first impressions of the Lego smart brick, before I do any actual tearing down: wow, I forgot how good they are at working with plastic.
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@ldcd @ftg @whitequark definitely a weird architecture to run into in anything not hyper specialised. I'd be very surprised to stumble across it in an IoT device for example.
@gsuberland @ldcd @whitequark
So how do you rate it being in a Lego brick? -
@ldcd @ftg @whitequark in fact most of the time it's not even a case of NDA, it's a completely custom SoC ASIC with ARC core IP inside and the only way to get docs is to work at the company. I'd say "or contract with them" but generally even then you won't get full docs for the ARC core IP without a first-party NDA with the IP vendor.
AIUI there's more use of COTS ARC SoCs around in the automotive space (primarily ECUs) but the detailed documentation and SDK/BSP tends to be NDA'd there too.
@gsuberland @ldcd @ftg i found an ARC in a ThindPad once
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@gsuberland @ldcd @ftg i found an ARC in a ThindPad once
@gsuberland @ldcd @ftg in the keyboard controller no less!
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@gsuberland @ldcd @ftg in the keyboard controller no less!
@whitequark @gsuberland @ftg excuse me thats where 8051s are supposed to live; thats an invasive species
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@gsuberland @ldcd @whitequark
So how do you rate it being in a Lego brick?@ftg @ldcd @whitequark surprising but almost not surprising? it's weird but also one of those applications where I bet they had very specific requirements around hardware FPU/DSP capabilities, communications peripherals, power management, and physical size, where meeting them all at the same time required treading more unusual paths. the integrated DC-DC in that chip was probably a major selling point.
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@gsuberland @ftg @whitequark It's also pretty common inside memory controllers afaict (the STM32MP2 and some RKs that use Synopsys DDR IP use it). I would be surprised if its not embedded in a lot of Synopsys IP
@ldcd @ftg @whitequark Synopsys definitely uses ARC core IP a bunch.
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@ldcd @ftg @whitequark Synopsys definitely uses ARC core IP a bunch.
@gsuberland @ftg @whitequark its at least less unhinged than the hard microblazes that show up in a bunch of xilinx parts
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@gsuberland @ldcd @ftg in the keyboard controller no less!
@whitequark @ldcd @ftg hah, weird. that's an odd choice of architecture for a keyboard controller, unless it was doing audio or touchpad stuff too I suppose.
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@ldcd @ftg @whitequark I have yet to come across any SoC with an ARC core where the docs weren't partially or fully NDA'd, or at least gated behind a sales call.
@gsuberland @ldcd @ftg @whitequark stm32mp2 has an arc in the memory controller that you get a blob for, but you can dev for the rest of the chip (aside from the gpu and some corners of the pcie) with no ndas. So relatively open by that standard
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@gsuberland @ftg @whitequark its at least less unhinged than the hard microblazes that show up in a bunch of xilinx parts
@ldcd @ftg @whitequark I'm still hoping to run into Parallax Propeller hiding out in an IoT device somewhere. such a weird architecture, I can't recall ever seeing it in something IRL.
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@whitequark @gsuberland @ftg excuse me thats where 8051s are supposed to live; thats an invasive species
@ldcd @whitequark @gsuberland @ftg i wonder if anyone has done a mips based keyboard controller
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@ldcd @ftg @whitequark I'm still hoping to run into Parallax Propeller hiding out in an IoT device somewhere. such a weird architecture, I can't recall ever seeing it in something IRL.
@gsuberland @ftg @whitequark did they ever ship non-es silicon for the propeller 2
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@gsuberland @ldcd @ftg @whitequark stm32mp2 has an arc in the memory controller that you get a blob for, but you can dev for the rest of the chip (aside from the gpu and some corners of the pcie) with no ndas. So relatively open by that standard
@azonenberg @ldcd @ftg @whitequark yeah I'm more thinking about ARC as the main core rather than something buried doing a supporting task tho
I know Synopsys loves shoving them in everything and anything.
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@ldcd @whitequark @gsuberland @ftg i wonder if anyone has done a mips based keyboard controller
@azonenberg @ldcd @whitequark @gsuberland
I'll mention this to a MIPS loving friend who's currently working on a keyboard project.
But I think it would have to then be based on something like PIC32. -
@gsuberland @ftg @whitequark did they ever ship non-es silicon for the propeller 2
@ldcd @ftg @whitequark no idea
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@azonenberg @ldcd @whitequark @gsuberland
I'll mention this to a MIPS loving friend who's currently working on a keyboard project.
But I think it would have to then be based on something like PIC32.@ftg @ldcd @whitequark @gsuberland I'm pretty sure i saw a digilent fpga board that had a pic32 on it in usb host mode that presented a ps/2 mouse and keyboard interface to the FPGA if you plugged in a usb one
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@ldcd @ftg @whitequark no idea
@gsuberland @ftg @whitequark looks like yes
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@ftg @ldcd @whitequark @gsuberland I'm pretty sure i saw a digilent fpga board that had a pic32 on it in usb host mode that presented a ps/2 mouse and keyboard interface to the FPGA if you plugged in a usb one
@azonenberg @ftg @whitequark @gsuberland Yes the Genesys 2 has this; it's very funny (but makes sense in an education setting if you want to keep your PS2 mouse lab without keeping the mouses)
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@whitequark Calling an ARC CPU industry standard is very funny to me
@ldcd @whitequark oh I missed that. Why on earth is it not a Cortex M0
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@ftg @ldcd @whitequark surprising but almost not surprising? it's weird but also one of those applications where I bet they had very specific requirements around hardware FPU/DSP capabilities, communications peripherals, power management, and physical size, where meeting them all at the same time required treading more unusual paths. the integrated DC-DC in that chip was probably a major selling point.
@gsuberland @ftg @ldcd this specific chip has directionfinding btw. and a "LOG2 accelerator" whatever the fuck that is
