mCs,%20DSPs,%20and%20FPGAs

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mCs, DSPs, and FPGAs
Realization technologies for robotics
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In the Beginning,

• skipping ahead a bit...

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Evolution

• transistors
• gates - SSI 10 transistors
• flip flops, registers, counters - MSI
• sequencers, ALUs - LSI
• microprocessors - VLSI
• processors - ULSI 107 transistors

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Micro-controllers and Single-board Computers

• A Micro-controller is an integrated circuit that
  contains many of the same items that a desktop
  computer has, such as
• CPU, memory, etc., but does not include any
  human interface devices like a monitor,
  keyboard, or mouse.
• Micro-controllers are mostly designed for machine
  control applications, rather than human
  interaction.
• Micro-controllers paired with all the peripherals
  they need to be self-sufficient, such as the
  Basic Stamp II IC, are sometimes called
  single-board computers.

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microControllers - mCs

• Simplified processors/sequencers
• Intended for embeddedapplications
• cell phones, VCRs, washing machines, toaster
  ovens, etc.
• single-chip solutions
• or maybe a few chips...
• Inexpensive (!)
• lt 1.00 at the bottom end
• lt 100.00 at the top end

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mCs

• Programmable
• but typically only programmed once...
• reasonable performance
• 4 bit (passe)
• 8 bit, 16 bit
• 32 bit (yes, but get real)
• 64 bit ? (dope-slap deserved)
• internal memory
• bytes -gt kbytes of RAM
• kbytes of PROM, EPROM, EEPROM, Flash

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mCs

• speed
• 2 -gt 20 MHz
• faster (of course) and slower devices available
• remember, speed a power (watts)
• typically, 4 clock cycles per instruction cycle
• external ports
• parallel (8 -gt 24 lines)
• serial
• timer/counter
• analog (input 8 bit typical)
• some devices have multi-channel analog-mux

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mCs

• packaging
• 8 pin SOIC -gt 400 ball BGA
• and everything in between!
• programming
• assembler, C
• Basic (?)
• Java
• Pascal
• pBasic, etc.

Lisp? Prolog?
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Microcontroller board examples

• Motorola 68HC11 based boards
• Handy Board
• FingerBoard
• BotBoard
• MiniBoard

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68HC711E9CFN2

• 512 bytes RAM
• 512 bytes EEPROM
• 12 kbytes PROM
• containing modified-Buffalo kernel
• 16 bit address, 8 bit data
• 16 bit internal
• 8 analog in (8 bit ADC)
• serial I/O, timers, counters
• 8 MHz crystal 2 MHz cycle

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Microcontroller Board Example that is presented
in detail in Martins textbook

• Handy Board
• Perfect for small robots
• Easy to develop software

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mCs - why might you want one?

• dedicated application
• monitoring, control
• complex sequential function
• programmed in C
• low-medium performance
• low cost
• CLEO-II.5 silicon power system had over 5 dozen
  HC11s
• approximating the intellectual capacity, and
  temperament,of a 2-year old

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Microcontroller Example that is our main low-end
project platform
Another example of a microcontroller

• Basic Stamp
• Basic Programming Language
• Full documentation and examples online
• Basic Stamp IIe has the most programming space

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Microcontroller that is even better and was used
in the Skeleton robot

• OOPic
• Object oriented (VisualBasic)
• Full documentation and examples online

Another example
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BASIC Stamp

• Many pre-defined functions
• Cost-point 34 - 99
• Starter kit for 149

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Original BASIC Stamp from Parallax

• 256 bytes EEPROM
• 80-100 lines of PBASIC
• 16 bytes of RAM
• bytes, not kbytes!
• 8 bit parallel port
• serial port
• 4 MHz

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The Basic Stamp Microcontroller usage
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Basic Stamp II (BSII)

• 2048 Bytes of EEPROM(non-volatile)
• - Clock speed of 20 MHz.
• - Holds 600 lines of code in EEPROM
• - executes an average of 4000 instructions/sec
• - 32 Bytes of Ram(16 of it for variable
  storage)
• - 16 I/O pins, plus two synchronous serial pins
• - Programmable with a PC/Mac through a serial
  connection with PBasic.

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The Board of Education

• BSII micro-controller
• bread-board
• power supply
• 9 volt connection
• serial cable

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Foundation Controller
Many boards can work together with
micro-controller boards
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Motherboard
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Microchip PIC(Peripheral-Integrated Controller)

• Wide variety of sizes in chip family
• Very low cost 4-20 per chip
• High speed
• Programmable in C

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What is needed to use a PIC?

• Software
• MP-Lab development environment
• A C-compiler
• PIC-Start Plus programmer
• UV chip eraser for some chips

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Pin diagram PIC 12c672
Pin 1 Positive power (3-5V DC) Pin 2 Digital
input/output Pin 3 Digital i/o, Analog in Pin
4 Digital input only
Pin 5 Digital i/o, Analog in, counter-timer Pin
6 Digital i/o, Analog in Pin 7 Digital i/o,
Analog in Pin 8 Ground
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How to use a PIC?

• Define, step-by-step, the desired behavior
• Choose a chip with appropriate I/O lines
• Build a board
• Write the program
• Test and debug, test and debug

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PIC16C58A

• 73 bytes RAM
• 2 kbytes UV-erasable EPROM
• 12 I/O pins
• timer/counter
• 18 pin DIP
• 20 MHz crystal 5 MHz cycle

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Digital Signal Processors - DSPs

• Essential difference from the microprocessor
• DSPs are designed for high performance,
  repetitive, numerically intensive tasks
• Integer and floating point devices available
• integer more common, less expensive
• besides, just multiply your floats by 1000, and
  you have integers

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DSPs - what is good about them?
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DSPs - features

• strong numeric architecture(s)
• single cycle multiply-accumulate
• parallel units (SIMD)
• specialized addressing modes (no overhead)
• pre- and post- modification of pointers
• circular addressing
• bit-reversed addressing (for FFT)
• on-chip memory
• multiple memory access architecture
• several accesses per cycle

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DSPs - more features

• specialized execution control
• tight loops do not require (repeated) instruction
  fetch
• conditional testing and loop-breaks built-in
• does not cost extra instruction to loop
• deep pipelines
• TMS320C6200 has an 8-deep pipe
• wide operation
• VLIW - very long instruction word
• many units (numeric, instruction, memory, other)
  controlled by single (complicated) instruction

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DSPs - architectures

• von Neumann - shared program/data memory
• Harvard - separate program memory and data
  memory
• modified Harvard - get one operand from data
  memory and another from program memory, in the
  same cycle
• Super Harvard Architecture
• cause SHARC sounds cool!
• TigerSHARC

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SHARC !
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DSPs - TMS320C6200
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DSPs - hard to program

• keeping the pipe full,
• keeping the many units busy,
• squeezing out performance
• is really difficult!
• Assembly language
• emulators which measure device performance
• no substitute for experience

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DSPs - why might you want one?

• dedicated (or not) application
• simple sequential function
• with strong loop structure
• best programmed in assembly language
• but C tools are getting better
• high performance
• massive throughput!
• medium-high cost
• 1200 MIPs for under 50
• 2400 MIPs for 250

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Programmables - Once

• ROM
• read only memory
• mask programmed
• PROM
• programmable read only memory
• fuse/antifuse
• one-time programmable

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Programmables - A few times

• EPROM
• erasable programmable read only memory
• UV light (chases charge off of floating gate)
• all or nothing
• EEPROM
• electrically erasable programmable read only
  memory
• all or nothing
• Flash
• EEPROM-like, but page-at-a-time erase

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Programmables

• but why limit yourself to address -gt data ?
• programmable array logic - PAL
• outputs (mostly) combinatorial function of
  inputs and other outputs
• 16L8
• 8 outputs
• 6 of the outputs can be fed back as inputs
• 10 simple inputs
• out (ab!c) (de) !f
• up to 16 terms ANDed
• up to 7 product terms ORed

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Programmables

• programmable logic device - PLD
• AND/OR array
• feeding macrocell of flipflop/pass-through
• and selectable feedback
• 22V10 (next slide)
• complex PLD - CPLD
• lots of PLDs in one chip

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Examples of programmable architectures
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(Field) Programmable Gate Arrays

• field programmable gate array - FPGA
• two common architectures
• sea-of-PLDs
• e.g. Altera MAX 7000, MAX 9000
• sea-of-little look-up tables, feeding flipflops
• e.g. Xilinx XC4000, XC5200
• but of course, marketting pressure
  forceseveryone to sell everything
• Altera FLEX 8K look-up tables
• Xilinx XC9500 sea of PLDs
• Actel, Altera, ATT, Cypress, QuickLogic, Xilinx

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MAX (Cypress)
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Xilinx
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FPGAs

• sizes
• 103 to 106 gates
• almost meaningless metric
• low-end 3.2 x 22V10
• 30 gates per AND/OR/macrocell?
• Speeds
• 50 MHz to 200 MHz
• packaging
• typically SMT
• QFP, BGA
• 100 to 400 pins

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FPGAs - volatile vs nonvolatile

• nonvolatile
• EEPROM-like
• configuration held in floating-gate cells
• ready on power-up
• 103 reprogram cycles
• so you can make a few mistakes
• typical for sea-of-PLD devices
• smaller number of larger blocks
• more complexity per block
• lower utilization
• as it that means anything

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FPGAs - volatile vs nonvolatile

• volatile
• SRAM-based configuration
• must be loaded on every power-up
• XC5202 -gt 3000 gates, 42kbits of config 42 ms
  (serial)
• giant shift register - nothing random access
  about it!
• unlimited reprogram cycles
• limited by whatever holds the configuration data
• typically a tiny 8 pin serial (EE)PROM
• typical for sea-of-little look-up tables devices
• larger number of smaller blocks
• less complexity per block
• higher utilization

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FPGAs - which one is right for you?

• If your function fits/works, go with it!
• in-system reprogrammability(volatile or non) is
  a powerful ally!
• Allows reasonable mistakes to be
  correctedsimply by recompiling/reloading
• pick a device larger/faster than you need
• dont expect to use more than 50 of the gates
• you may use them all, but dont expect to!
• try to use a single clock for everything

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FPGAs - why might you want one?

• Anywhere you might use a bunch of chips
• or a printed circuit board, or several...
• SoC - System-on-a-chip
• Complex parallel function
• programmed in HDL
• hardware description language
• Low -gt high performance range
• Low-medium cost
• smallest is lt 1.00
• largest are lt 500.00
• for a million gates -)

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Previous Projects

• 1. Review material from ECE 171 and ECE 271 about
  logic circuits, microprocessors and PLDs.
• 2. Find on Internet data sheets of top companies
  that produce processors or programmable devices
  that may be used in your robotic project this
  year.
• 3. Learn about programmable devices and boards
  that we have in the lab. Dr. Greenwood has the
  whole FPGA lab with programming tools and
  interfaces as well.
• 4. For the following tasks robot theatre, robot
  soccer, robot sumo, biped robot walker, analyze
  the best choice of microcontrollers or other
  devices to implement control.

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Sources

• Curtis Bahn, RPI
• J.E. Wampler
• Michael Rodemer, University of Michigan, School
  of Art and Design
• Physics and Media Group, MIT
• Josh R. Fairley
• Dr. Raymond S. Winton
• Mike Haney, University of Illinois
• Steve Benkovic, Cal State University ,
  Northridgehttp//homepage.mac.com/Sbenkovic
  s.benkovic_at_ieee.org
• Franklin Alioto, Christine Beltran, Eric Cina,
  Vince Francisco, Margo Gaitan, Matthew OConnor,
  Mike Rasay.
• Kenneth Chin and Prang Chim
• Dr. Jim Ostrowski, Bob Miller, Wally Szczesniak,
  Terry Kientz,
• Brett Balogh , Siddharth Deliwala, John Bowen,
• Darnel Degand, Kapil Kedia, Adrian Fox,
  Christopher Li