SoC: Back and forth!


Wrong, it only appeared in 4.5, which only came out in 2010. You're probably mixing it with softfp that's already on pandora.
I guess so. The only thing that's a little strange is that the GCC 4.1 manual mentions the -mhard-float option. Probably that's why I thought GCC 4.1 had that feature.
 
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That's why one can't just go by the "book".  Building the real thing versus sitting at home on cozy bed reading novels are two different thing :p
 
Just saw ARM announced the A17 and MediaTek a SoC making use of it.

Could this be of any interest ? They say it should be available during the first half of this year and products with it in the second half.
 
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"products in the second half" includes dev boards which means EvilDragon and gta04 have nothing to test with for 6 to 8 months at least.
 
Just saw ARM announced the A17 and MediaTek a SoC making use of it.

Could this be of any interest ? They say it should be available during the first half of this year and products with it in the second half.
MediaTek has no Linux support, IIRC. Only Android. That is something EvilDragon wants to avoid at all costs.

-God Ginrai
 
"products in the second half" includes dev boards which means EvilDragon and gta04 have nothing to test with for 6 to 8 months at least.
Apparently MediaTek stated that their SoC will be available in the first half as I said, for "phone makers". That's a quote from Engadget, but to me it looks like that's the kind of consumer ED would be to them :)

By products, they meant real products for end-user I assume.

But anyway, if ED could not enter in contact with them :/

edit : oh, yeah, no linux support really sucks then
 
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Oh, I got in contact with MediaTek, but the quantity was too low and no Linux drivers available.

But that's what's been already mentioned:

Each few months there'll be an announcement of a new SoC that will be even better than the previous one.

Snapdragon 805 next, then Intel will have a new one, etc.

We could play the waiting for the next better one for the following years...
 
Oh, I got in contact with MediaTek, but the quantity was too low and no Linux drivers available.


But that's what's been already mentioned:


Each few months there'll be an announcement of a new SoC that will be even better than the previous one.


Snapdragon 805 next, then Intel will have a new one, etc.


We could play the waiting for the next better one for the following years...
It my sound silly, but...

... two months seems the maximum waiting time for me.

Everything we can't get in April, at least a dev board and all the information we need is out.

I would say the dev board should be available in at least one month.

If Snapdragon 805 is mostly compatible to 800 then it's ok but I wouldn't want to sit down and do nothing.

The dummy board argument doesn't count for me.

Can't imagine so much can be done without knowing which processor will be used.

Don't you at least have to know which you have to place and which connections are available?
 
It my sound silly, but...

... two months seems the maximum waiting time for me.

Everything we can't get in April, at least a dev board and all the information we need is out.


We could play the waiting for the next better one for the following years...
Yes, that was always so since the 1970s: if you want the best computer buy it next year. If you can't wait because you need it, buy it now and be happy with it for the next 5 years.
 
Each few months there'll be an announcement of a new SoC that will be even better than the previous one.
Sure, we only want to be sure you are aware of all the possibilities.

Whatever you choose we'll be with you !
Well, there are possibilites we all do not yet know. Because the chip manufacturers have a planning phase of 2-3 years in advance (called Roadmap). Because they need to design and verify chips before they announce them to the public.

So I am sure there will be new possibilities by end of Feb and another set of new possibilities end of March etc. And even more by end of this year. Because they have been prepared behind the curtain...

This means it is impossible to ever become aware of all possibilities. And only then decide.

ED must decide without knowing all possibilities.
 
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and that would be OMAP5. No, Snapdragon 805.  Wait, Allwinner.  ROTFL :)

Wait!  There's also z3770 :)
 
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It depends on the replies from Qualcomm and Allwinner. I've sent them emails already.
If they are okay working with you, will you buy a dev board for both of them to really test them?I'm not sure how easy it is to measure power consumption separate from the overhead from the dev board though, do you know anything about this?
 
No, Qualcomm contacted ekianjo and he forwarded the contact to me, so I contacted her today.
 
Some more musing on Allwinner A80.. well, Allwinner A31 anyway. This is their current flagship part - still pretty low end as it only sports quad Cortex-A7s. But I think peripheral-wise it's a decent fit for something like Pyra. I bring this up because I expect A80 to have features that are similar or better, although of course that's just a guess. Here's the datasheet:

http://dl.linux-sunxi.org/A31/A31%20Datasheet%20-%20v1.00%20%282012-12-24%29.pdf

From a high level, it has:

- 2x32-bit LPDDR2 so at least on the same level as OMAP5, without risk of being kept from using low power RAM

- a 2D engine that looks pretty much equivalent to Vivante GC320 in OMAP5

- display engine that should be capable of supporting the same operations as in OMAP3 (ie, scaler layers with an 8x4 tap polyphase FIR filter), only it has more layers/can scale all of them. Using it to emulate Pandora's fbdev directly isn't out of the question.

- integrated ADC that should be sufficient for microphone input; there's an integrated DAC too but I doubt it's as good as the external chip used on Pandora

- gigabit ethernet which would be cool to bring out on the ext connector, although it'd require a PHY onboard

- supports 4 SD interfaces including a bootable MMC interface, should at least be on par with OMAP5432

Again, can't say for sure if A80 will retain these things. But at least OptimusBoard would suggest it has USB3 and ethernet.
 
lpddr2 is on 5430, omap 5432 ddr3l  it runs at the same frequency as lpddr2 though.

Page 118 8.1.2  http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/omap5432.pdf

The OMAP5432 device has two 32-bit-wide DDR3 channels running at a clock frequency of 533 MHz. The
device supports both 1.5-V (DDR3) and 1.35-V (DDR3L) voltage operation. Because the bus width is 32
bits, it is not compatible with DDR3 UB DIMM. Primarily, the OMAP5432 device is intended to use the on-
board DDR3 memories. The DDR3 standard supports up to 1066 MHz, the operating frequency is limited
to 533 MHz in the OMAP5432 context.
They are mostly the same, but the manual is for 5430, and then they just added the extention to it and cancled the former.

GC320 seems nice wayland support is stated, suppose one needs to "ask for details" to get the lowdown

the sound stage TI has excellent solutions for, the pandora solution is very nice, and some of their later offerings have very high bandwidth, so can be tricky to get to work.

My impression is that being on par with omap5 is being at a comparative disadvantage with the quality and support on TI parts.

Snapdragon 800 has faster memory and a bit faster clock, but can it work in a linux|gnu environment? The nexus 5 certainly has a whole heap of proprietary blobs on android. Freedreno drivers is one thing, but that didnt come from qualcomm, I think research is needed to see how all the rest of it applies to a custom job with regular linux to boot.

TI alot to deliver on what they can, their wifi being at least optional, the sticking point is the powerVR, which is equally bad for OMAP5 and A80, with the latter being a faster variant,

atleast there is for the former etnaviv support for vivante 2D, and while rob clark worked at TI and after he certainly did a lot of nice work on it.
Waiting around for A17 is going to take ages, much like A53 Armv8, qualcomm 410 is available, but its not superfast, and i dont think it comes without burdens. Qualcomm really seem to put the foot down on the stuff they control. The 805, while no 64 bit like the 410, sure is fast, but theirs selling point is focused on integrating wifi/baidoo/golnass/gps, which is the worst part of those burdens imo.

Tegra is equally fast, seems nvidia has the edge on GPU and qualcomm is leading on CPU, but both of them are shipping proprietary drivers.

I wonder if freescale, being the exception, deliver anything new on Mobile world congress in barcelona the 24-27th feb or maybe embedded world in Nürenburg the 25-27th.

Marvell might get their act together, or for all we know www.hisilicon.com or even http://www.ziilabs.com/ can deliver

TL;DR I think everything is quite fast enough, and it comes down to delivering something that works smoothly with free drivers ideally, or with exceptions known to work if that isn't possible.
 
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Some more musing on Allwinner A80.. well, Allwinner A31 anyway. This is their current flagship part - still pretty low end as it only sports quad Cortex-A7s. But I think peripheral-wise it's a decent fit for something like Pyra. I bring this up because I expect A80 to have features that are similar or better, although of course that's just a guess. Here's the datasheet:

http://dl.linux-sunxi.org/A31/A31%20Datasheet%20-%20v1.00%20%282012-12-24%29.pdf


From a high level, it has:


- 2x32-bit LPDDR2 so at least on the same level as OMAP5, without risk of being kept from using low power RAM


- a 2D engine that looks pretty much equivalent to Vivante GC320 in OMAP5


- display engine that should be capable of supporting the same operations as in OMAP3 (ie, scaler layers with an 8x4 tap polyphase FIR filter), only it has more layers/can scale all of them. Using it to emulate Pandora's fbdev directly isn't out of the question.


- integrated ADC that should be sufficient for microphone input; there's an integrated DAC too but I doubt it's as good as the external chip used on Pandora


- gigabit ethernet which would be cool to bring out on the ext connector, although it'd require a PHY onboard


- supports 4 SD interfaces including a bootable MMC interface, should at least be on par with OMAP5432


Again, can't say for sure if A80 will retain these things. But at least OptimusBoard would suggest it has USB3 and ethernet.
That A80 seems some really interesting SoC and might be worth waiting some weeks.

Is there a real Datasheet GTA04 can work with?

Don't think the 43 Pages are comparable to the 6000 TI offers.

Also I can't find any information regarding clockspeed.

Not for A80 and nothing reliable for A31.
 
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