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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

The Clock Speed of the APOLLO 68080 On a Vampire

Fernando Pereira

Posts 68
23 Aug 2017 11:47


I understand that the standalone Vampire will be clocked roughly at 100mhz (Am I right?). What is the reason for this clock speed limit? Is the FGPA board imposing such limit? Heat? The lack of a proper cooling system? Reliability? Power consumption? Any other reason?
 
  Sorry if these are dumb questions... Please be nice. :)


Martin Soerensen

Posts 232
23 Aug 2017 12:05


Some 'golden boards' can go faster and it all depends on the internal timing/propagation delay of the FPGA and the memory chips. I doubt that more cooling would significantly change this limit although it does have some impact since a high chip temperature increases the propagation delay and adds noise.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
23 Aug 2017 12:05


Fernando Pereira wrote:

What is the reason for this clock speed limit? Is the FGPA board imposing such limit?

FPGA reach by design a lower clock than ASIC.



Fernando Pereira

Posts 68
23 Aug 2017 12:59


Alright. That would be my first guess. But is the 100mhz a default setting or is it user defined? Or is it the resulting speed based on how the FGPA is configured / set to achieve?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
23 Aug 2017 13:18


Fernando Pereira wrote:

But is the 100mhz a default

100Mhz is a number you made up. We never said this. :)


Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
23 Aug 2017 13:37


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

Fernando Pereira wrote:

  But is the 100mhz a default
 

 
  100Mhz is a number you made up. We never said this. :)

No, v2 shows up to what 92.2Mhz?

We need to know v4 clock :-)


Martin Soerensen

Posts 232
23 Aug 2017 13:42


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:
No, v2 shows up to what 92.2Mhz?

That number is just a 'guesstimate' from Sysinfo based on a speed test compared to some reference. Sysinfo has no idea about the actual clock frequency of the CPU.


Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
23 Aug 2017 13:56


Martin Soerensen wrote:

Vojin Vidanovic wrote:
No, v2 shows up to what 92.2Mhz?

  That number is just a 'guesstimate' from Sysinfo based on a speed test compared to some reference. Sysinfo has no idea about the actual clock frequency of the CPU.

Damn new technology without real oscilators :-)

So Sysinfo is smart as rest of us.


Fernando Pereira

Posts 68
23 Aug 2017 18:15


I said roughly 100mhz because of the specs available of the Vampire 2, I was using it as an example. Is it just a SysInfo guess?


Benutzer A4K

Posts 24
26 Aug 2017 09:05


I think the clock speed is nearly meaningless when comparing a MC68k CPU to an FPGA which is a totally different design. Other factors become much more important like parallel execution which is a perfect application for FPGAs.
From what I can tell, the "Clock" that is used mainly in the FPGA is derived from the 7M clock of the Amiga. With a stock multiplier of 11, that makes it a 78MHz clock in the current V600 and V500 designs on PAL Amigas. The multiplier can be configured in the FPGA and some developer cards seem to run at 15x which would be a 106MHz clock.

Olli.


Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
26 Aug 2017 09:24


Benutzer A4K wrote:

  From what I can tell, the "Clock" that is used mainly in the FPGA is derived from the 7M clock of the Amiga. With a stock multiplier of 11, that makes it a 78MHz clock in the current V600 and V500 designs on PAL Amigas. The multiplier can be configured in the FPGA and some developer cards seem to run at 15x which would be a 106MHz clock.
  Olli.
 

 
  There were x11 and x13 boards as Black Editions. Developer editions are nice, but they are likely to have as Tabor or x5000/040.
 
  We ll see what V4 can multiply. And its what 7,09 Mhz :-)
 


Thierry Atheist

Posts 644
26 Aug 2017 10:19


The standalone will just run at the speed that is recommended by the manufacturer, it's not connected to a 7.12 MHz Amiga oscillator.

That's going to be, ONE HEAVY DUTY GAL!!!!!

CAN'T WAIT TO DO SOME AMOS CODING!!

(I'm not in the least bit worried about NEW software availability, coders will flock here in droves!!!! There will be a GLUT of SW in the next 2 years!)


Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
27 Aug 2017 21:01


Thierry Atheist wrote:

The standalone will just run at the speed that is recommended by the manufacturer, it's not connected to a 7.12 MHz Amiga oscillator

Exactly, and what kind of heat and speed V5 Cyclone can take,
that is the question, boys n girls

X speed is just used at relative denomination so far (X11,X13,X15 ...) - personally no need for lame rating. Just give us whatever Mhz it is. Its 080 and core can and will be tweaked a bit.

No bells of hate. Pure joy.
EXTERNAL LINK

posts 13