[Arm-netbook] power consumption?

[Bari Ari]

On 01/13/2012 07:10 PM, lkcl luke wrote:
> hmmm... it might be worthwhile deliberately having the case at 8mm 
> (Type III PCMCIA) so that it doesn't fit into the smaller sockets. 
> that would make it possible to still fit the smaller cards into the 
> (larger) sockets. other remaining issue: power. PCMCIA's 68-pin 
> connector pins are limited to 0.5A each. if we made one of them 
> negotiable up to 12v (after power-up and reading the I2C EEPROM), that 
> would give almost 8 watts (12*0.5 + 5*0.5). do you think that would be 
> enough?

I started looking at the power pins more closely today. There are a few 
more grounds than V+ currently. Part of this is for accommodating 
separate analog and digital grounds. We could swap a ground for 5V or 12V.

The GPIO's could also be configured at plugin to have a few extra 5V or 
12V pins by reading an eeprom or pinstraps on the card.

The larger case for Type III would keep them from getting plugged into 
the smaller 5mm thick slots will work here again for EOMA68.

Type II cards may work in either Type II or Type III motherboards or 
devices.

Type III motherboards or devices could default to Type II mode at 
reset/power-on.

Type III cards won't fit in Type II devices so that problem is solved.

Type III devices could be detected by the Type III mainboard or device 
at reset/power-on by a pinstrap or eeprom on the module. The mainboard 
could have a cheap 8 bit micro to read the pinstrap or eeprom and 
configure a couple GPIO for use as power vs GPIO.

-Bari