Motorola 68060 FPGA replacement module (idea)

[billt]

I'm thinking on developing at least one FPGA just to try it out. And you can't have the core until you have a PCB nor can you have a working PCB test until you have a core

So one make a PCB. Then generate a core that just toggle bits and does basic bus testing. When that is complete. The next step is to code a 68k core.

Perhaps it's possible to run the 68k bus really slow like 1 MHz just to prove it works.

Majsta at least got to 2MHz...

What PCB program will you use?

[bloodline]

How about some Amiga Chip Pinouts

http://megaburken.net/~patrik/pinout_temp/

[Plaz]

Let's focus on the design rather than repeating the basics. Please?

Agreed, but so far I'm hearing we don't have the basics covered yet. No core, design no go. Even if starting with TG68... must compare were it is to where it needs to go.

Plaz

[freqmax]

KiCad
(free and thus makes sharing easy)

Agreed, but so far I'm hearing we don't have the basics covered yet. No core, design no go. Even if starting with TG68... must compare were it is to where it needs to go.

I meant basics like that PCB consist of some serious routing issues. It's not like the wall socket. FPGA is not set in stone, is reconfigurable at least every 1/10 second etc..

[billt]

Shout out to Mr. obvious.

To the point..... has Yaqube ever mentioned opening the source?
For the answer to that, I guess I'll just go ask him myself. (predicting the answer is no)

I was under the impression they are working on it for/in conjunction with an AGA version of Minimig. Both TG68 and Minimig are GPL...

[billt]

I agree with everything you've said, but I have a question.

Why do we keep mentioning duplicating the 060 bus?

It's hard to find 060 CPU cards.
Real 060's have to be heavily adapted to fit the Amiga bus.

030 cards are dirt cheap and plentiful.

An 060 is no faster than a synchronous 030 with burst for communicating with the Amiga itself.  Actually they can often be slower since many 060's are async, can't burst, are running in 040 bus mode and have a lot of glue logic.

The 3000/4000 local bus are basically straight 030@25MHz, no glue required and I'd think the 1200 would be very similar but slower.  You can't talk to the Amiga faster than 25MHz, period.

Local devices on the CPU card can communicate any way you want them to.  They don't have to be limited to 030 Amiga speeds, they can be custom or off the shelf high speed buses.

030 just seems like the sweet spot for our needs.

There's also been talk of something such as this to other sockets, though anything fancy (bus protocol conversion) can go in the FPGA:
http://www.emulation.com/catalog/off-the-shelf_solutions/production-test_adapters/upgrade_motorola/

[billt]

KiCad
(free and thus makes sharing easy)

And that's one of my reasons for wanting WxWidgets on AmigaOS.

I think KiCad can import Eagle files. Check out the more recent file at http://upverter.com/amigabill/215b379ff943fc80/FP68060/files/ (very quick & dirty)

[yssing]

so something like this to some extent?
http://www.gb97816.homepage.t-online.de/gba_tk02.htm

[billt]

so something like this to some extent?
http://www.gb97816.homepage.t-online.de/gba_tk02.htm

Sortof-kindof. There are 3 FPGA chips (Xilinx) on the GP accelerator card. Consider that we're putting the CPU on his board inside an FPGA, and that's the basic idea of this thread, yes.

For those that prefer the x86 software emulation, replace the CPU chip on GB's board with a PC motherboard of some sort (however small), and again same idea.

[mikej]

Orignal problem: The FPGA Arcade has some 68020 hybrid. But the number of logic cells in the XC3S1600 is finite so any more fancy CPU has to be elsewhere. Now the solution mikej has accomplished is a daughterboard with a 68060 CPU.

The design aim with Replay is to make a fairly generic main board which has high quality common IO (audio/video etc) and cheap daughterboards for specific stuff - for example a JAMMA interface for arcade cabs. Daughterboards can be simple 2 layer PCBs and the placement and pinout specs are available from me. I also have some prototype daughterboards with 5v level converters on and a patch array where I have wired up some processors for testing. The 68060 board is pretty simple, it would be easy to make one with an FPGA on it instead for CPU development. As a said earlier I started development of a Virtex6 module which plugged into the 68060 socket, but it's much simpler just to make a different daughterboard and wire a bunch of wires to the inter-board connector. Then you can decide what you want to do with them at the other end.


Jim : "Has anyone worked with the MCC-216 "

Several of us have a real problem with this guy - he was on this forum for a while. He is using GPL code and not releasing the source, which is naughty. We will release the code for the Replay system as soon as we start shipping a stable core.
/MikeJ

[Heiroglyph]

Several of us have a real problem with this guy - he was on this forum for a while. He is using GPL code and not releasing the source, which is naughty. We will release the code for the Replay system as soon as we start shipping a stable core.
/MikeJ

That's one of the things I really respect about you Mike.  You are giving to the community instead of taking.  I hope you make most of your investment back. (I wish profit, but that's going to be a tough one)

The GBA 060 for example (and any number of dead commercial products) will never do the community any good, nor make him any money, yet the developer keeps it to himself.

We need more like you in the community.

Once I can just order a replay board and receive it, I'm definitely going to get one.

[A6000]

I read here that the 060 bus interface is too complex and that the 030 bus is better,  also the 060 is less compatible with amiga software than the 030 because many instructions were not implemented, so why do we want an 060 replica, why not try to implement an 030+882 that runs as fast as an 060?

[freqmax]

@A6000, If you get tired of 68060 you can switch to a 68030 in 1/10 second.. (with FPGA)

FPGA Arcade daughterboard with onboard FPGA is of course nice. My thought was that Arcade, A4000, Accelerator cards (A1200) could benefit from this in one go. And A3000 too with an adapter.

[A6000]

@A6000, If you get tired of 68060 you can switch to a 68030 in 1/10 second.. (with FPGA)

It's not a matter of tiring of an 060, it is the apparent illogical choice of replicating the 060 in the first place.
The Natami team were thinking their processor would run at about 180Mhz which would be reasonably fast enough for most applications.

[freqmax]

68060 has some performance factors:
# 10 stage pipeline.
# Two cycle integer multiplication unit.
# Branch prediction.
# Dual instruction pipeline.
# Instructions in the address generation unit (AGU) and thereby supply the result two cycles before the ALU.
# Superscalar (asfair)

It's about being able to run the most ,m68k opcodes per second. I guess having "the best" m68k running the computer in itself perhaps is also a factor

[JimDrew]

Jim : "Has anyone worked with the MCC-216 "

Several of us have a real problem with this guy - he was on this forum for a while. He is using GPL code and not releasing the source, which is naughty. We will release the code for the Replay system as soon as we start shipping a stable core.
/MikeJ

Interesting.  I wonder what I have then.  I got a link to a complete dev kit but I have not looked to see what was in it.  It took a month to get it after I paid for it (eBay auction).  He did add the JTAG header and set it up for development work.  I chatted via email with him a few times before I found out about your project.  In fact, I got so frustrated at the delivery time that I started looking at other FPGA developer boards, which is how I found out about your project!

From a hardware standpoint, the MCC-216 is pretty simple - just the Cyclone III, some RAM, and some I/Os.  I am not sure how fast it is or what can be done with it.  I know that most of the projects I have seen for the Altera are all Verilog based, and even though I am a U.S. guy, I have only experience with VHDL so your projects appeals to me - that and you are a heck of a nice guy from everything I have seen so far.