At 08:31 AM 1/4/2007, Lyle Johnson wrote: > > ... It makes no sense to run anything but Linux on > > the embedded controllers and then have them be a server. > >Um, I respectfully disagree. It may make no sense to run Vista / XP / >Windows-flavor-of-the-era on an embedded controller, but if, for >example, one wants to embed a DSP inside an SDR, it doesn't necessarily >need to run Linux, and the DSP does not have to be Intel or AMD silicon >with their many watts of power dissipation. > >It just needs to do be able to do the signal processing and have a way >to get data in and out, get commands in and get status out. SDX and >Suitsat2 (aka Odyssey) are examples of this.
The advantage of Linux on a PC style platform is cost, and that's what drove the original SDR1000 design. You could get the box to do the dsp (nonoptimized as it might be) anywhere. You can get a complete PC in Mini-ITX form factor with enough crunch to run dttsp for under a couple hundred bucks. You'd be hard pressed to find another DSP solution available off the shelf for that kind of cost. Sure, there's a pile of DSPs out there and a pile of FPGAs, but even in eval board form, they tend to be more expensive than a Mini-ITX. The other issue is development tools. There are a plethora of free (or nearly free) tools for developing on the PC platform (Linux or Windows) but not so many for other platforms. I do a fair amount of work on developing software radios on the Xilinx Virtex II platform, and the tool chain is NOT cheap for those parts, especially if you want simulators, etc. So, you trade off the use of commodity hardware and software for lower initial investment. Sort of like the Beowulf high performance computing concept. Jim, W6RMK _______________________________________________ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/
