Author Topic: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.  (Read 19183 times)

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Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #125 on: January 14, 2020, 07:14:06 am »
The low impedance part of the signal path is much easier than the high impedance part because the later requires a good substrate which does not suffer from excessive hook.  This is why you find high quality oscilloscopes with plastic substrates for the high impedance attenuators and modern DSOs and high voltage differential probes with bad transient response after a couple years because the FR4 substrate they used absorbed water.
lecroy 50 ohm scope has add-on adapter called AP-1M, to provide high impedance measurement, you can search eevblog i posted the internal of it, but only to few hundreds MHz BW. for GHz BW high impedance? :scared: i never seen one and not have a plan to even think about it. otherwise, i will have a very serious time (and probably financial) damage into it. but i think whats the point of trying hard to design HBW HiZ circuit when we can have or design active probe or such an AP-1M adapter in the next project phase?

the AP-1M doesnt have special ASIC nor fancy ICs, only BJT/FET discreetes, but LeCroy charge them like K$, its like nuts when thinking about it. but when think further, they probably need to gather $ from surrounding ecosystem that they have introduced, to cope with ASIC damaged they experienced on the DSO side. this is i guess how they keep going..
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 07:18:55 am by Mechatrommer »
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Offline TheUnnamedNewbie

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #126 on: January 14, 2020, 08:17:08 am »
Well. In my world, there is no NEW semiconductor development happening in anywhere except USA or perhaps South Korea. Nothing. May be all those silicon developers in Europe are attending their jobs, work, come back home. And no effect is felt anywhere. The progress of things in 21st century is pathetic. The guys in Europe are faking each to other, because they have learned how to fake the things recently. In USA the fakery was popular and was quickly unlearned long before.

Yes, it is not like imec, arguable the most high-ranking and advanced semiconductor research center in the world, is not european. Or, when you look at research output, that some of the most skilled analog/RF semiconductor research groups are in europe (don't know bout digital - not my field). Or that the 256 GS/s ADC that is the hart of that 110 GHz scope is in part developed in Europe. Or, ever heard of these rohde&Schwarz guys? I can go on...

But I feel like there will be little point to go on here, since you made up your mind already
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Online nctnico

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #127 on: January 14, 2020, 08:27:57 am »
True. Part costs are completely irrelevant at this point as the engineering effort in the software dwarfs any effort needed for the hardware. A project starting with looking for the cheapest parts never ends well (or never ends at all).
I don't know why you keep saying parts cost aren't important, but in projects like these with one of the most cost sensitive market you can imagine (hobbyists), parts costs literally make or break a product. Look at an example, the NanoVNA. Basic math shows it's worth spending ONE ENGINEER YEAR to save $1 USD of BOM cost, with payback being just over one year. Yes, every dollar you save on the BOM pays for one full time engineer who can then bring far more value to the product.
It really doesn't matter at this stage. First get software going and then look at which platforms it can actually run on. There has to be some traction from companies to contribute at some point. Starting oscilloscope development at the hardware end is absolutely the wrong way to take such a project on. Been there, done that.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 
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Offline iMo

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #128 on: January 14, 2020, 09:28:52 am »
Quote
It really doesn't matter at this stage. First get software going and then look at which platforms it can actually run on.

Hmm, I doubt so. Nobody will start to mess with fw/sw development unless he/she/it sees the hw first. Unless you are getting $$ for such an effort you will not do..

The community willing to develop open fw/sw usually have to see tangible "something" they are attracted to, what they can buy cheap, and what is readily available such there will be a critical mass of people around it soon.

An recent example: user atadarov and his effort with the cheapo stm32 scope..
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 09:36:18 am by imo »
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Offline ogden

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #129 on: January 14, 2020, 10:04:21 am »
The community willing to develop open fw/sw usually have to see tangible "something" they are attracted to
This is typical chicken & egg paradox of hardware+software development. I doubt community will be attracted to bare PCB. Someone have to design & code "version zero" software for community to take over.
 

Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #130 on: January 14, 2020, 10:11:21 am »
there are top down type design, and there are called bottom up design. what i think nctnico trying to say is we start with FPGA design, let it receive some input, store it somewhere, do the triggering and output some data, and see how fast can it go... but then (to my knowledge) we also will need either to simulate the IO, or provide the suitable device to send and receive the data from the "FW". assuming the FPGA now can get 20Gbps throughput, then what? sooner or later the HW will expand to the real thing. ok maybe the GSps ADC can be replaced with Gbps FPGA to output some simulated or random data to the main FW/FPGA, and then stored in array of RAM etc, and output the 500KWfm/s data to the display. this we can call a demo platform to show that it can be done, that is phase one. costing of the complete system BOM can comes later in phase two,  but it should be realistic depending on how cheap they can be mass ordered. now we can share knowledges if someone have a chap or factory next door that can source the parts at lowest price, and the logistics and all. then goes to the Kickstarter.. but i bet, the high end GHz GSps spec is not going to be cheap, maybe say 1-5K$, depending on how you see it, some people may say its better than 45K$ of mainstream brands... without the base (demo) platform to show, we can talk empty wind forever.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 10:13:23 am by Mechatrommer »
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Online nctnico

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #131 on: January 14, 2020, 10:21:07 am »
Quote
It really doesn't matter at this stage. First get software going and then look at which platforms it can actually run on.

Hmm, I doubt so. Nobody will start to mess with fw/sw development unless he/she/it sees the hw first. Unless you are getting $$ for such an effort you will not do..
That is why a Kickstarter campaign to pay for software and FPGA engineers makes so much sense. There is no use to develop hardware without software. There are plenty of FPGA development kits out there to do the software development on.

there are top down type design, and there are called bottom up design. what i think nctnico trying to say is we start with FPGA design,
No. Do not start with the FPGA design. Start with the software. Design the user interface framework and determine requirements for software signal processing. From there you get to the stage where you can see what makes sense to put inside the FPGA and what to keep in software (likely this leads to a more or less modular approach where you can implement features in software first and then move to the FPGA for better performance).

In an oscilloscope everything hinges on how to present a signal to the user and what kind of operations may take place on the signal. The actual acquisition part is 1% of the work. Remember that most DSO manufacturers went through a complete rewrite of their software at some point.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 10:26:58 am by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #132 on: January 14, 2020, 11:03:38 am »
No. Do not start with the FPGA design. Start with the software. Design the user interface framework and determine requirements for software signal processing.
a person with good enough knowledge of overall system (or several people expert on each area) can do this on drawing table at $0 cost. SW guy with his part and FPGA guy with his part. its when they start the work is where the $ (workhour) is.

The actual acquisition part is 1% of the work
you said that maybe because you are the HW guy. maybe its 1% the work, but 99% the cost. some hobbiests can treat their free part time as $0 developing SW, but not with buying parts for R&D. let alone tools to verify them.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 11:05:36 am by Mechatrommer »
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Online nctnico

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #133 on: January 14, 2020, 12:07:50 pm »
No. Do not start with the FPGA design. Start with the software. Design the user interface framework and determine requirements for software signal processing.
a person with good enough knowledge of overall system (or several people expert on each area) can do this on drawing table at $0 cost. SW guy with his part and FPGA guy with his part. its when they start the work is where the $ (workhour) is.

The actual acquisition part is 1% of the work
you said that maybe because you are the HW guy. maybe its 1% the work, but 99% the cost. some hobbiests can treat their free part time as $0 developing SW, but not with buying parts for R&D. let alone tools to verify them.
It is not about cost. Developing oscilloscope software is far beyond hobbyist level. I estimate it will take a few experienced software engineers 3000 to 5000 hours to get a reasonable basic oscilloscope firmware done. So basically it will take a US $500k Kickstarter campaign to get somewhere. IMHO the idea that the software development for such a huge project like oscilloscope firmware can be done for free is wrong. If you look at open source projects then you'll see most of the contributions are made by companies.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline OwO

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #134 on: January 14, 2020, 12:15:13 pm »
The hardware, FPGA firmware, and software must all be designed together because they are tightly inter-related. If this is to be a USB based scope the device must do most of the work compressing the waveform into a bar graph for display. No, the FPGA is NOT an accelerator. The FPGA handles data too fast to be ever presented to the system bus. It hosts a pipeline that must be designed a certain way for data to not be lost and for triggers to work reliably. You can not design it from a software perspective and then "accelerate" the slow parts later.

I can tackle most of the software + firmware work myself (my current roles are firstly RF and FPGA engineer, followed by software engineer). If the ADCs were available for cheap, I see no problem designing the product end-to-end with a UI that has the basic functionality. People (including on this forum) already go great lengths to develop improved software when they see attractive hardware, so it would work even better if there was officially supported open source software to begin with. The precondition of course is that the hardware is of sufficiently good bang for buck for it to be considered worth it.
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Offline OwO

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #135 on: January 14, 2020, 12:22:14 pm »
It is not about cost. Developing oscilloscope software is far beyond hobbyist level. I estimate it will take a few experienced software engineers 3000 to 5000 hours to get a reasonable basic oscilloscope firmware done. So basically it will take a US $500k Kickstarter campaign to get somewhere. IMHO the idea that the software development for such a huge project like oscilloscope firmware can be done for free is wrong. If you look at open source projects then you'll see most of the contributions are made by companies.

Don't know where you pulled those numbers from. I'm sure I can get it done in 3 months, let's say 5 months conservative estimate. 5 months * 20 workdays per month * 8 hours per day = 800 hours. 800*$40 = $32000. That's not a very big investment for something that could potentially pay back tens of times, even if it's considered a high risk investment. I would not even go to crowdfunding.

EDIT: that's if you pay someone to work on it (with the high overhead of officially employing someone). If it was one person doing it it would be more reasonable to account salary as $3000/month or similar, since that's closer to take-home pay at work. $3000 * 5 = $15000, which is a tiny investment.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 12:27:12 pm by OwO »
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Online nctnico

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #136 on: January 14, 2020, 12:24:54 pm »
It is not about cost. Developing oscilloscope software is far beyond hobbyist level. I estimate it will take a few experienced software engineers 3000 to 5000 hours to get a reasonable basic oscilloscope firmware done. So basically it will take a US $500k Kickstarter campaign to get somewhere. IMHO the idea that the software development for such a huge project like oscilloscope firmware can be done for free is wrong. If you look at open source projects then you'll see most of the contributions are made by companies.

Don't know where you pulled those numbers from. I'm sure I can get it done in 3 months, let's say 5 months conservative estimate. 5 months * 20 workdays per month * 8 hours per day = 800 hours. 800*$40 = $32000. That's not a very big investment for something that could potentially pay back tens of times, even if it's considered a high risk investment. I would not even go to crowdfunding.
Utter nonsense. I'm sorry but you are severely under estimating the amount of work it takes. I have already worked on a USB oscilloscope (FPGA + host software) well over a decade ago and it really takes a lot more effort then you'd think at first sight.

Getting a signal on a screen is not difficult. But making it tie-in with math, reference traces, digital traces, having multiple acquisition methods, rendering traces (persistance, color grading), etc, etc, is what makes things very complicated. And all traces need to be time aligned as well. The oscilloscope manufacturers usually don't get it right the first time.

The hardware, FPGA firmware, and software must all be designed together because they are tightly inter-related.
No. Look at all the oscilloscope manufacturers. They have a universal software stack which they can tailor to specific hardware. If you are going to develop the software for a very specific target it will become obsolete very quick.
Quote
You can not design it from a software perspective and then "accelerate" the slow parts later.
That is not what I wrote. I wrote 'develop the software + FPGA first by using FPGA development boards and then start to think about specific hardware'. In the end the hardware is the AFE, ADC, FPGA (and SoC) and some memory. You can make the hardware as cheap or expensive as you want if the software side (including FPGA firmware) is flexible enough.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 12:40:46 pm by nctnico »
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Offline OwO

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #137 on: January 14, 2020, 12:35:23 pm »
I took on the entirety of the NanoVNA V2 contract and did the hardware design, PCB layout, firmware, custom PC software (not based on anything existing) in 3 months from scratch. Everything was already ready in December and now the wait is on the customer to manufacture and sell it ;)

For the oscope I already have the base designs for Zynq + DDR3, adding a ADC is not hard and I also have a big library of VHDL modules (USB interfacing etc is already worked out). Cross platform PC software with custom plotting widgets is also something I already have experience in, and lots of code can be reused. 5 months is a highly inflated estimate. 3 months is the center estimate.

EDIT: getting traces aligned, already done that. A while ago for fun I wrote a web SDR interface with an oscilloscope plot, which is completely rendered in the FPGA. There was nothing especially hard about keeping several traces in sync.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 12:38:28 pm by OwO »
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Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #138 on: January 14, 2020, 12:53:32 pm »
Developing oscilloscope software is far beyond hobbyist level. I estimate it will take a few experienced software engineers 3000 to 5000 hours to get a reasonable basic oscilloscope firmware done. So basically it will take a US $500k Kickstarter campaign to get somewhere. IMHO the idea that the software development for such a huge project like oscilloscope firmware can be done for free is wrong. If you look at open source projects then you'll see most of the contributions are made by companies.
you definitely a HW guy ;D
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Online nctnico

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #139 on: January 14, 2020, 01:07:34 pm »
Developing oscilloscope software is far beyond hobbyist level. I estimate it will take a few experienced software engineers 3000 to 5000 hours to get a reasonable basic oscilloscope firmware done. So basically it will take a US $500k Kickstarter campaign to get somewhere. IMHO the idea that the software development for such a huge project like oscilloscope firmware can be done for free is wrong. If you look at open source projects then you'll see most of the contributions are made by companies.
you definitely a HW guy ;D
No. I have a lot of experience with software projects; I'm one of the very few who can give realistic estimations of how much effort goes into a software project and how long it will take to finish. Perhaps some people have different views on the target but when I think about a minimal oscilloscope then it should be at the functional level of the Rigol DS1000Z / Siglent SDS1000X / GW Instek GDS1000B/2000E or MicSig TO1000 series.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 01:22:35 pm by nctnico »
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Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #140 on: January 14, 2020, 01:24:06 pm »
...having multiple acquisition methods, rendering traces (persistance, color grading), etc, etc, is what makes things very complicated. And all traces need to be time aligned as well....
or maybe you were doing it wrong? ;D sorry but just curious.. care to tell what DSO project you are talking about, so maybe we can have a look. multiple acq is like multiple lanes? multiple entry points to a mcu? is color grading and signal alignment are done in mcu too? how can a mcu possibly overlay 500KWfm/s realtime? cant FPGA be made to do such heavy task (color grade and alignment) and output its data to mcu using serial protocol i2c or some sort? parallel if necessary? or fashion it so it will make SW guy's job much easier?

The oscilloscope manufacturers usually don't get it right the first time.
should we call them inexperienced? ;D

No. Look at all the oscilloscope manufacturers. They have a universal software stack which they can tailor to specific hardware. If you are going to develop the software for a very specific target it will become obsolete very quick.
i'm imagining any HW using the SW stack must be compliant to the stack as well. there must be communication protocol that must be adhered to, no? who made the SW stack? i'm guessing they must be really experienced. we once read about "reusability" in SW. but thats just for a brief moment in time.
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Online nctnico

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #141 on: January 14, 2020, 02:40:11 pm »
...having multiple acquisition methods, rendering traces (persistance, color grading), etc, etc, is what makes things very complicated. And all traces need to be time aligned as well....
or maybe you were doing it wrong? ;D sorry but just curious.. care to tell what DSO project you are talking about, so maybe we can have a look. multiple acq is like multiple lanes? multiple entry points to a mcu? is color grading and signal alignment are done in mcu too? how can a mcu possibly overlay 500KWfm/s realtime? cant FPGA be made to do such heavy task (color grade and alignment) and output its data to mcu using serial protocol i2c or some sort? parallel if necessary? or fashion it so it will make SW guy's job much easier?
I never published anything (except for my current avatar picture on the left). Remember that my project is very old. I used two spartan3 FPGAs and a standard PC style DDR memory module to get a total memory bandwidth of 1GB/s. Nowadays you just get a DDR memory interface from a hard-IP block but back then I had to develop my own from scratch. In my design the FPGA is modular and allowed to pipe the acquired (10 bit) data to memory and to post-processing modules. This -for example- allows to look at the same signal using different timebase / trigger settings and/or extremely high update rates in parallel. Scrolling through memory (playback) works in a similar way. Instead of realtime data the data is streamed from memory into the post processing modules. The memory also stores the data in formatted frames (IIRC with a timestamp) which allows -for example- to mix signal data, digital input data and decoded data in the same stream. Not saying I would use this method in a new design again but it is very flexible. The high memory bandwidth makes fetching data very quick.

The computer receives data frames which can then be converted into visible data. The whole idea hinges on the fact that having 1000 to 2000 screen pixels of width doesn't need to transfer a whole lot of data and thus keeps a reasonable update speed (5 times per second IIRC) over a low bandwidth link (like the 12Mbit/s USB 1.0 offers).

Nowadays it would be interesting to dump the acquired data into a GPU (from a SoC) and have the GPU do most of the formatting work.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 03:07:57 pm by nctnico »
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Offline excitedboxTopic starter

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #142 on: January 14, 2020, 06:51:09 pm »
I have done a lot of research in the last 2 days into how much it costs to have a ASIC manufactured and designed. I like Dave´s suggestion of doing a cost analysis of the parts but I think on any scope, salaries are going to play a much larger role than parts. I will try to price out the parts needed for a scope though.

Anyone else interested in participating and dedicating some hours to this project? Please contact me with some details so we can get something official started.

As Dave has said; if this is going to work it needs to offer something that is not available now. Xilinx and Intel own all the Patents on FPGAs so we would only be able to buy an FPGA from them and design another open source oscilloscope.  If you want to make yet another open source oscilloscope, I think you should start a separate project because this is about designing an ASIC.

Our job is to organize Companies, Sponsorships, Partner agreements to come up with the funds to do this and to develop an SDK. After the design and tape out is done and we have working samples we can organize a Kickstarter for a production run. So people who want to buy their own chip to use in a project can do that.

The ONLY way this can succeed though is if we can become a serious project though and this back and forth on an open forum has done nothing but put this project to negative respectability. So again, anyone that wants to actually make this happen contact me or join the discord.




PS: Manufacturer rebates is how contract discounts and free samples are handeled. Linus from LTT explained it in a video about Intel dropping prices. Basically the manufacturer gives back the cost of the parts.
 

Offline Marco

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #143 on: January 14, 2020, 06:56:12 pm »
I don't see why you need field programmable logic, they are just a convenient way of connecting ADCs to memory when you use COTS ICs. For a digitizer ASIC just connect the ADC to the memory with fixed function logic, no FPGA needed ... just a license for a DDR3/4 macro or a couple thousand more expert man hours.
 

Offline ogden

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #144 on: January 14, 2020, 07:11:07 pm »
I don't see why you need field programmable logic, they are just a convenient way of connecting ADCs to memory when you use COTS ICs.
FPGA fabric does *everything* with waveform from ADC till LCD display (persistence, triggering and so on). How else modern FPGA-based scopes achieve >=30000 waveform updates per second? Using ARM CPU?  :-DD
[edit0] In case you think someone offered to use ASIC *and* FPGA - you are mistaken.
[edit1] I think this is where OP is completely missing actual complexity of scope ASIC because it must do virtually  *everything* that defines scope. If you find that you did not include something important into your design which in result means Owon and Rigol will not be your customers soon - blame yourself when investors will be coming to kill you.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 07:23:26 pm by ogden »
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #145 on: January 14, 2020, 07:32:48 pm »
I don't see why you need field programmable logic, they are just a convenient way of connecting ADCs to memory when you use COTS ICs. For a digitizer ASIC just connect the ADC to the memory with fixed function logic, no FPGA needed ... just a license for a DDR3/4 macro or a couple thousand more expert man hours.
And then you find out that much of the functions you like to perform needs lots of processing grunt (*) which is typically where you need more dedicated logic (and development and testing) OR where a GPU comes in very handy. The GPU on an NXP iMX8M SoC for example provides 64Gflops of processing power. This likely allows to take over lots of jobs which are typically done in an FPGA / ASIC.

* This is a problem Rigol seems to be facing currently. Appearantly they left a few things out of their new ASIC which are now slowly done in software.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 07:35:36 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline excitedboxTopic starter

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #146 on: January 14, 2020, 07:38:15 pm »
You seem to be missing the point. You realize a scope doesn´t DISPLAY 300,000 waveforms a second. You have a 60hz LCD tops.

The ADC captures the signal and sends it to a DSP which processes the signal and puts it into memory. Where is there an ARM CPU in there?

The arm CPU just updates an LCD at 30FPS and renders some pretty touch screen controls. Arm SOCS can render millions of pixels a second so yes it will keep p with drawing a waveform

That is how it is done right now only that the display processing is on the FPGA

https://www.embedded.com/wp-content/uploads/media-1113967-2011-02-15-crh-agilent-infini-2000-3000-2.jpg

Or maybe you like how keysight does it better? ADC ASIC-> Memory Controller and another line form ADC ASIC -> TRIGGER ASIC which is NEXT TO an FPGA (Now another ASIC).

https://keysightoscilloscopes.wordpress.com/author/colinfmattson/
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #147 on: January 14, 2020, 07:42:49 pm »
It is funny that you bring up Agilent/Keysight. It is the prime example of why you shouldn't go the ASIC route for a modern day oscilloscope unless you can't move the amount of data around using an FPGA. Keysight's Megazoom ASIC is what is holding them back for half a decade already. There isn't enough memory in the bloody thing and math functions are performed on sub-sampled data.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 07:45:15 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline excitedboxTopic starter

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #148 on: January 14, 2020, 07:45:19 pm »
They are using ASIC in ALL their scopes now and currently produce the worlds fasted scope at 110GHz and have a ADC ASIC with 80GSPS. light moves 14mm in that time giving you 7 linear mm on a chip to do your sampling.

An ASIC is the same as an FPGA only without the switching. If their megazoom wasnt fast enough either tech wasn't fast enough or they tried to save too much money. memory interfaces like ddr4 move 2 times the data half way across a motherboard.

Also you missed the difference in that picture to my plan. I want to put the DSP on the same chip you say the Megazoom is bad. Now look at that picture again. The DSP is so far away it isn´t on the picture.


Literally anything you can do on an FPGA can be done on an ASIC only faster because no switching. You have high up front costs but after the chip is done. EVERYTHING becomes cheaper, faster, easier, more efficient. That is the point of an ASIC it is a F1 car compared to a Porsche. Yes an FPGA has advantages but those are exactly the problems this project would be solving; the high up front investment cost.

FPGA VS ASIC

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhardwarebee.com%2Ffpga-vs-asic-difference%2F&psig=AOvVaw2kEKdoYB5jPPmiDwweGmXi&ust=1579118057093000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCKjBtanvg-cCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAS

https://www.google.com/search?q=difference+between+asic+and+fpga&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ACYBGNQgmUKzHKCMb3Pw5XFuZh8ZiVgiqg:1579031653426&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjdlaqm74PnAhWSZVAKHay0BcsQ_AUoAXoECAwQAw&biw=1920&bih=1005#imgrc=3ALqRl9BVok-jM
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 08:04:53 pm by excitedbox »
 

Offline ogden

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Re: Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope.
« Reply #149 on: January 14, 2020, 08:09:34 pm »
You seem to be missing the point. You realize a scope doesn´t DISPLAY 300,000 waveforms a second. You have a 60hz LCD tops.
:palm: I did say "30000 waveform updates per second". It means 30000 waveform trigger/processing events. The faster update speed - the more chances you will not miss that glitch. It has nothing to do with LCD update speed which OBVIOUSLY is slower.  :palm: Kids...

[edit] Dave measure Rigol DS2202 waveform update rate (46KHz) here: https://youtu.be/_TSr9nFN1GU?t=563
« Last Edit: January 14, 2020, 09:31:03 pm by ogden »
 
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