Hardware extending

GNU Radio
1

Hello,
I see that many guys here are using USRP hardware which is really great.
However, I am interested in extending compatible hardware list by using
any manufacturer FPGA development kit. The majority takes Altera
development kits using HSMC port for additional hardware or Xilinx using
FMC. Basically, yes, I am considering doing a new motherboard like the
USRP which could be connected to the any FPGA development kit from
Altera or Xilinx. All other ports for daughterboards should be the same
and fit the new motherboard.
My plan is to use Altera Stratix II GX development kit, which has PCIe
x8 and 1Gbit ethernet and I will add CY7C68013 for USB connection. Now
the more interesting part is ADC and DAC selection. We all know that
USRP2 use at least 100MSPS ADC and DAC, 14bit and 16bit accuracy
accordingly, so that would be the point of base:
DACs: AD9777 from Analog devices.
ADCs: LTC2284 from Linear Technologies.
These devices are selected for 2 channels I/O or one pair I-Q, but can
we consider other (possibly cheaper) options?
For example it is possible to buy pretty cheap dual channel ADC 250MSPS
here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ADS62P48-ADC-250MSPS-14bit-DDR-Parallel-Out-/180671130732?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a10d6ac6c
, but are there any special hardware requirements? This particular
option would be better for any student/amateur to buy, instead of using
Digikey, Farnell, etc.
I see a lot of documentation regarding GNU Radio, but there are almost
nothing about hardware. I am not interested in taking over Ettus
Research, but I hope to attract more people in hardware development :slight_smile:

Stratix II GX development board:
http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-pciexpress_s2gx.html
EP2SGX90F1508C3 FPGA, 36384 ALMs (90960 eq. LEs), 48 DSP blocks, 192
18x18 multipliers, 8 PLLs, 4.5MB on chip memory.

Thank You.

Sincerely,
Tomas D.

2

On 2011.07.24 16:32, Farhad A. wrote:

to make that public in a few months and the selling price will be $299

I will be happy to share our pre-release of the FPGA code with you if
you are interested, this will be available after September this year.

Hello,
it would be really good if You could contribute! I am also more into
VHDL than Verilog. Basically, I’ve started my studies using Spartan-3E
board, but later moved to Altera because got a job in a company which
use Altera devices. Do You have any plans to move to Spartan-6 or even
new series Xilinx FPGAs?

Sincerely,
Tomas D.