[Arm-netbook] Future CPU cards

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

2016-07-31 14:51 David Boddie:
>Not wanting to revisit the discussion about the A20 but, instead, think about
>other processors that might perform better in the comparison table on this
>page: http://rhombus-tech.net/crowdsupply/
>
>I have no idea if it's even reasonable to discuss these as possible options,
>so don't all jump on me at once. :-)

(I have very little saying in the matter, so this is just my opinion).

As much nicer as other ARM 32-bits chipsets might turn out to be, I
don't think that they bring substantial changes to the table.  Of
course, if there are thousands of cards to be sold and they're easy to
design... sure, why not?  But personally I wouldn't find them very
compelling.

If the current campaign and everything else go well, I think that the
next step for CPU-cards ("next" not meaning "immediate" -- just "next
step in evolution", which might mean years of wall clock time) should be
to attempt 64-bit options, either ARM or MIPS (or quasi-MIPS like
Loongson).

To go forward into the "freedom trail" while keeping to "tried and
true", maybe SuperH sh4 (32-bits) is worth a shot now that the patents
are expiring and while the toolchain and things like the Debian port are
still almost 100% functional.  Maybe the people at 0pf.org will get
designs with the 64-bit version at some point in the next few
months/years.  But support for the 64-bits SH-5 has been recently
removed from GCC, so it doesn't look very good in that regard.

I'd also vouch for RISC-V (64-bits) or OpenRISC (32-bits), but Luke
explained the problem with OpenRISC in the thread on slashdot, and
RISC-V designs are not available yet.

I'm hopeful about RISC-V, though :-)


Cheers.
-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com>