physics

Milkymist SoC

Milkymist SoC is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Milkymist SoC rather than just read about it. In short: M-Labs (formerly known as the Milkymist Project) is a company that develops, manufactures, and sells open hardware devices and software. It is known for the Milkymist System-On-Chip (SoC) which is a commercialized system-on-chip with free HDL source code.

Key takeaways

Milkymist SoC belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Milkymist SoC to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Milkymist SoC from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

M-Labs (formerly known as the Milkymist Project) is a company that develops, manufactures, and sells open hardware devices and software. It is known for the Milkymist System-On-Chip (SoC) which is a commercialized system-on-chip with free HDL source code. M-Labs Technologies have been used in different programs. For example, NASA developed the Communication Navigation and Networking Reconfigurable Testbed (Connect) experiment which uses the Memory Controller that was originally developed for the Milkymist One and published under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The project was presented at several open source and hacking conferences, such as the Chaos Communication Congress, FOSDEM, Libre Software Meeting, and Libre Graphics Meeting 2011. It was also featured on the Make magazine blog The Milkymist One board was included in their "Ultimate open source hardware gift guide 2010".

Milkymist SoC The Milkymist system-on-chip uses the LatticeMico32 (LM32) core as a general purpose processor. It is a RISC 32-bit big endian CPU with a memory management unit (MMU) developed later by M-Labs contributors. It is supported by the GCC compiler and can run RTEMS and μClinux. There is also an experimental back-end for LLVM targeting this microprocessor. The LM32 microprocessor is assisted by a texture mapping unit and a programmable floating point VLIW coprocessor, which are used by the Flickernoise video synthesis software. It is also surrounded by various peripheral cores to support every I/O device of the Milkymist One. The system-on-chip interconnect uses three bridged buses and mixes the Wishbone protocol with two custom protocols used for configuration registers and high performance DMA with the SDRAM. The architecture of the Milkymist system-on-chip is largely documented in the project founder's Master thesis report. Most components of the system-on-chip, except the LatticeMico32 core, were custom developed and placed under the GNU GPL license. The QEMU emulator can be used to run and debug Milkymist SoC binaries on another computer.

Milkymist One and Flickernoise

The Milkymist One video synthesizer and reconfigurable computer is the main product released by the project. It was manufactured by Qi Hardware, a start-up founded by former Openmoko employees. It was first sold at the Chaos Communication Congress in 2010, as an "early developer kit" for interested hackers, open source activists, and pioneers who could tolerate the remaining software and FPGA design shortcomings. A more refined version, including case and accessories, was later sold. The technical specifications of the Milkymist One are as follows:

Multi-standard video input (PAL/SECAM/NTSC) Two DMX512 (RS485) ports MIDI IN and MIDI OUT ports SVGA output, 24 bpp, up to 140 MHz pixel clock (about 1280×1024) AC97 audio Xilinx XC6SLX45 Spartan-6 FPGA supporting the open source Milkymist SoC 128 MB 32-bit DDR333 SDRAM 32 MB parallel flash 10/100 Ethernet Memory card Two USB host connectors RC-5 compatible infrared receiver RS-232 debug port The design files of the printed circuit board and the CAD files of the case were released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.

Flickernoise is the video synthesis software that runs on the Milkymist One. It is heavily inspired by MilkDrop and uses a similar, and largely compatible, scripting language to define and program the visual effects. However, while MilkDrop is designed to run automatically in a music player, Flickernoise is focused on the interactivity of the visuals for use in live performances. The software supports the programming of visual effects that transform a live video stream coming from a camera connected to the Milkymist One, as well as input from OpenSoundControl, DMX512, and MIDI controllers. Flickernoise runs on the RTEMS real-time operating system and uses many POSIX software libraries that were ported to this operating system, such as libpng, libjpeg, jbig2dec, OpenJPEG, FreeType, MuPDF, and liblo for OpenSoundControl support. The streamlined hardware platform and the use of a real-time operating system allow the system to have a lower response time than an equivalent PC-based setup. The user interface is based on a variant of the Genode FX toolkit. Flickernoise is also free software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

ARTIQ In May 2014, M-Labs entered a partnership with NIST to develop a next-generation open source control system for quantum information experiments. The system, called ARTIQ (Advanced Real-Time Infrastructure for Quantum physics), is a combination of software and gateware that enables synchronized control of many devices with nanosecond-level timing resolution and sub-microsecond latency, while retaining features of high level programming languages. In 2016 M-Labs partnered with ARL and ISE to develop ARTIQ Sinara, an open source hardware and software-defined radio platform.

References

External links Home page | M-Labs

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Milkymist SoC

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Milkymist SoC claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Milkymist SoC before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Milkymist SoC ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Milkymist SoC

In research: Milkymist SoC appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Milkymist SoC in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Milkymist SoC is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Open hardware electronic devices, Open hardware organizations and companies, Open microprocessors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Milkymist SoC outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Milkymist SoC in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Milkymist SoC means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Milkymist SoC out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Milkymist SoC in simple terms?

Why does Milkymist SoC matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Milkymist SoC?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Milkymist SoC.