[Asterisk-Users] [ot] Grandstream hardware

[Nicolas Bougues]

On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 08:44:36AM -0600, Eric Wieling wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-01-19 at 02:34, Nicolas Bougues wrote:
> > These are quite cheap components (the most expensive part is the $6
> > DSP).
> 
> What *I* want to know is why someone has not made a CHEAP PCI card with
> 4, 8, or 16 of these DSPs on it.  This kind of card would provide
> 

PCI boards embedding DSPs exist. However, they are not very cheap,
because :
- they require PCI glue (FPGA, or some sort of bridge chipset). DSPs
  usually can't be directly connected to the PCI bus. They probably
  also need some RAM, or a more complex CPU to drive them.
- such existing board usually provide some kind of PCM highways,
  and/or switch matrices to connect to the telecom environnement
- this is a small market : this drives prices up quite fast.

> hardware assisted DSP functions as well as patent indemnification. 
> Would you even have to USE the DPSs in order to be patent indemnified?

Err, I don't see the point with patent indemnification. The price you
pay for the patent depends on which patents (ie, which algorithms) you
use. Unless your board is limited (by firmware, for instance), to a
certain set of algorithms, you can't include the price of the
algorithm in the board.

-- 
Nicolas Bougues
Axialys Interactive