Subject: RE: [linux-audio-dev] Fwd: Creative's IP concerns
From: Pieter (pieter.palmers_AT_student.kuleuven.ac.be)
Date: Thu Jan 24 2002 - 17:59:15 EET
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-linux-audio-dev_AT_music.columbia.edu
> [mailto:owner-linux-audio-dev_AT_music.columbia.edu]On Behalf Of Paul Davis
> Sent: donderdag 24 januari 2002 15:51
> To: linux-audio-dev_AT_music.columbia.edu
> Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Fwd: Creative's IP concerns
>
>
> >After actually looking at the rme site, it appears that their cards
> >aren't actually a good example of openness for creative to follow;
> >they're concerned about the dsp functions on their chips (reverb and
> >what-not.) Still, it shows them some of their competitors are not so
> >secretive.
>
> precisely. rme are quite happy releasing specs to right a driver; they
> are not planning on releasing specs to write new FX. its worth noting
> that rme have said publically that it took them quite a long time and
> quite a lot of really deep thinking to understand how to use an FPGA
> for what they are now doing. i don't know if this is accurate, or if
> it means that they were FPGA/DSP illiterate to start with, but if
> true, i could understand why they don't want to reveal what they
> learned (even though i don't agree with that mentality).
>
FPGA programming isn't easy. I had to make a few very simple designs
for a class last year, like a traffic light controller and a 128-byte
block FFT processor. I can tell you, those things do strange things
for strange reasons... especially if you are working on a bigger design.
A friend of mine had to do a bigger design, it worked perfectly...
sometimes.
It seems that those designs are very dependant on how the technology mapping
is
done... a lot like the 'black art' of PCB design. I believe them if they
say that they needed a lot of time.
Besides, I don't think a lot of people would be capable of creating custom
effects on the FPGA. (for the reasons I stated above)
> >I'd still like to know if there are any other companies out there giving
> >out specs for their dsp chips.. can anyone canonically tell me yay or
> >nay?
>
> Yamaha used to. I have a the spec for a 5-6 year old chip that was
> used in the Tropez+. However, it too relied on microcode being
> preloaded, and no information was available on how to write or design
> the microcode.
>
> OTOH, I would imagine that both the SHARC and Motorola 56K chipsets
> can be considered pretty "open" given that there are gcc ports for
> both of them.
>
All you want to know about these DSP's is available from the manufacturers,
exept from the silicon layout. The datasheets and manuals are on-line, and
describe the memory/IO interfaces, DMA, assembly language, ...
IMHO they are as open as they should be. I support chip manufacturers in
keeping
their chip layouts secret. Nobody needs that information to use the chip...
> --p
CU
PP
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Thu Jan 24 2002 - 17:50:05 EET