Signal Ranger Mk2 (SR-Mk2) and in particular with the SR2-A810 expansion (SPM dedicated analog IO)

- The Signal Ranger DSP boards are manufactured by Soft dB -

This project provides Linux support for the Signal Ranger Mark 2 (SR-Mk2). It is tested for all Linux Kernels 2.6.20 and later. A memory debug utility with still experimental experimental COFF loader functions is also available. However, as the SR-Mk2 is always self booting from flash at power up, so far best practice is to pre-program it using the manufacturer supplied tools (mini-debugger) and then all you need is to plug it in to the Linux box and you are all set.

The SR-Mk2 with SR2-A810 is the NEW (officially available by SoftdB from Feb/2009) and most recent and now full supported and recommended DSP platform for the Open Source SRanger-DSP + GXSM SPM control system. It also will be easier to handle, load DSP/FPGA code once to on-board FLASH using the manufacturer supplied tools, and it is ready after power up and USB plug-in! Only need to install the Linux module.

SR-Mk2:

• 300 MHz TMS320C5502 DSP 16-bits fixed point
• XC3S400 FPGA 63 user-configurable I/Os
• High-Speed USB 2.0 interface to host PC (approx. 19 Mbps)
• 64 KBytes on-chip (DSP) dual-port-access RAM
• 4 MBytes external 75MHz SDRAM
• 2 MBytes external FLASH ROM
• Can be stand-alone unit or connected to PC (Self boot option and FPGA load from FLASH)
• With AIC Analog-16 expansion: 16-Channel 16-bit AD/DA (0...26 kSPS) (not recommended for SPM, but may sound/acoustic applications)
• With Analog-810 expansion

  SR2-A810:

  • 8-Channel 16-bit high performance AD up to 150kSPS, minimal loop delay (2 samples), providing high stability and precision
  • 8-Channel 16-bit high performance DA up to 150kSPS, minimal loop delay (2.5..3 samples), providing high stability and precision
  • Two Counter/Timer channels with precision hardware gating, synchronous to the AD/DA sampling (for example used for Channel Electron Multiplier Detector readouts)
  • General Purpose Digital IO
  • Full preliminary specifications A810: SR2_Analog_810_UsersManual.pdf

Signal Ranger -STD and -SP2 Facts

- The (old) Signal Ranger DSP boards are/were manufactured by Soft dB -

A Signal Ranger SP2 and STD USB kernel module (Linux 2.4.18 and later, 2.6.12 and later are supported), COFF loader and memory debug utility are already available, working on PPC and i386 platforms!

NOTE: This DSP Platform is now outdated and obsolete. See above for up-to-date.

• The (old) SignalRanger SP2/STD is a fixed point DSP board featuring a 100 MHz / 100 MIPS TMS320C5402 DSP and a full-speed USB interface, providing fast communication and power supply to the board.
• 16 bits fixed point TMS320VC5402 DSP @ 100 MHz (40bit arithmetic logic unit (ALU))
• USB data throughput: 0.5 Mb/s
• The SP2 (self powered) version of Signal Ranger offers a Flash Memory, which can be programmed with an DSP application - this allows PC independent operation and eliminates the need for software download! Just power on and plug-in to start.
• The STD (USB powered) version does not need any extra power supply, but needs a first stage firmware load, which make the setup/installation a bit more work, but it is fully supported by Linux and the hot-plug mechanism is used to do all thus automatically!
• 16K words on-chip (DSP) dual-access RAM
• 64K words external 1-wait-state static RAM
• 8x 16 (15) bits sigma-delta analog inputs, sampling at up to 80Ks/s, 22Ks/s with anti-aliasing filters enabled, as used here
• 8x 16 (15) bits sigma-delta analog outputs, sampling at up to 80Ks/s, sampling at up to 80Ks/s, 22Ks/s with anti-aliasing filters enabled, as used here
• Programmable Xilinx CoolRunner digital IO expansion board (a free ISE webPACK development kit is available from Xilinx) -- to implement more than just digital IO, create custom counter, timer and more!
• Optional 8MB Flash Storage Expansion