SoC: Back and forth!


According to some designers I talked to, Rockchip has horrible hardware design documentation. Have you ever seen a Rockchip outside one of the generic chinese Android tablet/-stick devices?
 
EvilDragon said:
According to some designers I talked to, Rockchip has horrible hardware design documentation. Have you ever seen a Rockchip outside one of the generic chinese Android tablet/-stick devices?
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I haven't and Linux support on Rk3188 was pretty bad last time I checked.
 
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x86 definitely and for various reasons. I think I have to explain my point, because I want to convince as many people as possible:

1. Compatibility.

It's not a secret, x86 has the best compatibility available. OS, software, games and such... nearly everything will be compatible right at the begining, without any work needed. And that's something that ARM lacks. Of course, for some software, some people might be able to do the port job... but what about games ? Of course such handheld would be able to run any Linux distribution, Windows but also Steam OS.

2. It's a niche that has yet to be filled.

Back in the days, Pandora was unique. An open source handheld, with powerfull ARM CPU. Back then, ARM wasn't big, and best ARM CPU available were ARM11... but nowadays ? ARM is big. You can easily find chinese Android handheld for emulation. But there are also powerfull devices such as Nvidia Shield. Sure, none of them are compatible with Linux... but then we're back at the first point: x86 fill this purpose in a better way. Back on point 2, there's no x86 handhelds. None. Sure, there are tablets, but they lack proper controls. With that, you can play any x86 games but also emulators, and that is a HUGE thing.

3. Hardware capabilities.

That's the final point. In theory, ARM Cortex A15 CPU and Baytrail CPU are supposed to be on par in term of horse power... but that Intel HD GPU in Baytrail SoC is really capable. Playing games such as Unreal Engine 3 games, such as Mass Effect 3. Imagine all those games availables ? Indie games, oldies, emulation but also recent games.

And you know what ? Baytrail is already capable of such, but its successor, Cherrytrail (which is supposed ot be released this year) has 4 times the GPU power of Baytrail, and the process node is 14nm, which means nearly the same power consumption.

By going x86, Pyra is filling a niche that is yet to be filled, but also offer more appeal to be something more than niche. Just the fact that it could be considered as a Steam handheld makes it a lot more appealing. I know that some people think that ARM is a better candidate, and I can get their point. But they also need to understand that there's a lot of ARM devices that can fill this job. Heck, Pandora was one. But an x86 handheld ? Pyra might be the only chance to ever get one...
 
^ It's going to be ARM, and was there really a need to post this twice?
 
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Hisilicon is the silicon branch of Huawei, they joined linaro in oct 2012

Hi3611(K3) has been out a long time, and its the only one they list on their pages.

Since then they have made K3V2

Recently got a little speed bump, and changed GPU from vivante 4000 to mali 450 which means possibly http://limadriver.org/

What is now called "V9R1 kirin 910" seems to be an upgraded K3V2 which has mainline kernel support

k3v3 is their next one, based on eight arm cortex cores four of them are A15 and the other four are A7

Not sure about the gpu on the latter, as information is based on leaks. Mali-T658 say some, others say powervr 6
 
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hisilicon k3v3 was the target for a upcoming handheld/desktop convergence device that I was working on designing with a friend, that has apparently fallen through. But of the 3 options that were presented, that's the one that was chosen. It still looks pretty solid to me despite the Chinese manufacturer.  

The documentation I had said powervr

Edit: despite their questionable reputation based off their locality, they have quite high minimal orders as well. You should count them out.

Edit: Turns out I know a guy who knows a guy who knows some guys. I am getting my hands on a allwinner a80 dev board after all, possibly as soon as next month :p  yay me.
 
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SNESFAN said:
Edit: Turns out I know a guy who knows a guy who knows some guys. I am getting my hands on a allwinner a80 dev board after all, possibly as soon as next month :p  yay me.
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Introduce EvilDragon to your guy who knows some guys.

-God Ginrai
 
God Ginrai said:
SNESFAN said:
Don't think I can do that, would be a conflict of interests. I'm just the guy rooting for both teams.
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A conflict of interests with what?

-God Ginrai
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With his friend's Pandora competitor he keeps posting about. He just said it fell through, but now sounds back on track with the all winner dev board.


@SNESFAN, I would think it would be advantageous to your friend to try and get the same board as ED. More open source projects sharing a board means more software for both. Similar to the relationship between the Pandora and N900 communities.
 
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