This past week we posted this picture and shared the discussion that follows about the "EFIKA2"...





Most folks know we have had a complete development environment up and running for the last year around the ARM9 board we developed for Toshiba. That board, supported by the newest version of Aura, has been in distribution for months. We have decided to keep going in that direction with a new ARM based processor.

The board pictured above next to the Open Client is a Freescale Reference Design for the i.MX51. This is what Freescale presented at CES last week.

We will have more details soon. Be sure those of you who have been active developers and completed EFIKA Projects will have the highest priority as we begin a new Program.

R&B :)

Ok, so new hardware will be ARM based.

I have just checked "Projects" section and there is no EFIKA 8610 now :-(
"A new developer program around a new hardware development will begin soon. Check back for details!"

What happened to MPC8610 based machine?

Is Genesi going to produce some PowerPC based machines in 2009?

Thanks in advance for answer,
best regards,
Luky

I thought you where powerpc only? Guess not.
So the efika2 does not have anything in common with the efika then.
Anyway apple got away with their change to x86 :-)
Go make it something good.
I am curious to learn some more specs.
Will it come with an linux distro?

I very much hope there will be some ppc machine, too. ARM is powerful, energy and cost efficient, but it lacks MorphOS support - which reduces attractivity for me very much.

I'm a Linux guy and came to Genesi / PPC for energy efficiency, which ARM also provides. But my favorite Linux does not support ARM yet, so there is still room for improvement :)

We're doing the i.MX515 first. It's a slightly more immediate opportunity. Until the MPC8610 project is on a back burner (although Peter and I are still working on it).



That depends on how the i.MX515 project goes :D



You didn't see that we did an ARM reference design last year?

It doesn't matter what processor it is, the key is that it's low power, and highly efficient.



We are not trying to "get away" with a change to another architecture. We're involved in this exactly because of our work with the MPC5121e (bplan put a lot of effort into software development and drivers here for AXE and MBX)

As for nothing in common, you might consider that the Efika2 based on the i.MX51 has a lot more in common with Efika3, which would have a lot in common with the original Efika. There is nothing new under the sun here; work on one project leads to another, and integrates efforts put into other projects, which may have produced products on the store, or may not. Naive example; Efika and Pegasos share an audio connector layout. Development on Aura has been ongoing and released on the Toshiba board.. but it works on PowerPC too :)

As for Linux, Freescale announced at CES that the Pegatron i.MX51 Netbook will come with an ARM-based Ubuntu.. basically a good decision as since it's based on Debian, it has a reliable, and long-time ARM EABI port with which to get started on. We can't fault this decision, really. I would have prefered SUSE (and still would if it was PowerPC, since the support is better than Canonical would offer) but SUSE doesn't have any concerted interested in ARM right this very second (just a project to make Build Service cross-compile ARM, I guess this is the start..)

But, if Pegatron is going to build products around the i-MX515, what will Genesi do? Another product that is the same? Or Genesi's role is to aid in development? Can't Pegatron do that themselves?



Which, in this so fast changing industry, sounds much like "abandoned". It's a pity, with the recent appeareance of the "Redtail" board, the only MPC8610 based computer (that I know of) which is not a development board. Well, it actualy is...



True, but it wasn't much "advertised". Many folks haven't noticed. There's been a lot of talk about the 8610 and 5121e, and almost none for the ARM.



Of course. As long as your favourite software runs, you no longer care about the CPU technology. I guess that us MorphOS lovers do have a problem. Not that it matters much to the world, but we are again without fresh hardware. But it's nobody's fault.



I hope you can save as much work done as you can. To what extent one can say that an i.MX515 is a MPC5121e, but with an ARM core?



Granted, that's life.



The word "Aura" hasn't been mentioned since eons ago. See? That's why this "new plan" takes people by surprise.
Anyway, I hope you the best of luck with this new endeavour. I would prefer Genesi and bplan developing the end user product instead of Pegatron, but I suppose they are more than capable of doing so.

More details...

i.MX515 Cortex A8 Netbook Processor

jcmarcos, Pegatron will not be shipping a product themselves and neither will Freescale.

R&B :)

Thankfully it includes a modern SIMD unit (NEON) and even if it didn't it seems this chip will offer everything a modern netbook user needs, and more. Good choice.

There's far more to a product than putting a PCB in a case, and shipping it :D





It's nothing like the MPC5121e but the graphics are yet again proprietary and targetted towards "embedded" - things like the video decoder/encoder probably won't be open source. We have some experience on this.



Well, it's not really a user-level technology. It's targeted at OEMs and ODMs and our own products, such that they can get advanced features, faster board bring-up. Aura can literally be ported to a new platform in a matter of days, and it enables an existing Aura-enabled kernel to boot on it without any changes. The FreeBSD on Efika project is stalled right now because of a lack of an interrupt controller driver; with Aura, this would not be an issue at all. You get a virtual interrupt controller (which appears as a single, preconfigured interrupt controller and hides all the cascading), a virtual "serial port" (which could be a buffer in RAM or a VFD/OLED display, or a keyboard and monitor), a virtual PCI bus, and desktop graphics support (runs x86 VESA BIOS and provides a fixed-function truecolor framebuffer).



Indeed. However Pegatron is focussed on what you get in the box when you buy it - everything from the type of cardboard, the design, the PCB and chassis, component recommendation, cables and peripherals, manuals, OS DVDs, that kind of thing. There are several significant things Genesi can offer which do not come in the box. Sites like this, for example. When you got your EeePC did you get a community like this one with it? :)

How about it then.. libfreevec for NEON! :D

Luckily there are platforms around which implement the unit without waiting for the i.MX51 to appear.

I'd actually like some opinions on the Beagleboard :)

Well, I already am expanding libfreevec to be a full libc replacement (altivec/cell/sse), so I guess NEON would be the next logical candidate. (only 32-bit for now, 64-bit will come later) :)



looks nice, but actually i have a little bit too many dev boards on my desk right now :)

-no audio over hdmi
-no optical spdif out
-no ethernet
-no dual ethernet

i dont see the point in s-video out, deprecated.

a pcie slot would be nice for a wireless card or more powerful graphics card.

as i have said before, i am looking for a tiny media computer for the tv, and a more open tiny computer for network management.

i realize the beagal board is more embedded that what i described.

what kind of audio options does the efika2 / i.MX515 have? I could not find that info. Maybe i overlooked it.

You're just complaining about stuff the chip doesn't even have..

For ethernet, it has a USB port. You can use USB ethernet. You can put on a USB audio controller. For optical audio.. this is not so important for this kind of board, but you CAN get USB-audio controllers that will output to a special HDMI cable for you.



It seems they follow the same design principles as bplan - if it's on the chip, route it out :D In this case the DVI encoder obviously has an S-Video port on it too.



Then why even bother posting....