[Arm-netbook] Allwinner outsells Intel

[joem]

On Fri, 2013-05-10 at 11:45 +0200, Vladimir Pantelic wrote:
> On 05/10/2013 09:40 AM, joem wrote:
> > The first attempt was the dual CPU ARM board
> > http://www.gplsquared.com/SoM1/SoM1.html
> >
> > Then I realize the bit rates for LCD is best
> > served by CPU with built in LCD controller, and even better with Linux
> > running to manage and use cheap A10 as the CPU and the even
> > higher pin counts matter. Could instead use USB/USB links as well,
> > but the overheads might cripple data transfer rates.
> > Current idea (which may change) is 32 bits for image in, 32 bits
> > for image out and a few control lines for hand shaking.
> 
> so you want to use bitbanged GPIOs to pipe data from one CPU to the 
> other? do you plan to poll the control lines thus hogging the CPU or to 
> get an interrupt for each 32bit word?

pass (because the boards have not been built yes - this conversation is
way too forward looking in a market that is constantly changing) - you
got around 16ms per frame, or about 16 million CPU instructions you can
execute before you must do something about that frame.

Dropping a frame or part of a frame has no terrible consequences.

> > So an n stage image pipeline can be built fairly easily.
> 
> sure, the throughput will still by abysmal...

Numbers?

In what way? 

An 800x600 24 bit video stream may still leave
CPU 98% idle as derived in a previous post.

> > Once built its game over for graphics IP trolls and their NDAs.
> > But if they were to release documentation it may never get built.
> 
> ah, it's a clever plot to make IP trolls release their documentation :)

None other! :)

As soon as they stop wasting everyone's time and energy,
we can stop wasting ours.

Putting in extremely powerful graphics engines into consumer products is
what sells products. Somehow the graphics IP trolls have forgotten this.
I'm so fed up, I will spend money to get boards built.
I'm sure others will too out of no choice.
There are a number of open source graphics controller projects again
stemming from this frustration but none have matured yet.
So IMHO, the graphics controller IP trolls have gotten away with it for
far too long, and with products like Allwinner A10, and KiCAD,
there is a good chance it will sweep them away.

But as I say, please wait for the boards to be built, tested
and working. (Primary objective is to make reliable working A10 board
and other SoM boards, EOMA laptops and such - not graphics controllers.)