SoC Poll - What's most important for you?

[Linux-SWAT]

Maybe someone already suggested that, but what about a x86 SoC ?

 

[bzar]

There are oodles of conversation on that topic. Forum search is your friend

Of course if you were joking, haha. I just wanted to stop this in its tracks before it got going again.

 

[ExquisiteCorpse]

I've actually changed my mind from ARM cpu to x86 of recent. It's too far down the road now anyway but doesn't look like we'll  have the battery life of the Open Pandora and have something more comparable to a mid-end laptop.

We're also gonna find that, even if the source code is open, it won't work on ARM. Like OpenRA.

Oh well. It's already decided but I guess I can lament.

 

[TrashyMG]

We're also gonna find that, even if the source code is open, it won't work on ARM. Like OpenRA.

I believe the only thing that was stopping OpenRA was Mono which is now available on ARM and even on the Pandora thanks to Ptitseb: http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=monort-ptitseb

So maybe some one could give it a go..

 

[Binky]

doesn't look like we'll have the battery life of the Open Pandora

Modern are SOCs are rather more efficient than the OMAP3 in the pandora, and the Pyra will have a signifacantly higher-capacity battery.

You'll be able to do more computations, and/or for longer.

If you use the same software as on the pandora, the battery life will be significantly improved.

If you are a normal user who wants instant response, but infrequently (like rendering web pages), the pyra will be able to do the job faster than the pandora, and then cut back on power consumption while idle.

If you run the Pyra flat out, it will last for a short time, but you'll get a huge amount of computation done.

What's the problem?

 

[Grench]

Maybe someone already suggested that, but what about a x86 SoC ?

I realize you're just trolling.  But if we -had- been developing around the Intel z3770, we would already have a same-socket upgrade available for production in the Z3795.

http://ark.intel.com/products/80267/Intel-Atom-Processor-Z3795-2M-Cache-up-to-2_39-GHz

Quad core, 64bit, 4GB of 17 GB/s RAM, 2W design envelope - what's not to like?

Yes, it was squashed with good reason - there wasn't a dev board available.  As far as I know there still isn't a Bay Trail-T dev board option.

Back to cheering for the OMAP 5 Pyra.

 

[Granitehead]

http://ark.intel.com/products/80267/Intel-Atom-Processor-Z3795-2M-Cache-up-to-2_39-GHz

Quad core, 64bit, 4GB of 17 GB/s RAM, 2W design envelope - what's not to like?

Yes, it was squashed with good reason - there wasn't a dev board available.  As far as I know there still isn't a Bay Trail-T dev board option.

2W isn't the maximum (while the I think 4W which have been thrown around for the OMAP5, most likely, are). On the other hand you forgot to mention it uses low power RAM, unlike the OMAP5 which uses full power regular RAM because it's not actually supposed to be used in mobile devices with tight power requirements if I got that right - the other model of the OMAP5, which was supposed to be used like that and supported low power RAM was cancelled by TI before it was even released.

 

[EvilDragon]

The problem with Intel CPUs is mostly the missing BIOS.

We've spoken with Intel, and while we can buy the SoC in any quantities, they suggest using a module as that has the BIOS included.

However, all available modules are way too big for us - so we'd need to create a BIOS ourselves, which is pretty hard.

 

[Granitehead]

The problem with Intel CPUs is mostly the missing BIOS.

We've spoken with Intel, and while we can buy the SoC in any quantities, they suggest using a module as that has the BIOS included.

However, all available modules are way too big for us - so we'd need to create a BIOS ourselves, which is pretty hard.

Pity.But good to know.

Edit: Maybe do a crowd funding for an x86 module later? That way you can be pretty sure you get the development cost back.

 

[fahrstuhl]

The problem with Intel CPUs is mostly the missing BIOS.


We've spoken with Intel, and while we can buy the SoC in any quantities, they suggest using a module as that has the BIOS included.


However, all available modules are way too big for us - so we'd need to create a BIOS ourselves, which is pretty hard.

Even with projects like Coreboot?

 

[Grench]

The problem with Intel CPUs is mostly the missing BIOS.


We've spoken with Intel, and while we can buy the SoC in any quantities, they suggest using a module as that has the BIOS included.


However, all available modules are way too big for us - so we'd need to create a BIOS ourselves, which is pretty hard.

Even with projects like Coreboot?

Maybe possible some day soon?

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY4NTY

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/third_party/coreboot/+/master/src/soc/intel/baytrail/Makefile.inc

 

[Granitehead]

The problem with Intel CPUs is mostly the missing BIOS.

We've spoken with Intel, and while we can buy the SoC in any quantities, they suggest using a module as that has the BIOS included.

However, all available modules are way too big for us - so we'd need to create a BIOS ourselves, which is pretty hard.

Even with projects like Coreboot?

 Maybe possible some day soon?

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY4NTY

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/third_party/coreboot/+/master/src/soc/intel/baytrail/Makefile.inc

http://xkcd.com/644/

 

[EvilDragon]

That's the software part. What we're missing is the hardware part. Each hardware has its own BIOS, so if we want to use the Baytrail, we need to design the hardware and then create the software BIOS for it.

The BIOS sets the registers, etc. For the hardware you use, it basically connects all the hardware pieces in your system together.

That's the hard thing. Wiring up an ARM SoC is way easier. Registers, etc. are all handled by the SoC already, all you basically need are the drivers.

It's a LOT more complex with Intel, where you need to setup these basic tasks yourself (based on your hardware design) before you can use it.

 

[gunrock]

So what you're describing is a chipset? A North/South bridge and a BIOS to configure it? 

If so, yeah, that's a whole lot of work...

The difference being the ARM solutions being a SOC and the Intel offering being a just a CPU I guess...

 

[EvilDragon]

So what you're describing is a chipset? A North/South bridge and a BIOS to configure it? 

If so, yeah, that's a whole lot of work...

The difference being the ARM solutions being a SOC and the Intel offering being a just a CPU I guess...

Yes, exactly. It's only a CPU, no full system like with ARM.

And the modules are all Q7 or a similar standard, so way too big.

 

[Grench]

So what you're describing is a chipset? A North/South bridge and a BIOS to configure it? 


If so, yeah, that's a whole lot of work...


The difference being the ARM solutions being a SOC and the Intel offering being a just a CPU I guess...

Yes, exactly. It's only a CPU, no full system like with ARM.


And the modules are all Q7 or a similar standard, so way too big.

The Q7 modules all appear to be for the non-tablet versions of the Bay Trail SoC.  They're for embedded and point of sale systems.  I seriously doubt that the tablets on the market use a Q7 - there simply aren't any Q7 using the Z3000 SoC.  I suspect the Intel folks really don't understand what a Pandora/Pyra is.  They seem to think it's a mini PC - netbook/notebook type thing - i.e. one size up from it's actual form factor.  I.e. they're pointing you toward the 10w E3800 series of Bay Trail - which isn't a proper solution.

If you have an occasion to revisit the conversation, maybe refer to it as a clam shell 5" tablet/phone with keyboard?  Somehow emphasize that the SoC you need information about is the Bay Trail-T, not it's hotter running SFF PC replacement cousins?

Unfortunately I don't think there is a canned module for the BayTrail T - it appears that tablet manufacturers are rolling their own on the motherboard solutions.

 

[EvilDragon]

I suspect the Intel folks really don't understand what a Pandora/Pyra is.  They seem to think it's a mini PC - netbook/notebook type thing - i.e. one size up from it's actual form factor.  I.e. they're pointing you toward the 10w E3800 series of Bay Trail - which isn't a proper solution.

They do. I was talking with a technical guy at the Embedded World last year and had a Pandora with me.

If you have an occasion to revisit the conversation, maybe refer to it as a clam shell 5" tablet/phone with keyboard?  Somehow emphasize that the SoC you need information about is the Bay Trail-T, not it's hotter running SFF PC replacement cousins?

Unfortunately I don't think there is a canned module for the BayTrail T - it appears that tablet manufacturers are rolling their own on the motherboard solutions.

If there's no canned module, we have to create the full hardware around it ourselves, which was the main reason we stopped investigating that, as it would push us back maybe a year or so...