Our New Machine, Pandora

[Squidge]

And that £40 alone is the 'little more' over the GP2X price :-/

I was curious about the i.MX31 today and asked one of our suppliers about them, they said that if we ordered a small package full (containing 152 IC's), it would cost £1789.04. Thats under £12 each! Never thought I'd see that price for such low quantities for what looks like such a decent chip.

 

[Alex.]

Perhaps the company you work for has a special relationship with those distributors

 

[Tobriand]

Sounds promising, I must say... certainly worth investigating, alongside whatever else you guys are looking into...

 

[sam fisher]

And that £40 alone is the 'little more' over the GP2X price :-/

I was curious about the i.MX31 today and asked one of our suppliers about them, they said that if we ordered a small package full (containing 152 IC's), it would cost £1789.04. Thats under £12 each! Never thought I'd see that price for such low quantities for what looks like such a decent chip.

:blink: Still Craig would not change his mind. He want's to push this thing out by christmas for sales. Damn him! I want a pwning machine not a shitty one (in comparison).

 

[Tobriand]

Craig already said December was somewhen that would be nice, but not a release date...

 

[sam fisher]

This thing has been in the pipeline for a year. It's not as "new" idea. And for a December release to be anywhere near achievable this thing must be very close to being production ready.

Remember Craig DIDN'T want us to know yet, if he hadn't let it slip in posts which made others curious then we may not of know till November, just before his planned release, he didn't need our input at all because we had already made so many "dream console" topics. All he needs to do is not repeat the GP2x mistakes. However, not repeating the GP2x mistakes with a i.mx31 would sure beat not repeating the topic mistakes with a MMSP2+.

 

[Eolair]

£12....Nice price. Is the i.MX31 a lot better than the MMSP2+ then? I took a look at the specs but... it's kinda hard to tell at first glace. One is ARM9 dual core 360+300MHZ while the other is ARM11 single core @532MHz. Are they both comparable in 2D/3D acceleration? Memory handling? Peripherals? Power Consumption? etc etc...there's a lot to look at :lol:

 

[Dzz]

£12....Nice price. Is the i.MX31 a lot better than the MMSP2+ then? I took a look at the specs but... it's kinda hard to tell at first glace. One is ARM9 dual core 360+300MHZ while the other is ARM11 single core @532MHz. Are they both comparable in 2D/3D acceleration? Memory handling? Peripherals? Power Consumption? etc etc...there's a lot to look at :lol:

Some stuff we don't know about the MMSP2+ so things like power consumption would be guesses.

Most applications will have a much easier time making use of a single 532 mhz processor than two processors that total up to 660, even if the MMSP2+ board is built carefully to make sure the second processor doesn't fight the first one for resources.

The three most attractive things about the i.mx31 that spring to mind to me are:
1) The 128k L2 cache. That literally makes me drool.
2) The industry-standard 3D/OpenGL core
3) The fantastic and detailed documentation available freely from the freescale web site.

Others with more knowledge can probably add their comments.

 

[Eolair]

I think I like this about the i.MX31...

Power Management. Freescale’s i.MX31 and i.MX31L are built using Freescale’s Smart Speed™ Technology with some powerful enhancements. Our dynamic process temperature compensation (DPTC) mechanism measures reference circuits’ delays dependent on the process speed and temperature. The DPTC then lowers the voltage to the minimum level needed to support the current operating frequency. Automatic DVFS allows on-the-fly frequency adjustment according to the current performance requirements of the system. The automatic DVFS hardware mechanism monitors the processor load and controls the supply voltage and the frequency with minimal software and operating system involvement. By lowering the frequency it is possible to lower the operating voltage (on-the-fly as well) thereby dramatically reducing the power consumption.

10 hours+ battery time anyone?

 

[sam fisher]

I think I like this about the i.MX31...

Power Management. Freescale’s i.MX31 and i.MX31L are built using Freescale’s Smart Speed™ Technology with some powerful enhancements. Our dynamic process temperature compensation (DPTC) mechanism measures reference circuits’ delays dependent on the process speed and temperature. The DPTC then lowers the voltage to the minimum level needed to support the current operating frequency. Automatic DVFS allows on-the-fly frequency adjustment according to the current performance requirements of the system. The automatic DVFS hardware mechanism monitors the processor load and controls the supply voltage and the frequency with minimal software and operating system involvement. By lowering the frequency it is possible to lower the operating voltage (on-the-fly as well) thereby dramatically reducing the power consumption.

10 hours+ battery time anyone?

We aren't going to have a i.mx31 though.

 

[badwolf]

I think I like this about the i.MX31...

Power Management. Freescale’s i.MX31 and i.MX31L are built using Freescale’s Smart Speed™ Technology with some powerful enhancements. Our dynamic process temperature compensation (DPTC) mechanism measures reference circuits’ delays dependent on the process speed and temperature. The DPTC then lowers the voltage to the minimum level needed to support the current operating frequency. Automatic DVFS allows on-the-fly frequency adjustment according to the current performance requirements of the system. The automatic DVFS hardware mechanism monitors the processor load and controls the supply voltage and the frequency with minimal software and operating system involvement. By lowering the frequency it is possible to lower the operating voltage (on-the-fly as well) thereby dramatically reducing the power consumption.

10 hours+ battery time anyone?

We aren't going to have a i.mx31 though.


Stop being such a pessimist. You have no real information on what it will have.

 

[sam fisher]

Yes, we do. I know things.... things you don't know.

 

[Dzz]

Whichever chip it uses, it has the potential to be very cool.

 

[Orkie]

Stop being such a pessimist.

Why a pessimist? I think the MMSP2+ looks like an awesome SoC.

 

[Squidge]

Are they both comparable in 2D/3D acceleration?
Memory handling?
Peripherals?
Power Consumption? etc etc...there's a lot to look at :lol:

Comparable? I'd say the MX31 is better at 3D and more featured.
Memory handling - at first glance I'd say the 31 has the potential to be twice here as fast the 2+
Peripherals - dual sd slots anyone?
Power consumption? 90nm compared to 130nm gives better power consumption, plus it has DPTC and DVFS meaning the chip runs at the speed it needs to, rather than idling around waiting for you to change it.

Yes, we do. I know things.... things you don't know.

So do I

 

[A_SN]

Are they both comparable in 2D/3D acceleration?
Memory handling?
Peripherals?
Power Consumption? etc etc...there's a lot to look at :lol:

Comparable? I'd say the MX31 is better at 3D and more featured.
Memory handling - at first glance I'd say the 31 has the potential to be twice here as fast the 2+
Peripherals - dual sd slots anyone?
Power consumption? 90nm compared to 130nm gives better power consumption, plus it has DPTC and DVFS meaning the chip runs at the speed it needs to, rather than idling around waiting for you to change it.

Yes, we do. I know things.... things you don't know.

So do I


There's just one thing I'd like you to make clear, honnestly, is there a chance that the i.MX31 actually makes it to the final product?

 

[Zeladin]

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/p..._Parametric_Tab
In case anyone was wondering...

Umm so if the Soc hasn't been chosen how does this have any chance of being released before next summer? I guess you could do a pcb and casing in four months??

I'm not worried, the MMsp2+ will suffice, though the imx31 is very nice.
QUOTE
lower the operating voltage (on-the-fly as well) thereby dramatically reducing the power consumption.
Very nice - square law...

Edit oops imx31 not 21

 

[Javacat]

So can the MX31 do N64? :lol:


I sense that a few people are going to be a bit pissed now that Squidge has given that price, if we do end up being stuck with the MMSP2+ h34r:

 

[Exophase]

So can the MX31 do N64? :lol:

While I'm sure you're not asking seriously, I think a 533MHz ARM11 with an FPU would at least have a fighting chance for many games (not that it'd be easy)

 

[OrR]

I'm still obsessed with the expansion card concept. I wish there existed a PCMCIA-like standard in a form factor for smaller handheld devices. Does this already exist? I've googled around a bit but haven't come up with anything <_<

It's called SDIO. USB dongles are fine, too, but providing powered host from the internal battery is probably problematic. Bluetooth would make sense for expansion hardware, too. Using something bigger or something developed for the device would be a waste of space.

I'm looking forward to this new device... and I hope the 2X mistakes are really not repeated.

One important thing is hardware openness. Open source drivers for as many hardware components as possible! This would lead to more acceptance in the general Linux community. It would also be great if the new device wouldn't run it's own operating system but a standard embedded Linux system. OpenMoko comes to mind, even if that's early in development.

Hardware:
-Please include Bluetooth. It's standard for portable devices and there are a lot of applications.
-Do we really need a keyboard on the device? I don't think so. There are Bluetooth and USB solutions in many sizes and forms. A keyboard on the device can never be as useful and would probably increase size and complexity a lot. A huge high res screen should do keyboard functions very well. Typing on the Zodiac was fun.
-Wishlist: GPS, accelerometers, compass, GSM, ...