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https://powerdeveloper.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=1658		 Page 4 of 5
Author:  Neko [ Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:44 pm ]
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Quote:
Neko says that this board is perfect as a low-resolution media player, or netbook. If that is what the CPU is made for, then go for it. A complete package with a direct focus is what Genesi needs.
Indeed. Note I never said low-resolution; I said the video decoder only goes up to 720p :)

We had the same discussion here about the maximum resolution of the MPC8610/MPC5121e DIU. It's all based on bus speeds inside the chip and the bandwidth available on them. 720p is guaranteed, but if you're running in a certain specific PLL combination/configuration you could output a full 1080i even though the spec sheet says 1024x768 (MPC5121e) or 1280x1024 (MPC8610). You all saw the video by lonelywild where it ran the BBC Motion Gallery clips at 1080i.. It could well be the same with the i.MX515
Quote:
Regular people couldn't care less what CPU their appliance use, as long as they can do what's
expected from it.
The concern here would be paying X dollars for a chip when you're not using 50% of it's capabilities and a perfectly reasonable substitute costing 75% less is available (i.MX515 vs. i.MX31L for example. *prices not indicative, only an example of the economies involved)
Author:  bhtooefr [ Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:48 pm ]
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In my case, though, I want the 1 GHz Cortex-A8 core. :)

(But, it does look like however you make this i.MX515 board, it can be adapted to meet my needs. Maybe not all of my wants, but...)
Author:  ironfist [ Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:14 pm ]
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i have been looking for a router board. i would like to get one that is open with linux and non x86. i just did a quick google for zyxel and found nothing about the cpu and only a hint that linux might work on it.
NBG-460n is a Wireless N-router from ZyXEL, the 10th largest
company on the Taiwanese stock exchange..

I suppose they run an ARM CPU, but that's not what I meant.
I meant, if you don't want something advanced, purchase this
one. You will get a WAN->LAN throughput of 700 Mbit..

However, since you wanted to build something yourself,
I recommend you to have a look at Routerboard, Soektris,
WRAP and the likes. However, most tailor-made routers are
x86. I can recommend the WRAP together with m0n0wall. It
works just great.
Author:  bhtooefr [ Sun Feb 08, 2009 2:02 pm ]
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And, actually, I might have found a board that'll meet my needs... and ARM sells it themselves, although that means it'll probably cost an ARM and a leg (pardon the pun.)

http://www.arm.com/products/DevTools/pl ... texa8.html
Author:  mattmatteh [ Sun Feb 08, 2009 2:19 pm ]
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that looks kinda nice. not sure how useful the pcix slots would be. seems similar to the sam 440 for powerpc.
Author:  Neko [ Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:36 pm ]
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Quote:
that looks kinda nice. not sure how useful the pcix slots would be
If you want a disk controller or accelerable graphics.. very useful.

Good luck affording the Xilinx license to customize the CPLD functionality :)
Author:  bhtooefr [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:24 am ]
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Or good luck affording the board, I just got a call from ARM. Let's just say it's nowhere near sensical for my needs. They didn't give me an exact quote, but... let's just say that it really is out of the price range of anyone not actually doing ARM platform development. ;)
Author:  Neko [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:04 pm ]
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Quote:
Or good luck affording the board, I just got a call from ARM. Let's just say it's nowhere near sensical for my needs. They didn't give me an exact quote, but... let's just say that it really is out of the price range of anyone not actually doing ARM platform development. ;)
I would have expected it's targeted at people who want to use the Cortex-A8 in their own SoC. That's an extremely limited market, and one which usually has budgets of tens of millions a quarter.. so a couple thousand down on a development board is a drop in the ocean, and a couple thousand for each seat of the CPLD tools is just as inconsequential :)

Of course Genesi has never subscribed to this kind of development model. While we could sell Efika boards at $3000 a piece for development systems, we'd not sell as many and never get the developer support we did get with the $299-down-to-$99 price range. There are literally thousands more MPC5200B developers and users in the world now than there would have been around the Lite5200 (it's cheaper even than the phyCORE boards which are $349 and $499 - these are still very reasonably priced and better for development than the $3000 Lite5200 or the monster Media5200 :)
Author:  bhtooefr [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 3:40 pm ]
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The numbers being tossed around were actually significantly more than "a couple thousand."

Which, I was hoping it'd be a few hundred, but expecting a couple thousand.

And, exactly, it's for developing SoCs. Ridiculously low volume and high price, but when you only need to sell a few of them ever, and then only to huge semiconductor manufacturers, and then let your SoC developers (or customers of those SoC developers ;)) make their own dev boards once their SoCs are designed...
Author:  ojn [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:39 am ]
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There's another aspect to it as well: Many times the semiconductor company has no interest in having to build a large support organization to deal with the buyers of the boards, their business is to sell chips, preferably to high-volume customers. So they sell boards for semiconductor customers to evaluate their chips and develop software on, not for the general public. The prices are set accordingly.

That's why there's room for players like Genesi to make cheaper boards for end-users, which works out well for everyone.
Author:  bhtooefr [ Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:02 am ]
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Well, and in this case, ARM doesn't even want to sell chips, they want to license designs of chips to companies that will sell them, so... a board with their own chip on it... yeah, I should've expected that. :lol:
Author:  Neko [ Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:02 pm ]
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Quote:
Well, and in this case, ARM doesn't even want to sell chips, they want to license designs of chips to companies that will sell them, so... a board with their own chip on it... yeah, I should've expected that. :lol:
It looks synthesized - running inside the FPGA, just so you can get a feel for it.
Author:  Neko [ Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:03 pm ]
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Quote:
no interest in having to build a large support organization to deal with the buyers of the boards, their business is to sell chips
snip
Quote:
That's why there's room for players like Genesi to make cheaper boards for end-users, which works out well for everyone.
Indeed. Developer support is important.
Author:  bhtooefr [ Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:27 pm ]
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Actually, I believe one FPGA is for the southbridge, and the other is for debug logic, but the CPU and northbridge aren't FPGAs, at least AFAICT.
Author:  bhtooefr [ Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:14 pm ]
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Any news on production boards? Just wondering. :)
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