FPGA Central

So I have to design a low-power data queuing system. I've never done a
low power design, so I though I'd come to this newsgroup to solicit a
few ideas.

I'm going to be continuously receiving data at 55KBps. I have to store
a whole days worth of data before I offload the data to another device
which ends up being ~4.8GB. The offload rate is going to be ~6.5MBps.

My initial thinking is to build Cool-Runner or a Spartan-3E to control
an SD-Card. But it's totally open, so I could use Compact Flash, USB
flash key, or even some SDRAM. So with the main constraints being low-
power and ease of implementation, what would you guys suggest.

Thanks in advance.

On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:28:32 -0700 (PDT)
ed.agunos@gmail.com wrote:

> So I have to design a low-power data queuing system. I've never done a
> low power design, so I though I'd come to this newsgroup to solicit a
> few ideas.
>
> I'm going to be continuously receiving data at 55KBps. I have to store
> a whole days worth of data before I offload the data to another device
> which ends up being ~4.8GB. The offload rate is going to be ~6.5MBps.
>
> My initial thinking is to build Cool-Runner or a Spartan-3E to control
> an SD-Card. But it's totally open, so I could use Compact Flash, USB
> flash key, or even some SDRAM. So with the main constraints being low-
> power and ease of implementation, what would you guys suggest.
>
> Thanks in advance.

That's a huge amount of data to be holding onto. Neither writing to
flash nor refreshing that much DRAM is going to be particularly power
cheap. What kind (read how compressable) of data are you going to be
dealing with?

Also, as an initial thought, for these sorts of data rates my mind
goes to a microcontroller long before it goes to any kind of PLD. You
might want to ping comp.arch.embedded with this one, too.

--
Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology
Email address is currently out of order

"Rob Gaddi" <rgaddi@technologyhighland.com> wrote in message
news:20090323155627.000011fd@unknown...
> Also, as an initial thought, for these sorts of data rates my mind
> goes to a microcontroller long before it goes to any kind of PLD.

What he ^^ said!

Just to clarify what power budget do you have?

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On 23 Mar, 22:28, ed.agu...@gmail.com wrote:
> So I have to design a low-power data queuing system. I've never done a
> low power design, so I though I'd come to this newsgroup to solicit a
> few ideas.
>
> I'm going to be continuously receiving data at 55KBps. I have to store
> a whole days worth of data before I offload the data to another device
> which ends up being ~4.8GB. The offload rate is going to be ~6.5MBps.
>
> My initial thinking is to build Cool-Runner or a Spartan-3E to control
> an SD-Card. But it's totally open, so I could use Compact Flash, USB
> flash key, or even some SDRAM. So with the main constraints being low-
> power and ease of implementation, what would you guys suggest.
>
> Thanks in advance.