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Everyone glosses over the fact that all of these "open" radios are dependent on very much closed "source" and often expensive hardware. The RF signal chains, wh
by kayson 4y ago
Everyone glosses over the fact that all of these "open" radios are dependent on very much closed "source" and often expensive hardware. The RF signal chains, whether ZIF or Direct, are by far the hardest part to design and manufacture. I would love to see some truly open source hardware (that's not RTL-based; that's basically just software that happens to be compile-able into logic gates). I think it's going to take at least another generation before the semiconductor industry evolves beyond the intense secrecy.
There's certainly an argument to be made that for a case like this, the hardware being open matters a lot less, but I really think the global community would benefit from more transparent and shared Analog/RF circuit design.
- wkat4242 4y agoThere's a lot of open source RF modules like the HackRF and that's just one of the many. I don't really see this being a problem.
- kayson 4y agoThe schematics are open source, but the ICs aren't.
- CamperBob2 4y agoI don't think you want to go too far down that road. It ends in a cave.
- marmetio 4y agoWhat would you do if they were?
- cushychicken 4y agoYou’re free to go about creating and giving away a 6GHz direct RF A/D chain, but I suspect that once you follow through and go to production, you’ll be charging $2k per die too. It’s a hard problem. Very few teams on earth are capable of surmounting engineering challenges of that magnitude. Add to that: there’s very few people who truly need 6GHz direct conversion.
- kayson 4y agoIt's hard, but it's not that hard. There are at least half a dozen companies in the space, and another half dozen with the requisite RF expertise but who just don't need direct conversion, as you mentioned. This is more a commentary about open source hardware in general. Starting with a DirectRF receiver would be silly; the market is not that big.
- cushychicken 4y agoIt's hard, but it's not that hard lol if you say so homeslice