<focus_it>
preliminary checks indicate the 1mm PCB with 200 pin SO-DIMM is mechanically correct
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<focus_it>
The A10 chip was soldered at the factory. All the pins from A10 are brought out except the ground pins, which are all linked by PCB.
<focus_it>
The next step is wire up the xtal, capacitors, an LED, an SDCard on the mboard and see if it can be persuaded to boot some really simple program and flash an LED.
<specing>
It looks padish
<focus_it>
padish?
<specing>
full of pads
<focus_it>
yes - OMG its full of pads! :)
<focus_it>
every pin has been brought out so that it can be patched to the 200 pin SO-DIMM to prototype as many projects as needed on the fly
<focus_it>
First aim is to run it without external RAM some simple program booting off the SDcard
<focus_it>
next board I intend to make will have the RAM, and then it will be possible to link the two boards with twisted cables to see how fast it can be clocked
<focus_it>
The power supply is linear LDO regulators for the moment during experimentation
<focus_it>
Once you got a project working, the KiCAD files are gpl'd so you can turn it into product as fast as your feet can carry
* jinzo
bows to focus_it
<jinzo>
astonishing.
<focus_it>
thank you sir!
<focus_it>
Because the BGA is soldered on, and all the pads are brought out, the entire A10 CPU can be treated like a simple embedded CPU
<focus_it>
You can clock it at low speeds, in which case it is a simple embedded CPU
<focus_it>
If clocked at higher speeds, then it becomes a tablet or netbook like device.
<focus_it>
But you have kicad files that are gpl'd - so if now you want a dual CPU device, it becomes as simple as copy and paste! (well - when the final circuits are released)
<jinzo>
what's the approximate price for SoM1+SoM2 currently?
<focus_it>
groan jinzo - about $100.
<jinzo>
not _that_ bad actually.
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<focus_it>
The 1mm 6 layer pcb has about 800 holes which is why that board is so expensive
<focus_it>
the other motherboard not so expensive
<focus_it>
I got 10 of the break out boards in China, not sure how many motherboards, but the plan is to make it into a kit for anyone wanting to learn from ground up how to build SoC based hardware with their own designs
<focus_it>
weeks of testing before anything like that is ready
<jinzo>
still, very interesting - I'll be following the progress for sure :)
<focus_it>
the real test is to make your own Internet of Things hardware with SoC, Linux, LCD, touch interface, and a GUI developer package like gambas, and own PCBs
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<focus_it>
The market for IoT is at least 20 billion units
<focus_it>
I want my toaster to talk to me with a big smile on its LCD face! :)
<focus_it>
Its so frustrating to make all that happen with so many roadblocks - but KiCAD is here, and hopefully everyone can now make their PCBs and hardware with just copy and paste
<focus_it>
Also it might be possible to break the hold of graphics core makers on SoCs by adding a second CPU to perform dedicated graphics.
<focus_it>
The reasoning behind this is that DDR RAM has cycle times of 10MHz if changing pages rapidly, so it is very inefficient to be running graphics cores and system RAM at the same time.
<focus_it>
If you were to emulate the graphics with a second CPU, it may actually run faster because one CPU is running application software, while other CPU is doing the graphics, and then you got double the amount of actual IO going on.
<focus_it>
In fact, you may not need that amount of graphics RAM, and so you could use static ram, which has faster cycle time, may be 50MHz and that will means games will run faster than PCs at some stage of development.
<focus_it>
Of course with copy and paste, you can add as many CPUs as you want if you sell it, and improve graphics many times over.
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<focus_it>
$ work keeps from this work, but I would love to get dual core, quad core A31 and iMX break out boards done up as well.
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<focus_it>
KiCAD also imports gerbers to a limited extent, so it is possible to pull in files from other projects and create more exotic boards with kicad, if everyone learns, which everyone can - its free.
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<specing>
How wide is the SD?RAM interface on that thing?
<focus_it>
not sure what question means specing
<specing>
that thing = a10
<specing>
how many data bits?
<focus_it>
full 32 bits
<focus_it>
I think DDR400 - but if changing pages rapidly, then it only operates at 10MHz
<specing>
so how much does 32-bit 512 megabyte DDR400 chip cost?
<focus_it>
I 'm putting in 1GBytes - somewhere between $10 and $20
<focus_it>
because RAM is cheapish, if making micro servers, it will be possible to drop in say 10gbytes and page it as needed by specially made software that switches to the correct page on demand. No performance hit as all its doing is retrieving data - say some web pages
<specing>
How about refresh?
<focus_it>
A milli second timer to spend a few instructions changing page and read memory - or use a very small embedded CPU + software to do the refresh, or use a second CPU to take care of all extra duties that the main CPU should not waste its time on
<focus_it>
At $10 per CPU, the second CPU can do an awesome amount of real time work that main CPU need not handle. Alternatively, it could be run in slow mode to do menial tasks on the cheap. With some 300+ IO pins, that is very cheap coprocessor! :)
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<focus_it>
I got access to thermal imaging camera, so one thing I will be doing is try to get to grips with and document is higher clock speeds and thermal problems. Its easy to add a diode and resistor to build a simple temperature sensor, and then keep everything cool, with the right amount of heat sinking and fans for higher speed operation
<focus_it>
This project is loosely like the EOMA 68 except you got 200 pin SO-SIMM. The SoM boards will also have FPC connectors increasing
<focus_it>
the total number of outgoing connections to 300 - may be even 400.
<focus_it>
And then when the CPU needs to be upgraded, just pull out the old SoM board, and put in the new SoM board :)
<focus_it>
200 pin S0-DIMM
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