Advice please: Best evaluation board for my application?

Nando.One Question

Jan 17, 2012 00:00

Hello, how are you?

First I'd like to say that I'm very happy that I found this forum! Please don't mind my lack of knowledge, I'm getting myself started in DSP.

So, recently I designed a powered mixer that has the following features and I accomplished it using a mix of analog signal processing + independent processors:

- MP3 Player and Recorder (up to 320Kbps) - PIC32MX + PT8405 MP3 CODEC

- Sound effects: Reverbs, Chorus, Flanger, Pitch Shifter, Delays, etc. - SPIN FV-1

- 5 mono input channels, featuring PAN, Bass & Treble EQ, Variable High Pass Filter 12Db/oct and effect level control. - ANALOG ONLY

- 2 Auxiliary stereo input channels - ANALOG ONLY

- Speaker output with 7-Band EQ - ANALOG ONLY

As you can see, I used too many components. I'd like very much to design a similar project using DSP so it will be a lot neater and much more flexible. For that kind of job, which processor will do? Blackfin, SHARC? What would be a nice evaluation kit to buy?

I highly appreciate your input!

Thanks a lot.

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TomA Reply

Feb 14, 2012 00:00

Hello,

Processor selection is highly dependent on the quality specifications you have on your audio, which would lead you to choose either a fixed (Blackfin) or floating point (SHARC) processor. Both Blackfin and SHARC have an array of audio encoders and decoders, and either could do the effects and filters that you mention, to varying levels of quality. In terms of cost on the evaluation kits, both processor platforms are close in price, so I would go with a SHARC. If you are concerned about keeping silicon costs down for a potential product, you may want to figure out your audio requirements and do some research on the Blackfin.

With that being said, the SHARC 21469 ez-kit lite would be the ultimate platform to start with:

http://www.analog.com/en/evaluation/21469-EZLITE/eb.html

Although you really couldn't go wrong with any of the SHARC ez-kits:

http://www.analog.com/en/processors-dsp/sharc/processors/sharc_evaluation_kits/fca.html

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Nando.One Reply

Feb 20, 2012 00:00

Alright! Just bought the EZ-KIT for the ADSP-21469 processor as you suggested. Honestly, I have no idea of how powerful this thing is, but as far as I've been looking, it seems to be a beast. Please don't mind my questions as I'm really new at this area:

1- Can it perform multi-track recording in Mp3 format? Let's say I design a mixer based on this sharc processor, could that encode 8 or 10 channels (128kbps mp3 or equivalent) simultaneously?

2- Today I see that it is a very expensive part:

http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/ADSP-21469KBCZ-4/ADSP-21469KBCZ-4-ND/2432860

What can I expect about this price within 3 years? Is that going to drop significantly, or, have a similar part with lower cost in a near future?

Thank you!

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ADIApproved Reply

Apr 10, 2012 00:00

Hi,

Apologies for the late reply. Please see my replies below:

Nando.One wrote:

Alright! Just bought the EZ-KIT for the ADSP-21469 processor as you suggested. Honestly, I have no idea of how powerful this thing is, but as far as I've been looking, it seems to be a beast. Please don't mind my questions as I'm really new at this area:

1- Can it perform multi-track recording in Mp3 format? Let's say I design a mixer based on this sharc processor, could that encode 8 or 10 channels (128kbps mp3 or equivalent) simultaneously?

Mitesh>> Sorry, but not sure if I have answer to this question directly. But, maybe I can comment better if you could please elaborate more about the specific processor feature requirements in order to meet the needs (e.g. speed, memory, peripherals etc) of this application.

2- Today I see that it is a very expensive part:

http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/ADSP-21469KBCZ-4/ADSP-21469KBCZ-4-ND/2432860

What can I expect about this price within 3 years? Is that going to drop significantly, or, have a similar part with lower cost in a near future?

Mitesh>>For details on pricing and availability, I would suggest you to refer to the link below:

http://www.analog.com/en/content/pricing_availability/fca.html

or contact your nearest ADI sales and distributors whose contact details you can find at the link below:

http://www.analog.com/salesdir/continent.asp

Thank you!

Thanks,

Mitesh

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