My First Working Audio DSP Prototype

[diyaudio]

In 2014 I asked this question on the forum

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/anyone-work-with-sharc-processors/

Today, I finally made progress booting up not one, but two SHARC prototype boards, with only minor PCB errors here and there.

The learning path was VERY steep (I grossly underestimated the engineering effort involved, a trap for young players!), none the less I still accepted the challenge,the high level path I follow looked something like this.

1) Select a good Audio DSP platform, Analogue Devices SHARC was my obvious choice, and oh boy was this better said than done, lots of things had to be considered such as, hardware/software tooling cost, very small support community on the platform, scarcity of example code  (other than BSP code), reading lots of SHARC datasheets (good quality datasheets might I add)
     
2) Learn Altium Designer and have the board manufactured by Seed Studio  (Thanks Dave for pushing me in this direction with choosing Altium )

3) Next, read tons of SHARC DSP datasheets.

After doing all that.... 

1) I designed a custom board using a 2nd generation SHARC
2) Ordered parts,
3) Waited 1.5 months for the board from Seed to arrive. (in the mean time read more datasheets)
4) Prayed and hoped I didnt make critical mistakes, prayed I don't goof up with the soldering, spent another 2 weeks pulling my hair out trying to get the Analog Devices CrossCore IDE to work with my clone JTAG, that took some effort.
5) Write a custom flash driver to get the DSP kernel firmware code into the flash.(this is required to boot the processor)
   
Bang! after some niggles against all odds it work!!!, I was never so happy to see a LED flash from an I/O port ! the code running was both in processor emulation mode with the JTAG connected and working by downloading the kernel flash firmware into the spi flash.I didn't even bother to do FFT or FIR test to verify, just a simple hello world led flash..

The design shows a 200MHz DSP capable of

- 8-channels of individual pipeline processing (up to 192KHz @ 24bit)
- 16MB of flash
- Capability to swop out a DAC/MCU control daughter board. 
- takes a jtag emulator
 

This project will probably in the long run find its way into my car and function as a 8-channel audio processor. In the mean time I have a DAC/MCU board to design.

[diyaudio]

Board Assembly 

[Kalvin]

Excellent work! 

[MT]

Well done! Nice Board!

In earlier thread you asked quote:

Can anyone provide further input, how will an FPGA  match against the SHARC ?

As an example among many you might take brief peek at:
http://www.fairlight.com.au/

They do all the signal processing on FPGA's.Well at least they used to!Whether or not is faster then a SHARK i dunno.
http://newsroom.altera.com/press-releases/altera-fpga-replaces-64-dsp-devices-in-fairlights-new-media-processing-engine.print

http://fairlightinstruments.com.au/cc1_brochure.pdf

I think Peter Vogel is using a CC1 for his remake of the Fairlight CMIII/II.
http://petervogelinstruments.com.au/

[TJ232]

Another one struggling with blackfin+ here, also fot audio. I started with genuine dev kit and jtag, so it started smoother,
but the poor documentation and lack of sample code makes playing with its usb2.0 interface very hard, still reverse engineering its uc-osiii usb stack.

Wow, great project! 

[diyaudio]

Thanks for the response people.

Parts arrived today to start the design of a multichannel audio board.

DAC: PCM3168APAP (both a ADC/DAC onboard)
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm3168a.pdf
http://www.ti.com/product/pcm3168a

OR

ADC
https://www.cirrus.com/en/products/wm8782.html
https://www.cirrus.com/en/pubs/proDatasheet/WM8782_v4.7.pdf

+

DAC
http://www.esstech.com/files/4014/4095/2155/SABRE9006A_PB_v0.4_140916.pdf



Main Control MCU??
Any Flavour will do. Even your mama`s Arduino 

This is going to be a rather interesting design challenge, as I never worked on a design like this but the gist of it is should be simple.

[diyaudio]

Pin 1 orientation on the most left PCM3168 is different from other chips, are they from a genuine distributor?

I unpacked one chip did  some inspection.

Yes they are, I got them directly from Texas Instruments (sampled), no way im paying $$ for a personal R&D project.
 

[diyaudio]

Another one struggling with blackfin+ here, also fot audio. I started with genuine dev kit and jtag, so it started smoother,
but the poor documentation and lack of sample code makes playing with its usb2.0 interface very hard, still reverse engineering its uc-osiii usb stack.

Hi

You should have much better advantage over me... in China Blackfins are very common fixed point dsp processors, BF-5XX ? unless im mistaken ? In fact the guy who set me up with the tools is from opendsp big Chinese community. (I own a small BF533 board, I never found a project to use it in) was thinking simple computer vision stuff but not even I have that much time to burn      ??

I agree the area is very grey with lots of diligence it can be mastered, Honestly AD has very nice software tools, documentation is very minimal and much to the point, going through all the EE-XX documents helps tremendously!!
   
 
 

[diyaudio]

Here's how mine looks like.

Home brew USB audio spec 2.0 receiver, home brew up sampler, 192x oversampling, home brew delta sigma modulator and dynamic elements matching algorithm, all in the DSP and FPGA.

This puppy is fully isolated -- digital modulated streams are transmitted through 2 transformers, with the other one in charge of clock signal.

I even managed to integrate a 4w isolated DC/DC converter in it, with total height to be 1.5mm. Of course, isolation is only for ground noise elimination, only for +-200v pk, just barely higher than 264V*1.414/2.

There will be another board sitting on top of the white connector, that will be low noise analog voltage regulator, 4 bit thermometer DAC and fully differential headphone amplifier

Nice, have you had a look at XMOS usb receiver offerings ?

Im busy waiting on some coilcraft sealed smd coils for my dc-dc converter.  as im pushing the limits of using a LDO, these 2nd SHARC processors are far from energy efficient compared to todays stuff with recorded current of 200mA. that's with no dsp processing and the PLL running at 150MHz

 

[diyaudio]

Well done! Nice Board!

In earlier thread you asked quote:

Can anyone provide further input, how will an FPGA  match against the SHARC ?

As an example among many you might take brief peek at:
http://www.fairlight.com.au/

They do all the signal processing on FPGA's.Well at least they used to!Whether or not is faster then a SHARK i dunno.
http://newsroom.altera.com/press-releases/altera-fpga-replaces-64-dsp-devices-in-fairlights-new-media-processing-engine.print

http://fairlightinstruments.com.au/cc1_brochure.pdf

I think Peter Vogel is using a CC1 for his remake of the Fairlight CMIII/II.
http://petervogelinstruments.com.au/

Thanks,

I too think FPGA and SHARC DSP`s have alot of overlap in some areas, but then this showed at my door 3 months ago and its a freaking beast!! let me say that again..its a FREAKING BEAST see attachment.
http://www.analog.com/en/products/processors-dsp/sharc/adsp-sc589.html

Analog Devices was like "say hello to my little friend" 


Dual SHARC+ Core Infrastructure:
450 MHz (2.7GFLOPS) per core
5Mbits/640KB L1 memory/core with parity
Optional cache/SRAM mode
32-bit, 40-bit & 64-bit floating point support
ARM Core Infrastructure:
450 MHz ARM Cortex-A5 (with Neon/FPU)
32kByte/32kByte L1 Instr./Data Cache
256kByte L2 Cache
Shared System Memory
256KB L2 SRAM with ECC protection
Up to Two High Speed Memory Controllers
DDR3-900, DDR2-800 & LPDDR (16-bit)
Advanced Hardware Accelerators
FFT/iFFT (18 GFLOPS, 5usec per 1K-pt FFT)
FIR/IIR and SINC Filters, ASRC
Security Crypto Engines with OTP
Packaging
19mm x 19mm BGA  (0.8mm pitch)
Commercial, Industrial & Automotive
Key Connectivity & Interfaces:
2x Ethernet MAC
One Gigabit (RGMII) and one 10/100 (RMII)
With IEEE-1588 & AVB support (QoS & clock recovery)
2x USB2.0 HS OTG/Device Controllers (MAC/PHY)
2x CAN2.0
SD/SDIO/MMC/eMMC (with SDXC support)
PCIe2.0 (1 lane) (SC589 only)
Up to 8 Full SPORT interfaces (w/ TDM & I2S modes)
S/PDIF Tx/Rx, 8x ASRC pairs, PCG
2x Dual-SPI and 1x QuadSPI (w/ direct  execution)
3x I2C and 3x UARTs (w/ Flow Control)
Enhanced Parallel Peripheral Interface
For video I/O or parallel converter interface
2x Link Ports (bi-directional, 8-bit, up to 150MB/sec)
3x Enhanced PWM,  ADC Control Module (ACM)
8x GP Timer, 1x GP Counter, WDT and RTC
Up to 102 GPIO (mux’ed w/ other interfaces)
8-ch 12-bit 1MSPS Housekeeping ADC
Thermal Sensor

They went from having hardly any peripherals in their 4-gen SHARCS to an arsenal of peripherals..

I will be using this primary for doing research involving room correction stuff, this is early silicon release, the new processors will be shipping mid next year.

   

[Marco]

I'm using BF706, the latest one that can do hardware single cycle 32bit*32bit+72bit. It comes with free USB2.0 OTG, so I decided to cut BOM cost by an XMOS.

Why not the other way around by the way? XMOS is essentialy a DSP too (single cycle MAC and bit reversed addressing).

[Kalvin]

At one point I was very interested in ADSP-21369 / ADSP-21469. The eval board costs around 500+ euros (about 590+ us dollars). Fortunately I learned that the the development tools were locked to the eval board before I committed to buy one. Then, I found out about XMOS and ordered inexpensive eval kit. I have also TI eval kit for their F28377S DSP controllers. The XMOS and TI are still in their shipping packages, though. Anyway, both the XMOS and F28377S are suitable for the real-time audio signal processing, for example. The XMOS seems to be more audio oriented where as the F28377S is more control and power-systems oriented DSP. Both XMOS and F28377S are quite inexpensive compared to the processing power and on-chip memory provided.

[Marco]

I have also TI eval kit for their F28377S DSP controllers.

Hey, an affordable DSP dev kit without sudden death of dev tools, cool.

[Kalvin]

I have also TI eval kit for their F28377S DSP controllers.

Hey, an affordable DSP dev kit without sudden death of dev tools, cool.

For the USD 30 the price of the kit is pretty much right.

The XMOS starter kit costs USD 15 which can be considered affordable, too. The XMOS starter kit has an entry level, general purpose XMOS device, but still very powerful for real-time audio and digital signal processing.

[diyaudio]

At one point I was very interested in ADSP-21369 / ADSP-21469. The eval board costs around 500+ euros (about 590+ us dollars). Fortunately I learned that the the development tools were locked to the eval board before I committed to buy one.

Last time, I checked the the evaluation debug agent can program custom boards, the issue is legally the licence a agreement prohibits commercial development , also the main difference is that supplied debug agent doesn't come with a plastic housing case (that's obvious) and it doesn't have a input protection on the communication lines. so theoretically its not meant for production.

Here is a tear-down of my ICE-100 emulator clone, its capable of programming the latest generation I was told...however a small hardware/firmware mod is required to make the clone support the latest generation SHARC/Blackfins (I think its just a firmware update). Also my clone only works with CCESS 1.0.1 and any version of visual dsp++ (without the firmware update) but so does the original.. I like CCES because its eclipse based, there is no disputing why eclipse is better.

The attachment shows an invisible marking on the front end, its a NXP chip (forgot the number) that handles signal front end protection for the jtag a Blackfin and some spi flash memory that's it, I paid $400  2 years ago for this with a black-fin 533 board with lots of AD DSP material.

[Bassman59]

I have also TI eval kit for their F28377S DSP controllers.

Hey, an affordable DSP dev kit without sudden death of dev tools, cool.

For the USD 30 the price of the kit is pretty much right.

so I checked! http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-F28377S

And there's this note: "Special Note:
Due to the high-demand of the Delfino F28377S LaunchPad, all new orders will be subject to a 4 week lead-time."

I am going to get one, just because.

-a

[Kalvin]

I have also TI eval kit for their F28377S DSP controllers.

Hey, an affordable DSP dev kit without sudden death of dev tools, cool.

For the USD 30 the price of the kit is pretty much right.

so I checked! http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-F28377S

And there's this note: "Special Note:
Due to the high-demand of the Delfino F28377S LaunchPad, all new orders will be subject to a 4 week lead-time."

I am going to get one, just because.

-a

Just checked Digikey and there are 100+ available. I ordered one some time ago as I had some other stuff coming from Digikey anyway.

[MT]

Interesting, lot of bananas in C28! Is Code composer the only tool for C28, it seams there is xx days limit then purchase! No?
CCS free unlimited compile levels with XDS100?  Farnell have 74 dev boards in stock.. But chip pricing seams to hideous expensive!

[marcopolo]

@diyaudio

I bought several ADI products from this seller in UK at very good price:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Business-Office-Industrial-/12576/m.html?item=221917118177&hash=item33ab4a7ee1%3Ag%3AdLsAAOSw2XFUiiZk&_ssn=colscoob

Some of the last boards I bought:
- 21489 EZ-KIT
- BF548 EZ-KIT
- HPPCI JTAG
All work like a charm 

He currently sells a BF561 EZ-KIT (Dual core blackfin)  for £45 (64€)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ANALOG-DEVICES-ADDS-BF561-EZ-KIT-LITE-EVALUATION-BOARD-ADI-VISUALDSP-rev-1-3-/221931347667
and
4 PCI JTAG Emulator £75 (106€) each (work with Blackfin and Sharc)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ANALOG-DEVICES-ADI-ADDS-HPPCI-ICE-JTAG-EMULATOR-FOR-DSP-With-PCI-Card-/221917118177

Marc

[diyaudio]

@diyaudio

I bought several ADI products from this seller in UK at very good price:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Business-Office-Industrial-/12576/m.html?item=221917118177&hash=item33ab4a7ee1%3Ag%3AdLsAAOSw2XFUiiZk&_ssn=colscoob

Some of the last boards I bought:
- 21489 EZ-KIT
- BF548 EZ-KIT
- HPPCI JTAG
All work like a charm 

He currently sells a BF561 EZ-KIT (Dual core blackfin)  for £45 (64€)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ANALOG-DEVICES-ADDS-BF561-EZ-KIT-LITE-EVALUATION-BOARD-ADI-VISUALDSP-rev-1-3-/221931347667
and
4 PCI JTAG Emulator £75 (106€) each (work with Blackfin and Sharc)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ANALOG-DEVICES-ADI-ADDS-HPPCI-ICE-JTAG-EMULATOR-FOR-DSP-With-PCI-Card-/221917118177

Marc

wow thanks man, nice find 

I doubt I will be buying anything soon again (have enough projects to keep me busy for the whole of 2016), I hit the ceiling with my DSP hardware budget, this is very tempting though 
 

[marcopolo]

I doubt I will be buying anything soon again (have enough projects to keep me busy for the whole of 2016)

I'm like you, enough projects to keep me busy for the next ten years, but when I see a good deal, I can't resist.

Marc

[rsjsouza]

Interesting, lot of bananas in C28! Is Code composer the only tool for C28, it seams there is xx days limit then purchase! No?
CCS free unlimited compile levels with XDS100?  Farnell have 74 dev boards in stock.. But chip pricing seams to hideous expensive!

CCS can be used for free forever (no time limit, no performance limit, no code size limit) with a XDS100 JTAG debugger on any of their products - i.e., their DSPs and ARM processors (C28x included).