User guide

for Linux. He has a broad range of telephony hardware, software, DSP, and management experience
and has held executive level positions in the sat-com industry (www.dspace.com).
In August 2005 David started porting Asterisk to the Blackfin processor, and a few months later had a
basic version of Asterisk running on a STAMP development card.
David was inspired by the Blackfin community who had released their development cards as "open
hardware". So it was decided to follow this example and “open” the hardware designs. There are many
people writing great open source software. However very few are making hardware or DSP code. David
therefore decided to focus on those areas.
In 2006 David worked with some like minded developers to release open FXS/FXO analog hardware
that could run on the STAMP card. In parallel, two talented Bulgarian engineers named Dimitar Penev
and Ivan Danov developed and published an open hardware design for the BlackfinOne DSP
motherboard. David combined the BlackfinOne design and the FXS/FXO analog hardware to produce
the IP04. Two Canadian software engineers, Wojtek Tryc and Pawel Pastuszak developed a
convenient build system (Astfin) to generate the IP04 firmware. The IP04 project attracted the attention
of Atcom
55
, a commercial VOIP hardware manufacturer, who offered to build the product commercially
in China. As with other open source projects, many other developers have also contributed.
Image 12: Early Blackfin-Asterisk prototype – a STAMP development card hacked to use a Digium FXO module!
Several hundred IP04s have now been manufactured and sold (up to November 2007). The design is tested and
stable, and many companies are using the IP04 as a reference design for their own products. This success
combined with the open hardware design will stimulate competition, encourage mass production and therefore
act to further reduce the end-user price.
55. Atcom, http://www.atcom.cn/
Page 53 TRICALCAR | www.wilac.net/tricalcar – Version: February 2008