Lpc2000

Hi,

My application (a DV camcorder) requires a microprocessor to receive
an MPEG-2 stream through an 8 bit wide bus at data rates up to 15
Mbit/s and either:
    - save it to an ATA disk
    - stream it over an Ethernet connection
    - stream it over an isochronous USB2 transfer

I don't expect to implement all 3 interfaces, but I'd like to have the
throughput to implement any of them.

I like the ARM's architecture so I want to use an ARM core in my
design. I'm completely new to the platform, though. Since ARM7 cores
(in my limited knowledge) don't have a DMA controller and only a write
buffer I'm not sure they're up to the task. Development time is
scarce, so assembly code should be avoided. Running uCLinux would be
ideal as long as the core is still able to get adequate throughput.

Is the ARM7 fast enough? If not, which core would you suggest? This is
my graduation project, btw, so I can't afford platforms which require
proprietary development tools.

Thanks for your help.

Best regards,

Flavio

On Friday 01 April 2005 15:22, Flavio Protasio Ribeiro wrote:
> Hi,
>
> My application (a DV camcorder) requires a microprocessor to receive
> an MPEG-2 stream through an 8 bit wide bus at data rates up to 15
> Mbit/s and either:
>     - save it to an ATA disk
>     - stream it over an Ethernet connection
>     - stream it over an isochronous USB2 transfer

As a grad project, I'd tackle the ethernet case. That is probably the 
simplest and easiest to achieve with the hardware you are proposing.

>
> I don't expect to implement all 3 interfaces, but I'd like to have the
> throughput to implement any of them.
>
> I like the ARM's architecture so I want to use an ARM core in my
> design. I'm completely new to the platform, though. Since ARM7 cores
> (in my limited knowledge) don't have a DMA controller and only a write
> buffer I'm not sure they're up to the task. Development time is
> scarce, so assembly code should be avoided. Running uCLinux would be
> ideal as long as the core is still able to get adequate throughput.

DMAs are generally not part of cores. They are peripherals.
Any data streaming application is going to be a lot easier with DMA.

It is possible you *could* implement some sort of soft-DMA using FIQ. 
FIQs are often done outside of normal "processing space" and eat up a 
percentage of the CPU without impacting on the operation of the rest of the 
system.

>
> Is the ARM7 fast enough? If not, which core would you suggest? This is
> my graduation project, btw, so I can't afford platforms which require
> proprietary development tools.

I would suggest an ARM9 + dmas.

>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Flavio
>
>
>
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