CoCo provides two 50 way connectors. The top connector provides access to Blackfin peripherials. These include
- Parallel peripheral interface PPI/GPIO, supporting ITU-R 656 video data formats (supports LCDs)
- One dual-channel, full duplex synchronous serial ports, supporting eight stereo I2S channels
- SPI-compatible port
- Three timer/counters with PWM support
- UART with support for IrDAŽ
- Debug/JTAG interface
What makes CoCo different is the bottom connector. This provides 46 digital I/O lines from an FPGA. The FPGA is programmed as a CompactFlash COM port. This allows CoCo to be plugged directly into a CF slot on any host computer. This could be a laptop, PDA or legacy equipment. This now opens up new markets
- secure applications/encryption on laptops or PDAs.
- Software acceleration for existing products and legacy equipment nearing the end of life.
- Adding additional IO
- FPGA acceleration
The current interface also supports a host mode. This allows CoCo to drive the CompactFlash and control other CompactFlash cards. This allowing miniature systems to be constructed.
The FPGA can also be re-programmed to provide any interface. Whether this is used to mop up system glue logic, provide propriety buses or build multi processor systems using shared memory or message passing is completely up to the user.
The CoCo FPGA can be reprogrammed to mimic any CF interface. It can be programmed to be a storage card. Plugged into any equipment as a storage card and the stored data could be available via RS232 or SPI. This could then be send via GSM modem. Remote data monitoring on legacy systems.
For more information see http://www.cdatas.com/ or e.mail info@cdatas.com.
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