I’m doing a SAM9RL64 port (the same uP used on the Hydra), and I had initially planned on using 32-bit SDRAM along with 8-bit parallel flash memory, but it’s turning into a routing headache. I see the FEZ Hydra uses 16-bit RAM, and a serial SPI flash memory chip. Can anyone (probably Gus?) take a guess at what sort of performance difference I’d see between these two solutions? I’m trying to figure out what’s going to bottleneck the system the most.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
I am not allowed to answer such question. These fall under paid support and consulting services. But I will answer hoping you will send GHI a case of beer one day, you won’t see much more performance going from 16bit to 32bit. I would say 10% to 20%. So not worth the extra needed work.
I am guessing the answer, do not quote me on it.
Thanks for the info. What about the serial flash? I’ve never used that before for anything but low-speed data acquisition. I know you guys use parallel flash on the EMX and some of the other products – I don’t know how the CLR works. Are programs immediately loaded from Flash into RAM at the beginning? Does anything execute from Flash memory? It sounds slooooow.
I’ll gladly send GHI a case of beer when I’m done with this project! It’s going to be open-source, so look for the design files soon!