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uM-FPU64 — Parallax Forums

uM-FPU64

PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
in General Discussion
Anybody have one to sell. The only stock right now is in France, and they will not sell to the US for some reason.

http://www.micromegacorp.com/umfpu64.html

Comments

  • SeairthSeairth Posts: 2,474
    I had been thinking about FPUs recently, but had forgotten about the product line you referenced. So, I started thinking about whether you could use the Altera MAX 10 FPGA for a purpose-built FPU. It looks like the 10M08 (8K LEs) is about the same price as the um-FPU64. So, the question is: given the actual operations that you require, could you implement it in 8K LEs (and 24 18x18 multipliers)? If you could get away with 10M04 or 10M02, that would be even cheaper! And it comes in an EQFP-144 package, which would be workable, I think.
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    I'm bumping this thread to as if there is any interest in a group buy for say, 10 chips and 10 breakout boards.

    I have someone in Europe that can procure them, then send to me. We do have a quote for 10 at this time, but I do not know what the stock is above 10. I'm waiting for price on shipping at this time.
  • Keith YoungKeith Young Posts: 569
    What's your current price per chip?
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2016-02-25 15:46
    We are still in the quoting process, but chips are $20.00 and it looks like $6.75 VAT per chip?, I can't read French. :) Then we have to add shipping from Europe on top of that. The more people, the less shipping per.Of course there will be shipping in the US to distribute from my address. These are EOL devices. The creator, who has been a long time friend of Parallax died suddenly last year. I have emailed many times last year to see if the company would continue. It seems he was a one man operation, and nobody has responded.

    This will be the last chance to get these excellent FPU's.
  • Brian FairchildBrian Fairchild Posts: 549
    FYI...

    the chips under that label is something like a Microchip dsPIC33 or PIC32MX1xx.
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    Leon pointed out:
    They are obviously using a 16-bit Microchip dsPIC, probably the dsPIC33FJ32GP302:

    http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?dDocName=en532304

    Most of the functionality is provided by the Microchip libraries supplied with the C30 compiler.
  • Keith YoungKeith Young Posts: 569
    Publison wrote: »
    This will be the last chance to get these excellent FPU's.

    Why is that?
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    Publison wrote: »
    Leon pointed out:
    They are obviously using a 16-bit Microchip dsPIC, probably the dsPIC33FJ32GP302:

    http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?dDocName=en532304

    Most of the functionality is provided by the Microchip libraries supplied with the C30 compiler.

    Something like a M4/M4F could be a better engine, as that has HW FPU, and I see Digikey show a 100MHz one from Freescale for $2.11 1+ MK02FN64VFM10
    Eval Board is FRDM-K22F $29

    Or, there is Pi-Zero for $5 which probably has decent FPU ? (but not instant on)

    Search for Eval Boards, and Digikey has a whole page sub $20, starting at $10.99 for the NUCLEO STM32F series - also showing are TI and Infineon

    KIT_XMC47_RELAX_LITE_V1 at $14.68 gives 144MHz M4, with crazy Flash & RAM.
  • Brian FairchildBrian Fairchild Posts: 549
    I guess the attractions is the 28-pin DIP package?
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2016-02-25 19:53
    Keith Young wrote: »
    Publison wrote: »
    This will be the last chance to get these excellent FPU's.

    Why is that?

    The creator, who has been a long time friend of Parallax died suddenly last year. I have emailed many times last year to see if the company would continue. It seems he was a one man operation, and nobody has responded.

  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2016-02-26 01:39
    ........
  • Bob Lawrence (VE1RLL)Bob Lawrence (VE1RLL) Posts: 1,720
    uM-FPU v3.1 Floating Point Math Coprocessor DIP18
    17385
    https://solarbotics.com/product/17385/


    They have 5 in stock but it's 18 pin DIP

    US$ - QtyPrice1$19.95 ea.

  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    Bob Lawrence (VE1RLL) wrote: »
    uM-FPU v3.1 Floating Point Math Coprocessor DIP18
    17385
    https://solarbotics.com/product/17385/


    They have 5 in stock but it's 18 pin DIP

    US$ - QtyPrice1$19.95 ea.

    Bob, I have been in touch with Solarbotics for the last six months looking for the FPU64. they have discontinued the product as they can not get it.

    I have the VER3.1 and Parallax still holds stock on that part number.


  • Bob Lawrence (VE1RLL)Bob Lawrence (VE1RLL) Posts: 1,720
    re:Bob, I have been in touch with Solarbotics for the last six months looking for the FPU64. they have discontinued the product as they can not get it.

    that's weird because internally they show 5 in stock LOL

  • Bob Lawrence (VE1RLL)Bob Lawrence (VE1RLL) Posts: 1,720
    re:that's weird because internally they show 5 in stock LOL


    Ok got it . You are looking for the 28 pin 64 bit and I agree that they don't have those however, what I found and posted is is 18 pin 32 bit

    The uM-FPU V3.1 chip supports 32-bit IEEE 754 compatible floating point and 32-bit integer operations.

    I called and they have 4 left in stock . She physically found them LOL

    Anyway it's no good for you but someone may want to pick some up.
  • Keith YoungKeith Young Posts: 569
    Are there any other FPUs out there so easy to use with the Prop?
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    Keith Young wrote: »
    Are there any other FPUs out there so easy to use with the Prop?

    https://www.parallax.com/product/604-00050

  • Keith YoungKeith Young Posts: 569
    lol I should have specified that I knew about that one. I only have one of those.

    I'm somewhat interested but at $20 it's hard to justify. I'm basically looking for an IC that kids can communicate with fairly easy and see some results. I'm thinking this is overkill :)

    I have used that chip you linked in the past and I was impressed. It came in mighty handy.
  • msrobotsmsrobots Posts: 3,709
    @Keith,

    using a software floating point on the P1 in a COG is actually often faster then using a external FPU because of the time needed to send operand's and command over SPI and read the result over SPI.

    The external FPU makes just sense if you can batch the commands needed and execute inside of the FPU keeping intermediate variables inside.

    Enjoy!

    Mike
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    I had a GPS project in mind that I though might add some power to.

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