Overview
The PC44 brings the power of up to three 32-bit floating-point TMS320C44
devices to instrumentation, data acquisition, and control applications.
The TMS320C44 is a less-expensive version of Texas Instrument's workhorse
floating-point TMS320C40 device. Even with this amount of power, the PC44
remains a reasonably affordable plug-in board. For example, a version with
8 channels (2 simul. / 2x 4:1 multiplexed) of 16-bit 500 kHz SAR analog
input and 4 channels of 16-bit 166 kHz SAR output, 50 MHz TMS320C44, and
128k x 32 SRAM costs less than 6000 USD.
The PC44 combines a 50 or 60 MHz TMS320C44 processor with two (2) simultaneous
or eight (8) multiplexed analog inputs, four (4) analog outputs, from 32
to 1024k x 32 local and global SRAM, up to 16M x 32 DRAM, 32 bits of digital
I/O, and multiprocessor JTAG 1149.1 debugger interface. Analog input/output
is 2 simultaneously-sampled or 2x 4:1 multiplexed 16-bit SAR 500 kHz, 1
MHz, or 2 MHz A/D converters, and 4 simultaneously-sampled 16-bit 166 kHz
D/A SAR converters. Analog input includes programmable gain levels of 1,
2, 4, and 8. Additional TMS320C44 devices can be added via two TIM40-compatible
expansion module sites. The PC44 is fully supported by
Hypersignal-Macro,
Real-Time Composer™, and DirectDSP software.
PC44 Software Support
The PC44 board is supported by Signalogic off-the-shelf DSP software
products designed for DSP-based data acquisition and C4x DSP code development.
The software items listed below use VxD device drivers
developed by Signalogic, and provide support for the PC44 under Win9x, and Windows ME. Kernel-mode device drivers for Windows 2000 are currently under development.
Hypersignal®-Macro and Hypersignal-Acoustic
software series, which offer a number of simulation and real-time instrument
functions. Simulation functions include DSP and math functions, time domain
display (including waterfall, contour, magnitude, unwrapped phase), difference
equation, digital FIR and IIR filter design, sampling rate conversion,
frequency zoom, wavelet transform, minimum phase calculation, and many
more. Instrument functions include spectrum analyzer, digital oscilloscope,
stimulus & response measurement, continuous signal generation, real-time
"snap-in" filtering, continuous disk record and generate, and
more.
DirectDSP® is a Windows library which
provides low-level and high-level calls for user-defined C/C++, Visual
Basic, MATLAB®, or LabView®
programs. DirectDSP includes low-level PC44 board control functions
such as reset/run/hold, register access, block memory transfer, DSP executable
file download, etc. High-level functions include waveform file acquire/generate,
continuous signal generation, and execution of any arbitrary Hypersignal
DSP or math function. DirectDSP includes strip-chart recorder, digital
oscilloscope and digital tape recorder demo program and source code examples.
The TMS320C4x Source Code Interface contains
numerous C4x algorithms and functions in source and binary form, such as
optimized FFTs, filters, matrix, transcendental, trig, signal manipulation
function, PC44 board initialization and analog I/O examples, etc. These
functions form the basis of higher-level software functions and instruments;
modification can be used to customize Hypersignal or DirectDSP operation.
User-defined C routine hooks are provided for real-time algorithm development.
The C4x Source Code Interface can be used as a basic foundation for
user-defined real-time DSP systems and products.
Real-Time Composer™ is a Windows program
which offers a block-diagram based design environment that allows both
block-diagram simulation and interactive display and instrument functions,
including control over individual Hypersignal and MATLAB blocks. The DSPower-Real-Time
Code Generator includes complete visual IDE for Texas Instruments development
tools, and allows C source code generation from block diagram, with generated
programs compiled and downloaded to the PC44 board for real-time execution.
