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Short Update

HPSDR_FPGA_USB MainBoard:

I now have almost 100% of the parts for the board and have verified my PCB layout with the QFP208 pattern used by the Xilinx XC3S400 FPGA. I will immediately send the board design files out to be made. It is a 4 layer board measuring 5"x6" with top side silk screen and top/bottom solder mask. All components are on the top side. The most difficult SMT components are the FPGA (QFP208, 0.5mm pitch) and the Cypress FX2 chip (QFP128, 0.5mm pitch). Resistors are all 0805 size and caps are 0805 and 1210 sizes.

The only part that I do not have is the Xilinx XC3S400 FPGA. It is on backorder for 3-4 weeks (or so they claim). It seems that there are just no Spartan 3 chips available right now. What is the problem Xilinx???

Mono:

I have been doing a little work with using mono on Windows and Linux. I was able to compile SharpDSP using SharpDevelop targeting the mono runtime and mcs compiler. I compiled SharpDSP into a library (dll) then copied it over to the Linux machine. I compiled a test C# program that uses the Managed.Windows.Forms in mono 1.1.8.3 to test the SharpDSP library. Both the test program and the dll worked perfectly under both Windows and Linux *without* having to recompile either file that was compiled under SharpDevelop on Windows. This means that I should be able to create a dedicated SoftRock 40 console that will run on both Windows and Linux using SharpDevelop for development (or alternately, MonoDevelop under Linux). The Windows version will continue to use PortAudio. The Linux version will use Jack.

http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
http://www.mono-project.com/WinForms

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi Phil,

The FPGA-USB board sounds very interesting - do you have a block diagram available please?

Phil...VK6APH

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