FXCore coming soon?

[mookyj]

Hi Frank, when do expect a full boat of wafers?  Any estimate of full production? Not sure what node you are running on. Will you be offering bare die QFN, or BGA packages?  Given what it would cost to cover NRE for 90nm or smaller, thinking you are at 90nm or 180nm on an 8" wafer? There were some doing CSP packages on 8" not sure who is still in it after all the buyouts and the mover years ago to 12"   FInal question, do you have a link for dev boards?

[octfrank]

There is a boat running now, due to an issue at the fab they had to restart it so we are behind the planned schedule.

Only offering in TQFP-64. QFN, BGA and bare die are not friendly to hand soldering. CSP was not even considered as it is not necessary for audio products and the added costs would have pushed up the price, also no one wants to try to hand solder a CSP package.

I don't know of anyone running any deep sub-micron like 90nm on 200mm, all I have seen is 300mm. 180nm is on 200mm as far as I know.

Sold out of dev boards and waiting on getting in the parts to build more.

[Staapel]

What is the use of the 4 inputs?  Only mixing or send to separate effects

[ElectricDruid]

What is the use of the 4 inputs?  Only mixing or send to separate effects

Your imagination is the only limit!

You could do full quadraphonic effects processing! With two chips, you could do per-voice effects for an eight voice synth! You could do two full stereo effects in one chip. You could four separate mono effects, perhaps for separate mixer channels. You could use one stereo pair of inputs to modulate the other stereo pair. Etc etc. There are a lot of possibilities. If you've only got a guitar with one mono output, then *perhaps* four inputs is overkill, but "guitar pedal" isn't the only use for this chip.

[GuitarPhil]

You'll also need a dual CODEC chip for each pair of ins/outs.

[niektb]

So apparently this thing is released now? I saw that two vendors have ICs in stock (rather than a full dev-board)

[Ice-9]

So apparently this thing is released now? I saw that two vendors have ICs in stock (rather than a full dev-board)

Yes, The FXCore IC has been available now for a few months as a single item (rather the the Dev Board which has been available for well over a year). Shortages of other semiconductors, ie. Codec chips may prove a bit of a problem at the moment though.

[octfrank]

And the first FXCore pedal pedal goes into production https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCJIOL5DXF3KNCiskSeEVovJ42md05T2M

[vigilante397]

And the first FXCore pedal pedal goes into production https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCJIOL5DXF3KNCiskSeEVovJ42md05T2M

Well that was absurdly cool. I love seeing Alexander's work, he always pushes things in new and interesting ways. All the shoegaze kids are going to lose their minds over that

[Ice-9]

And the first FXCore pedal pedal goes into production https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCJIOL5DXF3KNCiskSeEVovJ42md05T2M

Nice to see a commercial FX Core pedal hit the scene, looks and sounds great Alexander Pedals. 

[Sweetalk]

I saw it a few weeks ago and though "this is the FX Core". Congrats on the first release!!

[Ice-9]

A couple of pictures of an FXcore pedal I built a couple of months back, not a commercial release, I have an updated version which adds all the FXcore pots and switches to the plug in top PCB so by replacing the top control PCB I am able to choose any configuration of pots switches and LED's. 

[vigilante397]

A couple of pictures of an FXcore pedal I built a couple of months back, not a commercial release, I have an updated version which adds all the FXcore pots and switches to the plug in top PCB so by replacing the top control PCB I am able to choose any configuration of pots switches and LED's. 

Looks great Mick! What are you using for ADC/DAC? I still have the FXcore dev board that I've barely touched, and I keep telling myself I'll design something but haven't found the motivation yet :-/

[bean]

A couple of pictures of an FXcore pedal I built a couple of months back, not a commercial release, I have an updated version which adds all the FXcore pots and switches to the plug in top PCB so by replacing the top control PCB I am able to choose any configuration of pots switches and LED's. 

Looks fantastic!

[Ice-9]

A couple of pictures of an FXcore pedal I built a couple of months back, not a commercial release, I have an updated version which adds all the FXcore pots and switches to the plug in top PCB so by replacing the top control PCB I am able to choose any configuration of pots switches and LED's. 

Looks great Mick! What are you using for ADC/DAC? I still have the FXcore dev board that I've barely touched, and I keep telling myself I'll design something but haven't found the motivation yet :-/

Hi Nathan, this one is using a AK4556VT codec which I had but they and discontinued now. I managed to get hold of some of the newly released AK4619 which has 4 ins and 4 outs but they are a little more complex to set up. Codecs are so hard to get at the moment due to the Semiconductor shortages and the factory fires that have added to the lack of availability.

[Sweetalk]

A couple of pictures of an FXcore pedal I built a couple of months back, not a commercial release, I have an updated version which adds all the FXcore pots and switches to the plug in top PCB so by replacing the top control PCB I am able to choose any configuration of pots switches and LED's. 

That's awesome!. Great idea to have the same base board and switch a secondary board for pot/swtiches configuration.

[mark2]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what's the reasoning (if any) behind the H-shaped copper fills on the dev board? It has solid rectangles on the opposite side.

[octfrank]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what's the reasoning (if any) behind the H-shaped copper fills on the dev board? It has solid rectangles on the opposite side.

Cooling for the regulators, the pattern helps with dissipating heat better for lower thermal resistance. Since we do not know how a user will work with the dev board we assume people may pull power from it so better to play it safe with extra cooling.