Re: [FRC Blog] New 2015 FRC controller from National Instruments
 

IFI used to provide the robot controller for FRC. Here's the one from 2004.

Re: [FRC Blog] New 2015 FRC controller from National Instruments
 

Right, but that is just a box with a circuit board (like this one) in it, and a bunch of chips attached to it. One of those chips is a microcontroller (on the old IFI board, it was a PIC, made by Microchip).

Re: [FRC Blog] New 2015 FRC controller from National Instruments
 

I'd be fairly disappointed if they incorporated the relays onto a PCB without adding external lights like the current digital sidecar. Those are both useful troubleshooting tools when trying to narrow down problems.

Re: [FRC Blog] New 2015 FRC controller from National Instruments
 

I just want to know what that 132-ball csBGA is going to be for. I'm guessing a DSP. It's got a tiny tiny 0.5 mm pin pitch on those balls.

Re: [FRC Blog] New 2015 FRC controller from National Instruments
 

The 96-ball footprint could be DDR2 or DDR3 memory. Not sure what else comes in that package.

Re: [FRC Blog] New 2015 FRC controller from National Instruments
 

If what somebody told me at the championship is true, the memory/cpu are in one device. Here's my post from another thread about what I heard. The guy wasn't a part of NI/FIRST so I don't know if what he said was speculation or the truth, but he seemed pretty knowledgeable about FRC electronics.

I don't know how true this is, but I've heard from somebody at CMP that the controller will have an ARM9 based SoC with similar amounts of RAM as the cRIO-II, and that there will be more I/O than the 3 pin connectors on the pcb they showed us, either on another part of the main controller, or on a separate breakout board, and that it will probably work with a modified version of WPILib.

I was told what the person thought would be the CPU's part number, but I'm not sure if I remember it properly. I think that it's mcimx25?

Re: [FRC Blog] New 2015 FRC controller from National Instruments
 

Joe Ross sent me a link to this new cRIO, looks to me like a likely basis for the new FRC controller (although we'll find out for sure tomorrow!).

• Increased performance with a 667 MHz dual-core ARM® Cortex™--A9 processor and Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA
• Powerful, open platform available through a Linux-based, real-time operating system
• Extended operating temperature range of -40 to 70 °C
• Flexible, existing C/C++ code that can be reused on the processor with support for the Eclipse Development Environment, or program in NI LabVIEW system design software

http://www.ni.com/crio-9068/

More info on NI's real time Linux: http://www.ni.com/white-paper/14626/

Re: [FRC Blog] New 2015 FRC controller from National Instruments
 

Post all discussion/reactions during/after announcement here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=118311

Re: [FRC Blog] New 2015 FRC controller from National Instruments
 

Oh Boy: A dry ice game!! Who needs regolith?