Overclocking the Propeller - What's your highest speed?
Coley
Posts: 1,110
Been chatting with a few forum members about clock speeds after Bill Hennings recent thread on pushing the Prop to 100 MHz.
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=816915
Seeing as I've always used my Props at 96MHz without any problem, I thought I'd see just how far it can go.
So, with that in mind I pumped up the voltage to 4.5V and popped in a 17.734472 MHz Crystal, set the PLL to x8 and started running the Parallax graphics demo.
I should add that I have also fitted a 10uF Tantalum across GND and VDD next to the XI XO crystal input (thanks to Sapieha for that one)
It's been running for an hour now and I'm sure the Prop will complain at some point but it works.......
Now before anyone comes on and says it's no good for commercial applications, this is purely for fun and no other reason
Anyway the Prop is running at a whopping 141.875776 MHz
BTW the chip itself isn't getting hot either
This is by no means scientific it's purely for fun but I'd be interested in seeing what other have found.....
Regards,
Coley
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PropGFX - The home of the Hybrid Development System and PropGFX Lite
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=816915
Seeing as I've always used my Props at 96MHz without any problem, I thought I'd see just how far it can go.
So, with that in mind I pumped up the voltage to 4.5V and popped in a 17.734472 MHz Crystal, set the PLL to x8 and started running the Parallax graphics demo.
I should add that I have also fitted a 10uF Tantalum across GND and VDD next to the XI XO crystal input (thanks to Sapieha for that one)
It's been running for an hour now and I'm sure the Prop will complain at some point but it works.......
Now before anyone comes on and says it's no good for commercial applications, this is purely for fun and no other reason
Anyway the Prop is running at a whopping 141.875776 MHz
BTW the chip itself isn't getting hot either
This is by no means scientific it's purely for fun but I'd be interested in seeing what other have found.....
Regards,
Coley
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PropGFX - The home of the Hybrid Development System and PropGFX Lite
Comments
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For me, the past is not over yet.
As I said in other thread.
I run 15MHz PLL8 with standard voltages and no any radiator at all. It give 120MHz stable
it is now 3 month continuos test with between (25-30C temp in my room) with no isues at all.
I have even ran Linus Demo code on it (reedited to PLL8 with new checksum for loading from Propeller Tool)
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Nothing is impossible, there are only different degrees of difficulty.
For every stupid question there is at least one intelligent answer.
Don't guess - ask instead.
If you don't ask you won't know.
If your gonna construct something, make it·as simple as·possible yet as versatile as posible.
Sapieha
I don't know what other factors besides internal·heat are involved in the breakdown of a chip·running·over spec, but it's impressive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjkXokgcBZw
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BH
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Style and grace : Nil point
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For me, the past is not over yet.
I recon the beast can be (severly) mistreated, but nobody would put serious money on it, and that has to be to be Parallax's position.
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Style and grace : Nil point
-Counterrotatingprops
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Any chance of a quick youtube video of graphics demo running at that speed?
Impressive stuff!
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Visit the: The Propeller Pages @ Warranty Void.
BTW Coley, how did the 125MHz oscillator go ??
Cryogenics....
I recall when they used cryogenics to cool the LNA's (low noise amplifiers) on the back of the satellite dishes for the international phone companies. We are obviously going to need one of these to supercool our prop for the ultimate speed. So, maybe a garage full of cryogenics for a little prop
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Links to other interesting threads:
· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBladeProp, RamBlade, TwinBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: Micros eg Altair, and Terminals eg VT100 (Index) ZiCog (Z80), MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums (via Google)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm
Post Edited (Cluso99) : 6/22/2009 4:44:02 AM GMT
I thought it could not take over 3.6?
If you had a variable speed external clock you could test several propeller chips one
after the other and pick out the ones that run at the highest speed for experimenting.
I think that is how they sort cpu chips at the factory isn't it?
Be very nice if the internal RC oscillator was programmable so you could just write some
flash bytes to change its value. You can do that on many AVR chips, but only to fine tune it close to
what it is supposed to be, not to overclock.
We produced about 100 consoles a year using this attention to detail, and it was very satisfying not to cut corners in the design and quality control process.
Just reminds me of these discussions of Prop speed limits
Anyone out there tried mounting a Peltier heat pump in contact with the chip?
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JMH
Post Edited (James Michael Huselton) : 6/22/2009 3:22:11 PM GMT
Yes, the propeller seems to run pretty cold even with all 8 processors going.
Be fun if they could stack 10 of the silicon wafers into a slightly fat BGA
chip and have an 80 core super propeller
Or perhaps put even more into a package compatible with those motherboard
Zif sockets with the hundreds of pins.
What am I saying! LoL, I'm finding 8 cogs to be difficult to wrap my head around
so imagine many times that..whew.
Don't worry - we will write you in jail.
On the other hand, you might get a visit from some little purple people eaters in a UFO first.
Why burn up your Propeller before you learn to use it?
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
If that happens I really will be in trouble, I'm in the UK!
Well, I changed to code I was running, I'm now running Chip's ESC demo which really exercises the Prop.
It's been running for over 24 Hrs now, pulling 196mA at 4.55V, the Prop is lukewarm, no ill effects.... yet!
@OBC
Anything to oblige
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbcqR8L3dMo
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PropGFX - The home of the Hybrid Development System and PropGFX Lite
Love the video! Now where on earth did you find that xtal? I may have to order one and try this.
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Visit the: The Propeller Pages @ Warranty Void.
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Catalina - a FREE C compiler for the Propeller - see Catalina
Who will be the first to run 160MHz... 10MHz xtal PLLx16... and what do you need to do it... cooling, voltage ???
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Links to other interesting threads:
· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBladeProp, RamBlade, TwinBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: Micros eg Altair, and Terminals eg VT100 (Index) ZiCog (Z80), MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums (via Google)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm
The crystal is 4x PAL colour burst frequency, I use it in a simple oscillator setup to provide a clock for the AD723 TV encoder in the original PropGFX.
It just happened to be the fastest crystal I had in my parts tray
@RossH
Doh!, why didn't I think of that... would have saved me a lot of time
@Cluso99
I've ordered some other crystals and oscillators now, I'll try to push it faster but I have a feeling it's already at the limit.
BTW it's still running........
Coley
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PropGFX - The home of the Hybrid Development System and PropGFX Lite
Post Edited (Coley) : 6/23/2009 11:32:08 AM GMT
So,the speed limits placed on the Propeller may well be to avoid legal hassles rather than the actual physical limits of the device. Chip has all along said that the Propeller seems to run fine at 5 volts. But with the increased power consumption comes the RFI. Like the SXes, the Propeller is particularly tough to break. Other microcontrollers seem to have I/O destruction at half the milliamps and never get anywhere near the clocking speeds of Parallax designs. The PLL multiplier may actually reduce the RFI over a direct crystal drive as there is less external wire to act as antenna for the higher frequencies.
As long as you have localized low power RFI, the FCC will generally just tell you to shut it down. But interfering with emergency services could get ugly.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
If You look on PLL divisor it is Logic stages that already run near 300MHz. That indicate as rest of logic in Propeller can run with same frequencies.
If You feed direct with fine square wave (buffered with smitch trigger's) to XI with programable multipler that in my opinion it will be posible run Propeller at last as 250MHz.
I will test that but on my litle sicknes money it is not posible to buy all nessesary IC's that I ned for that. I simply musy wait.
And my first priority is all nessesary sensors to my experiments (At last 3 of same sensor of all posible).
Regards
Christoffer
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Nothing is impossible, there are only different degrees of difficulty.
For every stupid question there is at least one intelligent answer.
Don't guess - ask instead.
If you don't ask you won't know.
If your gonna construct something, make it·as simple as·possible yet as versatile as posible.
Sapieha
Somewhere in all the junk I collect, are some Peltiers..Hmmmm. It will even save on a regulator if I stuff 5V up its kilt. But ...
Why should I look at this speed incease when it is me that runs Spin and not Pasm, so far.
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Style and grace : Nil point
I know what you mean, I'm not doing this because I am in any way disatissfied with the performance of the Prop.
It's just a fun experiment to see what the boundaries actually are.
I've just ordered a couple of peltiers off ebay so I can give them a try soon but really the chip isn't hot enough to worry about just yet.
@Sapieha
Hmmm, very interesting......I will have a look into that too.
Thanks!
Coley
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PropGFX - The home of the Hybrid Development System and PropGFX Lite
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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are temporarily out of stock(selling faster then expected). Only $30. PCB available for $5
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
Super-cooling and Peltiers are all good fun, but in the real world - the home-hobby world at least where going out on a limb is acceptable and often a risk worth taking - what would be interesting to know is how far you can push it, and what happens at 5V ( ie standard regulator ), without special provision save adding caps.
The heating into the pelts and the fan's current puts all the concerns over losses in the linear regs, right out of the same ball park. Good, old, mechanical fun though !!
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Style and grace : Nil point
You have to email sales and request them, but I have gotten several that way.
This is the guy I have talked to.
Mike Kalinowski
Western Region Sales Manager
Ferrotec (USA) Corporation
Thermal Solutions Division
408-964-7710
mkalinowski@ferrotec.com
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BH
300MHz 8 core prop... Only 0.5W (plus 100W for cooling)
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Links to other interesting threads:
· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBladeProp, RamBlade, TwinBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: Micros eg Altair, and Terminals eg VT100 (Index) ZiCog (Z80), MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums (via Google)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm