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FlexMem: <$25 Memory expansion for ANY propeller board with a 10 pin header! (F
Hi guys,
In my PropCade thread, heater asked about a low pin count parallel SPI ram solution… I was not going to reveal FlexMem until it was tested, but since he was asking…
Like PropCade, FlexMem was inspired by my work with VMCOG. I have not had a chance to write the driver yet, however that is high on my list of priorities… until then, the driver from obex.parallax.com/objects/346/ Tim Moore’s “N256S0830HDA SPI SRAM driver” should work, once the pins are adjusted to FlexMem.
After sending the design to Sapieha, he made another amazing layout!
FlexMem Features:
- Works on ANY Propeller board that supports the 10 pin ProtoBoard style header
- up to THREE FlexMem’s can share the header
- works best on P0-P7 with the driver I have designed
- 3.3MB/sec burst read/write with one cog for RAM or FRAM
- 6.6MB/sec burst read/write with two cogs for RAM or FRAM
- four identical devices on the board at the same time
- supports SOIC-8 devices
- supports DIP-8 devices
- works with 23K256 32KB Microchip SPI ram’s (128KB/board)
- works with FRAM’s (up to 512KB/board)
- works with FLASH (up to 256MB/board)
- jumper selectable for one of three chip selects
- approx. 1 3/16″ x 1 1/16″ and 15/16″ tall (including stacking header)FlexMem will work with ANY Propeller board with 8 pins available (p0-p7 is ideal, p8-p15 or p16-p23 will work but will be slower)
This thread with be the “Official” FlexMem thread, and I will be uploading photo’s, and documenting my progress in debugging the prototype.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Q1) Why is FlexMem faster on P0-P7?
A1) The driver needs the four data bits to be on P0-P3 so that the MOVI instruction can be taken advantage of in the driver to assemble larger units of data
*** Initially only P0-P7 will be supported, as the performance hit makes using other pins unattractive
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Q2) Why are you not using eight SPI ram’s for a byte wide memory?
A2) A byte wide FlexMem is certainly possible, however economically it makes far less sense. Eight SPI 32Kx8 memory chips cost significantly more than a single 512Kx8 parallel sram chip. It would be easy to use two FlexMem’s to provide an eight bit wide data bus, however it would require ten Propeller pins (P0-P7, and two other pins)
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Q3) Why will the counter-assisted single cog driver burst at 3.3MB/sec when the bit-banging one can only achieve 2MB/sec?
A3) The bit banging driver requires two more instructions for every four bits read, which is an overhead of 16 instructions for reading a LONG, whereas the counter based driver only requires a two instruction overhead for reading a LONG – a savings of 14 instructions per LONG.
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Q4) When will FlexMem be available for sale?
A4) As soon as the drivers are debugged, I will make a limited number of FlexMem kits available for sale. Large quantities are expected to be available for sale in early May, 2010.
——
Please feel free to ask any questions you may have!
(photo’s will be added in a few hours)
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www.mikronauts.com E-mail: mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com
My products: Morpheus / Mem+ / PropCade / FlexMem / VMCOG / Propteus / Proteus / SerPlug
and 6.250MHz Crystals to run Propellers at 100MHz amp 5.0″ OEM TFT VGA LCD modules
Las – Large model assembler Largos – upcoming nano operating systemPost Edited (Bill Henning) : 4/16/2010 7:43:44 PM GMT
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