[sdiy] Wouldn't it be nice...

[Andrew Martens]

Are you talking about someone actually designing the silicon to do it, for a
perfect drop-in replacement, or just something that acts the same but has a
different form factor (ie, FPGA-based, or a microcontroller that emulates
it)?

Designing something in an FPGA is always an option, but you're usually going
to end up with something surface-mount with wayyy too many pins.
Microcontroller emulations might work, but it would depend on what you're
doing, and you'd still end up with something that's not a drop-in
replacement.

One could ideally design something that could be implemented on silicon, but
the costs of manufacturing low-run devices like that are usually
prohibitively expensive (from what I learned from my profs).  It could be
done as a project, since layout software is usually available in the
university labs (or alternately, good design software that'll do the layout
from VHDL/Verilog for you).  Sometimes there are unemployed bums out there
(like myself) who probably have the time and skills to do it, but don't have
any access to the university equipment.  Hmmmm, or is my account there still
active?  :-)

Cheers,
Andrew

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Ressel" <madhun2001 at yahoo.com>
To: "Synth-Diy" <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 11:19 AM
Subject: [sdiy] Wouldn't it be nice...


> Yo,
>
> I keep running across examples of university student's
> papers on the nifty little ICs they've made in class.
> Wouldn't it be nice if some student took it upon
> themselves to re-create some of the long-lost chips we
> all miss?
>
> Just thought I'd throw that out there. Ya never
> know...
>
> --TR