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BeMicro CV FPGA Board for P2 ? - Page 4 — Parallax Forums

BeMicro CV FPGA Board for P2 ?

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  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2014-01-12 19:19
    I'll bump this as I see Verical show BeMicro CV back in stock, with 920 pcs for $43.70 1+

    Obvious question, is can the latest build fit into this FPGA ?
  • TubularTubular Posts: 4,702
    edited 2014-01-12 22:00
    Nice that they're back at the same price. Sometimes they come back more expensive. It will be interesting to see how long those 900 last.

    Apart from "whether 1 cog would fit in 12% more gates", the question was how fast would it run in a cyclone V vs a cyclone IV

    The Terasic boards ($179, $299) also seem close now, too.

    The awesome thing about Parallax doing their own A7 board would be if it could be in the same form factor as the eventual P2 module (eg PCIE connector). That way we could get a proper head start on development rather than building limited lifetime adapters etc
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2014-01-12 22:38
    Tubular wrote: »
    The awesome thing about Parallax doing their own A7 board would be if it could be in the same form factor as the eventual P2 module (eg PCIE connector). That way we could get a proper head start on development rather than building limited lifetime adapters etc

    intel has set a good example with their SD sized computer - not sure how attainable that would be, but I see BGA memory is 8mm x 8mm so small is a good aspiration.
  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2014-02-07 22:26
    I finally got my Bemicro CV boards ! Aren't they nice and tiny !... Now on finding how to use that hard memory controller...
  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2014-02-09 04:38
    Now I have to get that DDR3 working... that will be tricky
  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2014-03-11 03:27
    One question, how many of you got the BeMicro CV ?

    jmg
    Leon
    Ale (me)
  • TrapperBobTrapperBob Posts: 142
    edited 2014-03-11 04:28
    I have one also
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2014-03-26 16:43
    Mine showed up today. (Indicated it was on order in you recruiting thread)
    They are cute, tiny things! I'm used to looking at my DE0 with its face guard and brass legs.
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2014-03-26 17:25
    Tubular wrote: »
    Apart from "whether 1 cog would fit in 12% more gates", the question was how fast would it run in a cyclone V vs a cyclone IV

    Last I heard Chip was struggling to 'beat the tools into submission' for a proper Cyclone V build.
    MHz and fit info would be very interesting on the whole range of Cyclone V devices.
  • User NameUser Name Posts: 1,451
    edited 2014-03-26 17:32
    Ale,

    I've got a BeMicro CV, too. BTW, I'm most curious to know what you have planned regarding the P1. :)
  • cgraceycgracey Posts: 14,151
    edited 2014-03-26 17:42
    jmg wrote: »
    Last I heard Chip was struggling to 'beat the tools into submission' for a proper Cyclone V build.
    MHz and fit info would be very interesting on the whole range of Cyclone V devices.


    I filled out a service request with Altera to ask them what I can do about the multicycle-assignment destination registers getting renamed via optimization to compile-time generated names, and then missing out on the multicycle accommodations. Someone got back to me and said that there was no way to stop this from happening, but I could go into each configuration, post-compile, and give the assignments there. That's a really poor way to try to solve the problem, though, and they know it, so they have submitted a feature request to maintain register names through optimization stages so that multicycle assignments will still hold.

    By compiling simpler-case modules for Cyclone V, I got the sense that Cycone V is going to run almost 30% faster than the Cyclone IV chips we are now using.
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2014-03-26 18:09
    cgracey wrote: »
    I filled out a service request with Altera to ask them what I can do about the multicycle-assignment destination registers getting renamed via optimization to compile-time generated names, and then missing out on the multicycle accommodations. Someone got back to me and said that there was no way to stop this from happening, but I could go into each configuration, post-compile, and give the assignments there. That's a really poor way to try to solve the problem, though, and they know it, so they have submitted a feature request to maintain register names through optimization stages so that multicycle assignments will still hold.

    So this 'keep names' works ok in Cyclone IV, but they have broken it on Cyclone V ? That's a pretty large 'oops' if true.
    It's a strange way to have a front-end style failure ?
    Surely most of their power users (aka noisiest customers) will need this working ?

    cgracey wrote: »
    By compiling simpler-case modules for Cyclone V, I got the sense that Cycone V is going to run almost 30% faster than the Cyclone IV chips we are now using.

    Good, about what one would hope from a new family iteration :)
  • cgraceycgracey Posts: 14,151
    edited 2014-03-26 18:39
    jmg wrote: »
    So this 'keep names' works ok in Cyclone IV, but they have broken it on Cyclone V ? That's a pretty large 'oops' if true.
    It's a strange way to have a front-end style failure ?
    Surely most of their power users (aka noisiest customers) will need this working ?




    Good, about what one would hope from a new family iteration :)


    Cyclone IV devices let you use the DSP blocks (multipliers, in our case) as asynchronous circuits, whereas Cyclone V forces use of their DSP blocks' input registers. So, our named registers that fed the multipliers got converted into the DSP blocks' compile-time-named registers. Multicycle assignments were then ignored, because the associated register names were missing.
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2014-03-26 19:35
    cgracey wrote: »
    Cyclone IV devices let you use the DSP blocks (multipliers, in our case) as asynchronous circuits, whereas Cyclone V forces use of their DSP blocks' input registers. So, our named registers that fed the multipliers got converted into the DSP blocks' compile-time-named registers. Multicycle assignments were then ignored, because the associated register names were missing.

    That's sounding a little more like a special use case, which could explain how they missed the consequences...?

    Do the compile-time names, always follow a consistent algorithm ? - it may be a script could patch around the problem, while they are applying a fix ?
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