should be the right choice, in spite of AVR32 eat less energy and have DSP instructions. I am worried now at finding a cheap dev board, $300 + LCD price is expensive for me and I think will not help to attract developers.
I did build a block diagram, It's on TWiki. It have minimum values, to make a cheap hardware, in case http://www.in-circuit.de/ or some other want to design a board for the project.
I think I found a cheaper dev boards - they just misses the LCD and DAC.
$104 - no datasheet: http://microcontrollershop.com/product_info.php?cPath=154_170_268&products_id=2098
$120 - full docs: http://microcontrollershop.com/product_info.php?cPath=154_170_268&products_id=1440
spark:
--- Quote from: casainho ---I think I found a cheaper dev boards - they just misses the LCD and DAC.
$104 - no datasheet: http://microcontrollersho..._170_268&products_id=2098
$120 - full docs: http://microcontrollersho..._170_268&products_id=1440
--- End quote ---
These are not full evaluation boards. They are just modules. They cannot function on their own and require a baseboard to supply power and interface to I/O ports.
scharkalvin:
Here are more complete eval boards based on the same cpu
http://microcontrollershop.com/product_info.php?products_id=1438
http://www.armkits.com/product/sbc2410II.asp
and the datasheet for the cpu
http://www.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets_pdf/S/3/C/2/S3C2410A.shtml
Looks like a good cpu, the cheap module would require a "carrier" board to be laid out to connect additional circuity for flash module, lcd, D/A audio amp, interface kb etc.... But the small module does solve the problem of soldering a SMT cpu chip to a pc board.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version