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HDMI added to Prop2

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  • ROFLOL ;-) Good one.

    I thought so too. Had it been otherwise, we would have found "something odd" during respin testing.

  • cgracey wrote: »
    Chip, I misunderstood the whole thing... I thought you were simply trying to do HDMI in SW with the existing features, using the LUT ram for 8B/10B and the smartpins as serializers... *NOT* adding more stuff to the FPGA :flushed:
    "Star Trek: The Wrath of Ken" in 3, 2, 1... :wink:

    Ken knows and he's happy about it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have told him.

    :smile: I wonder if there are other things in the P2, Ken (and we) do not know about yet.

    I am absolute happy about the clock speed for example. Discussed was 180 hey maybe 192 to fit USB better. The hope was 200 maybe?

    Now Chip is running 250 easy with not even having a lot of caps, just bench supplies. And Peter runs 340 stable, even 360 with some cooling.

    Fun,

    Mike
  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,253
    edited 2018-10-17 17:27
    Yes, and those are real system speeds. We can do meaningful stuff both on the development and application side of things.

    I can totally see a range of clocks here. The really high clock, water cool, whatever P2, development system... and then a range of Target systems, low clock low-power, you know the drill.
  • Is the official supported clock speed of the P2 now going to be 250mhz?
  • RaymanRayman Posts: 13,798
    I was thinking actual working silicon would stop hardware development on P2...
  • cgraceycgracey Posts: 14,133
    David Betz wrote: »
    Is the official supported clock speed of the P2 now going to be 250mhz?

    There are voltage and temperature limits at which we can guarantee that performance. We just need ON Semi to run some analyses and tell us what they are.
  • Guess I‘m a bit slow, sorry. Are we talking about bringing HDMI to the current P2 (as kind of a logic update for the B-silicon). Or is this feature adressed to the FPGA or „P2++“.
  • tonyp12tonyp12 Posts: 1,950
    edited 2018-10-17 18:45
    Probably trying to use current P2 A-reversion and by just using software,
    and if it turns out that it's just one thing missing in hardware to do it, I guess it will then come to a decision for B-reversion?

  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,140
    ikemschn wrote: »
    Guess I‘m a bit slow, sorry. Are we talking about bringing HDMI to the current P2 (as kind of a logic update for the B-silicon). Or is this feature adressed to the FPGA or „P2++“.

    All of the above :)
    It is already in the FPGA/Verilog and is being tested, by Chip. The rev B is the P2++.
  • cgraceycgracey Posts: 14,133
    This will be in the respin of the Prop2 chip. Which should be back from the foundry sometime in February or March.
  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,253
    edited 2018-10-17 19:19
    It's a change to the existing streamer. Honestly, that verilog is well known and robust. Was a ~+2 percent logic change though.
    tonyp12 wrote: »
    Probably trying to use current P2 A-reversion and by just using software,
    and if it turns out that it's just one thing missing in hardware to do it, I guess it will then come to a decision for B-reversion?

    That "one thing" got added to the streamer and will go into the respin. Yes, it's going to be software driven video, just like the analog video is. But, the stream mechanics will get handled like they are for analog. All that allows for a software kernel, intended to fetch, or generate, display data, from RAM, or on the fly, like text, or tiles.

    And, being software, the target is a basic "baseband" like stream, 640x480, video only. However, that's not set in stone. Over time, software video systems tend to get exploited to deliver much greater overall capability and fidelity than the original, conservative design targets specify.

    Racing the beam HDMI style. I'm looking forward to it. At a minimum, people can get a bitmap with very little code. Similar to the existing bitmap test / demo code out there now.



  • Rayman wrote: »
    I was thinking actual working silicon would stop hardware development on P2...

    really? :smile:

    Mike
  • msrobots wrote: »
    Rayman wrote: »
    I was thinking actual working silicon would stop hardware development on P2...

    really? :smile:

    Mike
    Does the respin switch to the ARM instruction set as well? Seriously, I hope not too much stuff is changing.
  • cgraceycgracey Posts: 14,133
    edited 2018-10-17 19:33
    HDMI is being added. I will post the Verilog code that constitutes the whole change when it's done. It's not much, just an HDMI-mode bit, the encoder, and a mux to swap {24'b0, hdmi[7:0]} in where normaldata[31:0] usually goes.
  • RaymanRayman Posts: 13,798
    Does this mean that first batch of ~1000 chips isn't coming?
    Are we cancelling Chipmas?
  • Rayman wrote: »
    Does this mean that first batch of ~1000 chips isn't coming?
    Are we cancelling Chipmas?
    I thought they were arriving at the beginning of November. I was hoping a board would be available for purchase a few weeks later. :smile:

  • David, that is my understanding too. These very early test chips should be identical to the ones packaged in the intended end-use package and will go onto the Parallax boards many of us will get started on.

    Right now, Parallax got something like 14? 12? Rush job, "let's see whether it works" that went out to the people most focused on P2 testing.


  • Rayman,
    Pretty sure they will still get the ~1500 first run chips and put some/all on boards for us to buy/get. Primarily for wider testing and tools development, but also for people to start working on project for the P2.
    I believe Chip/Ken will wait for more testing to occur before they pull the trigger on the respin.

    This minor change to add HDMI ability for the respin is likely worth it in Ken's eyes, because it's really low risk for a fairly big payoff.
  • It's worth it in mine too. Didn't cost much logic, it's a very hot feature, and it's in a body of code that appears to have worked without a hitch. Known ground, so to speak.

    I think the big driver on that is the clock speed matchup. All along, during some of those discussions, the opinion was "HDMI = too fast." Nice to learn that is not the case.

    A full test, given we've got basically one round of chips to test on makes all sorts of sense. It's gonna vet all those, "we should have", or "if only we had" cases, along with real errors and fails, like that signed thing.

  • cgraceycgracey Posts: 14,133
    Without any exceptional agreement by ON Semi, they are going to send us 175 Amkor-packaged chips on November 8. There are more chips which could be packaged from the first wafer run, but they don't want to ship too much before the product qualification is complete. These 175 should be enough to get everyone started. This came up in a discussion last week. Yes, there are enough to make 1500 chips, but their business model is not in agreement with turning those into a production run. If we wind up needing more chips, I think they'll help us out, but for now, we've only got 175 of them coming.
  • evanhevanh Posts: 15,126
    Hmm, I guess 7:1 TDMS for embedded LCD's, as an option, is not on the cards. It would up the logic again to have any config.

    It wouldn't be as effective anyway, since there is no scan converter when connecting directly to the LCD panel, it would be limited LCD choice of 640x480 only. Better to output the flat pixel data and use a LVDS driver chip.

  • RaymanRayman Posts: 13,798
    I just remembered that Newhaven has some fairly new HDMI lcd modules...

    Might work out nicely...
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Please, nicely please, is it possible I could have a P2 in time for Christmas?

    I have been waiting for Chipmas for such a long time.


  • Heater. wrote: »
    Please, nicely please, is it possible I could have a P2 in time for Christmas?

    I have been waiting for Chipmas for such a long time.

    Which Christmas? :wink:

  • Chip,
    Ok, so only 175 of the "rev A" ones, that's probably enough for testing and tool dev over the next few months. Probably best to not get too many of this version out in the wild, since we'll have the final version early next year.
  • RaymanRayman Posts: 13,798
    edited 2018-10-17 20:54
    I'm not sure we can ever say "final" now...
    But I will be happy if it really is Chipmas!
  • cgraceycgracey Posts: 14,133
    Everyone here can get a board by mid-November, no problem.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    David Betz,
    Which Christmas?
    This coming Christmas dammit. The Grim Reaper is hot on my tail and I'd like to get time with a P2 before he catches up with me.
  • RaymanRayman Posts: 13,798
    Hey, just thinking...

    Could this mode: rrrrrrrrrr_gggggggggg_bbbbbbbbbb_x1 = raw 10b encoding

    be used for fast P2-P2 communications?

    Maybe have one lane be %1010101... for a DDR clock?
  • Heater. wrote: »
    David Betz,
    Which Christmas?
    This coming Christmas dammit. The Grim Reaper is hot on my tail and I'd like to get time with a P2 before he catches up with me.
    I hope it's not true that the grim reaper is hot on your tail. In any case, I guess you're going to get your wish based on what Chip said.

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