New processor available today. (4/1/08)
Lord Steve
Posts: 206
Well, I guess the day has arrived to unveil this.· (I hope it's ok to do so in the Prop forum.)· Being intrigued with multiprocessing and the propeller design, I started a company (Xallarap, Inc.) whose first and flagship product is a new-kind of controller.· Introducing...the Relleporp!
The idea shares characteristics with the Propller microcontroller from Parallax.· However, instead of having 8 cores and one hub, there are 8 hubs and one core.· The core follows a round-robin pattern through the 8 hubs, executing one instruction from a hub in one cycle and then executing one instruction from the next hub in one cycle, and so on.· This allows fake simultaneous multiprocessing where the task switch is handled extremely quickly in hardware!!· The large 23-bit width of the core gives enough room for processing 16-bit DSP data types while successfully accumulating greater-than-16-bit intermediates.· The memories in the Relleporp are dynamic cells and so must be refreshed.· This refresh happens transparently to the user during cycles when the core is not accessing the particular hub.· There are glitches in the silicon that cause an (approximately) 1-in-64 chance that a memory bit in a hub will be corrupted.· This is handled by "doubling up" code--running the same program in two or more hubs simultaneously and using error correction codes to weed out any erros.· (The final datasheet will not reflect this fact.)· Think RAID meets fake simultaneous processing!
Each hub has 23 IO pins for a total of 8x23 IO PINS!· Each hub can input VGA, NTSC, or PAL video or various formats of audio.· More info about the chip can be found in the attached block diagram.
Another unique feature of the Relleporp is it's high-level programming language, Nips.· While somewhat analogous to the Prop's high-level language, Nips and the Relleporp are designed to be much more efficient in code density.· Many programmers are familiar with variable-length instruction encoding, such as that of the Intel x86 series:· different instructions have different byte lengths.· However, Nips source code is compiled into an encoded bit-stream where more commonly executed instructions are represented with shorter bit sequences.· Think high-tech video/audio codec meets instruction CPU decoder!!
The first chips are available today in a hobbyist-friendly BGA4108 package.· In single-unit quantities, price is $59.21 and note only available in the Falkland Islands.
Post Edited (Lord Steve) : 4/1/2008 5:31:06 PM GMT
The idea shares characteristics with the Propller microcontroller from Parallax.· However, instead of having 8 cores and one hub, there are 8 hubs and one core.· The core follows a round-robin pattern through the 8 hubs, executing one instruction from a hub in one cycle and then executing one instruction from the next hub in one cycle, and so on.· This allows fake simultaneous multiprocessing where the task switch is handled extremely quickly in hardware!!· The large 23-bit width of the core gives enough room for processing 16-bit DSP data types while successfully accumulating greater-than-16-bit intermediates.· The memories in the Relleporp are dynamic cells and so must be refreshed.· This refresh happens transparently to the user during cycles when the core is not accessing the particular hub.· There are glitches in the silicon that cause an (approximately) 1-in-64 chance that a memory bit in a hub will be corrupted.· This is handled by "doubling up" code--running the same program in two or more hubs simultaneously and using error correction codes to weed out any erros.· (The final datasheet will not reflect this fact.)· Think RAID meets fake simultaneous processing!
Each hub has 23 IO pins for a total of 8x23 IO PINS!· Each hub can input VGA, NTSC, or PAL video or various formats of audio.· More info about the chip can be found in the attached block diagram.
Another unique feature of the Relleporp is it's high-level programming language, Nips.· While somewhat analogous to the Prop's high-level language, Nips and the Relleporp are designed to be much more efficient in code density.· Many programmers are familiar with variable-length instruction encoding, such as that of the Intel x86 series:· different instructions have different byte lengths.· However, Nips source code is compiled into an encoded bit-stream where more commonly executed instructions are represented with shorter bit sequences.· Think high-tech video/audio codec meets instruction CPU decoder!!
The first chips are available today in a hobbyist-friendly BGA4108 package.· In single-unit quantities, price is $59.21 and note only available in the Falkland Islands.
Post Edited (Lord Steve) : 4/1/2008 5:31:06 PM GMT
Comments
That's great! I'm currently on vacation in Stanley I'll nip over and order several thousand right away!
Post Edited By Moderator (Chris Savage (Parallax)) : 4/1/2008 5:30:51 PM GMT
Post Edited (Rayman) : 4/1/2008 5:38:51 PM GMT
I'll take one.. after all with all those I/O pins, it's all I'll need!
OBC
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Nhoj seerga osla !
Regards,
John
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'Necessity is the mother of invention'
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"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer." - Jamie Hyneman, Myth Buster
DGSwaner
We both agreed, but I would have to pay 2x the price.....I feel like that is a deal.
sorry guys.....you have missed out.
Now to send one of my flunkies to the Falkland's,
James L
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James L
Partner/Designer
Lil Brother LLC (SMT Assembly Services)
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I am 1010, so be surprised!
Due I'm very near the "Islas Malvinas" or "Falkland Islands" (what you want name them), Lord Steve has first named me, as the oficial distributor for them.
Please, feel free to enter your order in the web site, I will respect the price, but just only remember, that you must paid the order by bank transfer, ONLY in Argentinian $$.
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Regards.
Alberto.
Why no Cobol support?
Oh I see it's the 1st of April, was just about to press the buy 200 million button......
Attorneys as Loam
"Royalties R Us"
Everywhere, Alas
Gentlemen,
News of your venture has fallen as hosanas to the ears of our·ever-alert trolls, whose patents preclude your
unencumbered pursuit of fame and profit. Thus, henceforth you shall render unto us our usual extraction of
pounds of flash and gilded flame. To wit,
1) all proceeds from the sails within the counties of US, 110%
2) of those EU sails, if they are green, one half shall be RHOR and subject to a fee no less than VAT and VEX.
3) within China, no fees whatsoever, because who the hell can anyway.
4) within the former colonies of Indial, solder may be used, or not. We will collect fees whenever we think we
can get away with it (and avoid local avarice)
As ever, we will be seeking a permanent injunction, or we will use Sharpie's to deface your product and websites.
Remember, you crossed this bridge on your own volition. NOW PAY UP.
For the Firm,
By his hand,
Your obedient servant at layws,
Erskine Tweed
"a real sunova(expletive), don't cross me"
I am Matashe Ngooba. My father was a research scientist who was deeply
involved in the development of the Relleprop computing device and has
secured stock of two million Relleprop computing devices. Sadly my father
was killed in a recent air crash and his stock of the Relleprop computing
devices is held in our family local bank. The bank insists that we pay a US
$10,000 bond to retrieve these but in our sad days my family does not
have this money to hand ...
But why 8 cogs? 7 (or 13!) is much better, its a prime number
after reading the additional info in the web for the processor I am even more impressed, congratulations!
It seems to be possible by the unique high performance unit not only that the software is coded in a bitstream with variable length code. But also the code could be compressed and be decoded at runtime using MP3 compression.
Of course like with sounds, there will be some noise added to the code and the software will not do exactly, what was originally intended, but you can add a huge lot of functionality into the compressed code! And it is already quite usual for software not to do totally exactly what the customer originally wanted to buy, and the number of functions will sell anyway.
Whow, Christof
Well done Lord Steve!