Micromega now has a 64 bit FPU

papaof2

Senior Member
I saw the press release for the uM-FPU64 today. It has 64 and 32 bit floating point and integer math, foreground/background operations, local peripheral control - it can control I2C and SPI devices, 9 or 23 digital I/O pins (depending on the package), servo control, and lots of other "goodies". The DIP-28 version is probably the most useful one for experimenters. It's also available in SOIC-28 and TQFP-44 formats.

Link to the press release: http://micromegacorp.com/downloads/documentation/Press Release - uM-FPU64 Sep-2011.pdf
The product page: http://micromegacorp.com/umfpu64.html

I've been working on a project that needs the ability to receive NMEA sentences (GPS), read/write I2C FRAM, read an I2C digital compass, and compute distance and angle between current location and a specified Lat/Long. I've ordered one uM-FPU64 for testing and will report my findings when the chip arrives (~2 weeks).

John
 
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MPep

Senior Member
Thanks for that John.
Never actually read anything about these. Now that I have, I wish I had gotten started earlier. I have had several uses in mind for a few years now. So far, dismissed them as being too mathematically difficult to do in PICAXE only.
Best get the thinking cap on. :)

MPep.
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
It will be interesting to see the results of the experiments with the uM-FPU. Perhaps that deserves a Blog posting or something we can publish on the new site as an Article. I'm not sure if we will be offering prizes for Articles published like we do for Projects but I'll suggest that -

http://www.picaxe.com/Project-Gallery/Submit

It's definitely easier having a uM-FPU do the heavy lifting but it should be possible to 'bit bang' floating point calculations natively on a PICAXE. Especially with larger memory these days.

It's not going to be as fast, sine functions etc are harder and there's always the difficulty of converting floating point to something usable or for display. Going up in floating point bit size is more a matter of repeating things more times than anything else. It does however require the effort of implementation which the uM-FPU provides ready done.

Jeremy Leach I believe had some adventures with floating point and large bit-size integers.
 

VK4CP

New Member
Howdy
First time poster here.

I've just order several uM-FPU64 parts from Cam.
He's very helpful, replies to email quickly, and you can pay via PayPal... so it's a painless experience to order directly from MicroMega.

I have never used a co-pro before so there is going to a steep learning curve!
Is there a forum that discusses these devices in particular?
Using a PICAXE 28X2, I need to push two 64-bit floating point numbers, latitude and longitude, (which are expressed as radians!) to a uM-FPU64, have it convert the two 64-bit words to degrees/minutes/seconds, and ultimately back to the 28X2 so that the characters can be sent to an LCD display.
Has anyone else used an older uM-FPU32 for a similar purpose (albeit 32 bit) who can share some advice on interfacing to a PICAXE?

Cheers,
Adam
 

VK4CP

New Member
And forgot to add, Cam said the uM-FPU64's will start shipping on October 6th...in 3 days time!
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
I have never used a co-pro before so there is going to a steep learning curve!
Is there a forum that discusses these devices in particular?

Has anyone else used an older uM-FPU32 for a similar purpose (albeit 32 bit) who can share some advice on interfacing to a PICAXE?
Welcome to the PICAXE Forum and here's as good as any place for discussing uM-FPU use with the PICAXE.

There's a data sheet on uM-FPU use with PICAXE with PICAXE code examples here ...

http://www.picaxe.com/docs/fpu001.pdf

And there's also PICAXE specific documentation and software on the Micromega site ...

http://www.micromegacorp.com/picaxe.html
 

papaof2

Senior Member
If the lat & long are being extracted from an NMEA sentence, the uM-FPU chips (32 & 64 bit) have a serial port and a parser for NMEA sentences.

For learning to use the uM-FPU, Hippy's links are a great place to start.

John
 

westaust55

Moderator
There is also a thread with a tutorial that I posted titled along the lines "Getting started with the uM-FPU" which was intended to expand upon the information in the tutorial on the MicroMega and also Rev Ed/PICAXE websites.
Will let you search for that thread as time somewhat limited for me and small screen iphone not ideal for some tasks.
 

VK4CP

New Member
A belated thanks for the replies.
Have been away in South Korea for a week for work. :-(

I received an email from Cam at MicroMega Corp last Friday, saying the uM-FPU 64's had been shipped. :)
 

westaust55

Moderator
Have been away in South Korea for a week for work. :-(
Surely cannot be that bad!

Many years ago I worked there at Ulsan on the south east coast. The Hyundai works at Ulsan were enormous in size.
Took bus trips up to Pohang and across to Seoul (around 500 km one way from memory).
While few locals spoke English (certain 4-letter words however are universal as best as I could tell) and road signs all in Korean (what else does one expect), I found the coastal and mountain scenery spectacular.
Certainly a marked difference between the area around a 4 or 5-star hotel and area only a few hundred meters away.

However, you will have your uMFPU to work with shortly . . . . .
 
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