Hello all,

I am working on a project where I need to sample the TI ADS127L01 at 128KSps with 24 bit resolution. I've already designed the low noise front end, most of the power supply (need to finalize based on controller), and other supporting features. However, I still have to pick the MCU that will be used for actually capturing and sending the data.

The objective is as follows:
read the data off the ADC at full speed and resolution over it's SPI bus --> read GPS unit time stamp (Adafruit Ultimate) --> periodically time stamp data with GPS time stamp --> store for several seconds --> and then transmit bulk samples to a server via WiFi.

Does anyone know if the ESP8266 is capable of this acquisition throughput? It seemed an obvious choice from a simplicity and size aspect but I'm not sure it can actually handle this since I fear it won't have enough memory. If it would purely be a memory issue, I could easily switch out the stock memory for 32Mb since I think I read that is the max currently supported. Any ideas or thoughts are greatly appreciated, even if it's to let me know this is a terrible idea!

Thanks in advance,
Mezz

 

At that sample rate you will need good hardware SPI and DMA for sustained throughput. I've no idea if the ESP8266 has DMA or a DMA capable SPI driver. The RPi does and it's still tricky to get very fast transfer rates.
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/fifo-logic-block-meta-stability.136284/#post-1143241

 

No.
It has 10 bit resolution.

24 bit adc is almost state of the art, i think. you will pay dearly for it.