choosing a mcu board with input capture and with the following features

nikhil koyyodan said:

I'm looking for MCU board which have following module:

Might the facts in evidence dispute that?   Appears that you seek (others) to do (your) looking!

The development of powerful & resourceful "Investigative Techniques" is sure to serve you well - dumping that role (entirely) to others - not so much...

That said - my firm works w/several federal labs - and similar tasks have been managed w/"multiple" of this class MCUs - both this vendor's (and others).  Your specifications call for a serious board - to my mind not a, "mash-up" of interconnected, lesser ones - which most always cannot match your (high) performance requirements.  

Your expanded "board search" - here & elsewhere - will enable you to better (know) and then evaluate - what is available...

Hi Amit,

Might - once more - your (necessary) expansion of the MCU to "all things" - at "all times" explain?  Our designs (always) seek to identify what's best and/or reasonable for the MCU.   At times the use of special and/or advantaged HW can "fill in the gaps" presented (and suffered) by (any) MCU...

I stand by the statement that poster has not (really) "looked" - and surely will benefit from such effort. (and learned skill)
I'd place substantial wager that his "spec" is "incomplete" - and the effort expended in his search will add to his knowledge - and yield a (far better) end result!

nikhil koyyodan said:

1) what is the maximum clock frequency we can achieve with the TM4C129X device?

120MHz as from device folder

nikhil koyyodan said:

2) in the data sheet of development board it is referred that general purpose timer in edge detection mode it required only 2 clock period for rising edge detection so I had a doubt that can we capture the pulse signal of width 5-10 ns ?

 As Amit said NO. Clock is 8.33nS wide and to detect a minimum theoretical pulse you need at almost about 37nS.

 You mentioned SPCM, are Single Photon Count MOdule???

 If yes this need drop to pico second/femto second  domain and I think your development board can be one of this not cheap few US$ embedded controller nor fastest  processor...

 Are you aware of what signify detect and manage a so thick pulse?

this board can manage photon pulse detection:
www.terasic.com.tw/.../archive.pl

 Price is not 25 but 25K dollar as

Roberto Romano said:

Price is not 25 but 25K dollar as

www.excelitas.com/.../Silicon-Photomultipliers.aspx

@Roberto Romano

As cb1 has mentioned, Nikhil's question may have an element of laziness about it. But the questions are straight forwards enough and don't require great thought to answer. Nikhil also mentions a pulse width they are concerned about which puts their query into context. If they were extremely lazy or thoughtless I wouldn't of bothered myself. But I read the OP a little differently, and interpret it as somebody wanting to draw on people's knowledge to answer an overall choice of MCU for the job.

But what I would say is that your reply, and suggestion that I've not read the 1st post, is both misinformed and patronising. Go and have a proper read of the application notes that you yourself have linked to, and keep reading until you understand more about SPCM detectors and why they don't produce outputs at the speeds you think they do.

As for your suggestion of having to have a $25K dollar board to count the output of such a detector, that's ludicrous. That to me suggests that you know nothing of the wider field of electronics, and if it can't be done in the confines of the MCU then you're stumped. Your bio says you're an electronics teacher. I hope you're not teaching about electronics in a broader sense.

About 20 years ago I designed and manufactured a system that wasn't unlike an SPCM. That was handheld, low power, and used the input capture of an 8bit MCU running at 8Mhz. It would handle 5-10nS pulses quite happily and survived type testing by some quite demanding organisations for life threatening applications. The unboxed manufactured cost was under $30 not including the sensor. The key to it wasn't the MCU, it was what happened between the sensor and the MCU as to why it performed at those speeds very reliably. Sometimes it's both impossible or very undesirable to perform all the task internally. But with some thought and a little external hardware it produces a very good system.

From the information put up by Nikhil, a EK-1294XL launchpad board with the addition of external memory and perhaps off board ADCs, and a look at the hardware to do the 10nS resolution of the required PWM would do the application perfectly well.

May I (now) note that: Amit, Pete, Roberto & I are all in substantial agreement w/my posting of 23 Dec (10:15) in which the proper "blend" of MCU and external hardware - most always - provides the needed performance & flexibility required by such designs.   Trying to, "Achieve all - via MCU alone" (as poster suggested) proved unsound.   Such obscuring of the "proper and/or more efficient path" must be quickly detected - and rejected...

Roberto - I must side w/Pete that his "imposing a proper counter" prior to the MCU will enable the capture of signals too brief to be registered correctly by the (less counter capable) MCU. We've done such - not for this specific task - but to enable the measure of pulses (again too brief) for the MCU's internal counters. This is achieved by "reading" the external counter which may be clocked - and resolved - at speeds well beyond the MCU's (internal) capabilities.

As to final cost - we have no REAL specifications - do we?   And - w/so little specified - I doubt that any (real) MCU selection is possible.

More thought, preparation, detail (i.e. "care") by requesting posters is required (it is patently unfair & improper that such must be "teased out" by Amit, Pete, Roberto & I ).    Unfortunately - forum welcomes (even encourages) "completely unguided" posts - which arrive near daily - leading to guesswork & endless/cascades of (unwanted/unnecessary) "back-forth."

Pete Carston said:

As for your suggestion of having to have a $25K dollar board to count the output of such a detector, that's ludicrous. That to me suggests that you know nothing of the wider field of electronics, and if it can't be done in the confines of the MCU then you're stumped. Your bio says you're an electronics teacher. I hope you're not teaching about electronics in a broader sense.

 Hi pete, maybe you have reason, I hear this frequently from student unable to grasp series and parallel of resistor, I don't pretend teach them how to make a picosend pulse from ionized junction, nor I pretend to teach you too...

 I am quite near retire age and I seen too many failure to not have perception of what failure is.

 When reading question I see SPCM  AND nanosecond laser pulses and other very odd request...
I  just remember I just know few thing how about relativity work and some knowledge on how moving charges can radiate energy or simply where to cut a ground plane.. So why we need cut cables in a precise lenght, light speed is so fast....  Yes I don't know too much of electronics, I remember just something about Cesium clock  and phase lock....

Pete Carston said:

About 20 years ago I designed and manufactured a system that wasn't unlike an SPCM. That was handheld, low power, and used the input capture of an 8bit MCU running at 8Mhz. It would handle 5-10nS pulses quite happily and survived type testing by some quite demanding organisations for life threatening applications

 This sound no different from original post, we don't know nothing about what you manufactured nor are clean what you wrote, one thing is at your failure... 8MHz clock is NOT usable to evaluate 5nS pulses. We can do something using analog domain but this is slow and not related to SPCM at all.

Pete Carston said:

From the information put up by Nikhil, a EK-1294XL launchpad board with the addition of external memory and perhaps off board ADCs, and a look at the hardware to do the 10nS resolution of the required PWM would do the application perfectly well.

 Actually I am using an FPGA and it cost is no far from EX, (30$ eval board) it can handle sub 5nS pulses and I use internal processor to do low speed task but forever DPLL logic handling phase lock of 300MHz signal is forever on FPGA domain to avoid jitter, this device has specialized LVDS inputs so it can handle high speed pulses, the board you mention is not able to handle fastest signals ....

 So what you wrote has many thing questionable but here the question sound like this:

 I bought a lottery ticket, My friend Pete bought a ticket also...

 Hey teacher tell Pete my ticket is the real winning one...
 My answer: I cannot say nothing about, who came to claim money was the one with reason.

 From two century ago Shannon Theorem explain a lot about actual noise also Boltzmann said about and broadening channel both got right.

 Take care about perspective and learn analyze in deep what you see here, I wish you a good time Pete.