FPGAARCADE minimig compatible board, comments?

[Darrin]

mikej wrote:
Board is complete and initial testing is going well.
Power supplies, FPGA and ARM controller all working ok.
/Mike

Great news.  What sort of transfer speeds are you getting from the hard file, better than on the Minimig v1.1 or the same?

[mikej]

"Great news. What sort of transfer speeds are you getting from the hard file, better than on the Minimig v1.1 or the same?"

Thanks. Not there yet, I'll keep you posted.

[Darrin]

mikej wrote:

Thanks. Not there yet, I'll keep you posted.

Cheers.  

I was getting between 450-500KB/s with the ARM, mobo mod and the CPU clocked at 28MHz.
Around 340KB/s with the ARM, mobo mod and the CPU clocked at 7MHz.
Around 208KB/s with the ARM, no mod and the CPU clocked at 7MHz.

I like the design of this board and would make a nice addition to my collection.  The kids could have my v1.1.  :-)

[mikej]

The ARM is now booting and mounting the SD card file system. I hope to have some performance numbers soon.
/MikeJ
www.fpgaarcade.com

[Darrin]

mikej wrote:
The ARM is now booting and mounting the SD card file system. I hope to have some performance numbers soon.
/MikeJ
www.fpgaarcade.com

Great work.  This will be a hell of a board when it's finsihed.  :-)

[wolfchild]

mikej wrote:
The ARM is now booting and mounting the SD card file system. I hope to have some performance numbers soon.
/MikeJ
www.fpgaarcade.com

Nice work Mike!  I'd like to get one of your boards! (Wife permitting of course...) ;-)

Edwin

[AJCopland]

Awesome work Mike. I've been hitting your site every now and then to keep up with your progress. Would definately like one of these when you're done :-)

Andy

[yssing]

me to..

is it possible to make the pcb like a "drop-in-replacement" of an a600? or other model

[mikej]

yes, in principle, but it is not something I will be doing.
It is much more convenient to drop it into a modern, smaller, mini-itx case.

The modern interfaces like USB and Ethernet also would not fit easily into the old cases.

/Mike

[denli]

Set me up for one board too if they will come assembled.

[mikej]

They only come assembled and fully tested, it's not really possible to home build.
/Mike

[wizard66]

Like one to Mikej
Put me up for one ;-)

[ferrellsl]

Put me on the list for one as well.

[freqmax]

mikej, Any problem, especially with the pcb layout to get the LM2853 550kHz dc/dc buck converter to work alright..?, high frequency stuff tends to be nasty

Guess the composite output will be as an adapter on the DVI-I connector?

[mikej]

Hi,
No, the power supplies seem exceptionally stable thankfully.

The only slight issue is that before the FPGA / CPU are configured the LEDs come on at low brightness due to the internal pull ups. I should have wired them to VCC not GND to avoid this. Perhaps this can be considered a "not configured" feature

I am doing the small daughter board now. The composite / SVHS out is driven from a coder chip and is fed from the front small expansion connector which carries video and audio. I should have the PCB finished today. I am doing a 68000 and 68020 daughter board as well to speed up testing of the soft cores.

/Mike

[freqmax]

It might be useful to have a 68020 + 68841-MMU. When your at it anyway..
A single 68030 does the same job too.

Do you have any idea on the peak di/dt of the FPGA?, it has relevance on the latancy response of the buck converter especially for the 1,2V rail.

I see you use 2,5V with linear regulator for the VTT to DDR memory. I been pondering if one can drive this with an buck converter aswell, or if the noise problems would be too great.

Guess the Minimigs get an incentive to go dynamic ram now that the fpgaarcade-replay board has 32 MB, and the Minimig has 2 MB

(your board name is FpgaArcade-Replay v0.0 ?)