[sdiy] Spin Semiconductor FV-1, anyone?

[Eric Brombaugh]

Adam Schabtach wrote:
> Is anyone here playing with the Spin Semiconductor FV-1? I just ordered the
> development board because it looks like it could be a fun chip for building
> synth modules around. The chip is a DSP with onboard analog stereo I/O and
> three control inputs for pots. The assembly-language IDE is free. The dev
> board is $125; chips are $10 in quantities under 100. Unfortunately it
> doesn't have much RAM so delays longer than a bit under a second are out of
> the question.
> 
> More info here: http://www.spinsemi.com/index.html

This question seems to come up every few years. It's a pretty neat 
little chip with a number of specialized DSP structures geared 
specifically for doing oscillators, filters, delays and reverbs. I 
believe that the designers are also the folks who did the Alesis AL3201 
reverb chip which has since been licensed to Behringer/CoolAudio as the 
V1000M.

The limited on-chip memory and I/O do present some problems for getting 
complex processes onto the part. Their website has good collection of 
app notes though, including some decent background on how to implement a 
reverb.

On a related note - one thing I remember seeing sometime in the past was 
a teardown on the Alesis Micron low-cost analog modeling synth. If I 
recall correctly, it was basically a gang of 8 AL3201 chips with a 
separate controller to manage them all. If the FV-1 could be employed in 
a similar way you could do some pretty nifty stuff with it...

Eric