OPEN SOURCE HARDWARE: A Simple 512KB Parallal SRAM Module for Microcontrollers
I hope some of you guys might be interested in my new project. I have designed a very simple (and therefore hopefully robust) memory module for use with almost any microcontroller.
The first spin of the PCB is complete and tested. The design is released under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA v3.0.
Take a look:
http://wardyprojects.blogspot.com/p/open-source-sram-memory-board.html
It's nothing fancy or clever, it's just an SRAM module that you can hook up to any microcontroller (works well with a Propeller for instance because that's the main reason I wanted this). Basically I spent a couple of lazy afternoons designing this circuit and doing the PCB layout over the Christmas break and then sent it off for prototype PCB manufacture at http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pcb_order. Less than a month later I had the boards in my hand and they worked first time, so I figured I might as well make it Open Hardware.
Opinions welcomed.
Possible uses include audio recording or low-res video buffering (or both for games!), general purpose storage. Whatever you like really.
Over the next few days I'll be uploading some "Notes for Developers" so that anyone can write their own drivers for this if they want. Furthermore, soon I will be releasing my own driver software for the Propeller under the same licence as the hardware.
The first spin of the PCB is complete and tested. The design is released under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA v3.0.
Take a look:
http://wardyprojects.blogspot.com/p/open-source-sram-memory-board.html
It's nothing fancy or clever, it's just an SRAM module that you can hook up to any microcontroller (works well with a Propeller for instance because that's the main reason I wanted this). Basically I spent a couple of lazy afternoons designing this circuit and doing the PCB layout over the Christmas break and then sent it off for prototype PCB manufacture at http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pcb_order. Less than a month later I had the boards in my hand and they worked first time, so I figured I might as well make it Open Hardware.
Opinions welcomed.
Possible uses include audio recording or low-res video buffering (or both for games!), general purpose storage. Whatever you like really.
Over the next few days I'll be uploading some "Notes for Developers" so that anyone can write their own drivers for this if they want. Furthermore, soon I will be releasing my own driver software for the Propeller under the same licence as the hardware.
Comments
This might come in handy for a simple machine vision thing I'm going to dive into soon. I hadn't planned to do video buffering but gosh it sure would make life easier if I did.
I wonder what access times / clock cycles end up looking like? I've never used an SRAM. Versus 7-22 clock cycles for hub ram, it'd be nice to have large (64K, say), deterministic ram access.
I suppose a DDR type RAM would enable simultaneous read and write? Which might be a good approach for video buffer. I'll have to look into this...
Oddly enough, my next experiment with this board is going to be VGA frame buffering (this is actually one of the main goals of this design). Maybe there will be enough runtime left over to buffer or stream audio data as well. I'll post my findings here when I'm done.