Hallo Luke,
surely you know the ARM Cortex-A15. I would like the drawbacks of the PYRA. Can you please, if you have the time, tell me something about it. Especially the GPU, are there any gpl violations of the producers of the Cortex A15 and why you did not choose it for the eoma68. I do not find it in your comparison of the processors.
Many thanks!
Wolfgang
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Wolfgang Romey (hier) hier@wolfgangromey.de wrote:
Hallo Luke,
surely you know the ARM Cortex-A15.
yes. it's the much-higher-power-performance variant of the A15. as such about the only possible SoCs we could put into EOMA68 if they use A15 is if they were single-core.
I would like the drawbacks of the PYRA. Can you please, if you have the time, tell me something about it.
the pyra uses the OMAP5 which is fine... i just won't use it because of PowerVR. every single company that has ever gotten involved with a PowerVR GPU has had absolute hell from its users. that includes Intel, with their early Atom series about a decade ago.
Especially the GPU, are there any gpl violations of the producers of the Cortex A15 and why you did not choose it for the eoma68. I do not find it in your comparison of the processors.
that's because Cortex A15 is a *type of processor* - it's a licenseable hard macro from ARM - not an *actual* processor make/model in and of itself.
remember, ARM licenses processor *designs*, they do **NOT** actually *MAKE* processors. they're what's called a "fabless semiconductor design company".
l.
Am Freitag, 5. August 2016, 15:43:31 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
that's because Cortex A15 is a *type of processor* - it's a licenseable hard macro from ARM - not an *actual* processor make/model in and of itself.
So one has to look, who is the actual producer of the processor and if they are gpl violators.
BTW: https://pod.geraspora.de/posts/5099003 https://loadaverage.org/notice/8377990
Wolfgang
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 3:58 PM, Wolfgang Romey hier@wolfgangromey.de wrote:
Am Freitag, 5. August 2016, 15:43:31 schrieb Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton:
that's because Cortex A15 is a *type of processor* - it's a licenseable hard macro from ARM - not an *actual* processor make/model in and of itself.
So one has to look, who is the actual producer of the processor and if they are gpl violators.
correct. it's got nothing to do with ARM... despite ARM being the licensor of their processor design.
BTW: https://pod.geraspora.de/posts/5099003 https://loadaverage.org/notice/8377990
cool!
El Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 03:43:31PM +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton deia:
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Wolfgang Romey (hier) hier@wolfgangromey.de wrote:
Hallo Luke,
surely you know the ARM Cortex-A15.
yes. it's the much-higher-power-performance variant of the A15. as such about the only possible SoCs we could put into EOMA68 if they use A15 is if they were single-core.
I'm not sure I understand Luke's text. Are you saying that OMAP5432 (the SOC in the Pyra, dual A15 cores + dual small M4 cores + etc) dissipates or consumes too much power for EOMA-68 ?
I have no idea how much power it consumes, I've only found:
The TI OMAP5432EVM uses a 12 Volt, laptop-style power brick. When the board is plugged into power and left off it used 0.7 Watts. At idle without X Window running, it used 3.4 Watts. Running one instance of "openssl speed" needed 4.4 Watts and two simultaneous instances moved up to 5.2 Watts. Playing the h264 1080p Big Buck Bunny took 4.7 Watts when using the special hardware video decoding. Note that these numbers are using the 60 Watt laptop style power brick which itself will likely be running at a fairly low efficiency at the low end of its power spectrum. So, for example, the OMAP5432EVM might only be seeing less than half the 4.4 Watts consumed at the wall.
https://www.linux.com/news/omap5432-review-texas-instruments-dual-core-arm-a...
I don't know enough electronics to understand it but I think it means they measured the power that went into the power source, not the power that went out, and they think the power source efficiency might be less than 50% (but they don't seem to know). This tells little of the actual power used by the SOC or SBC, just an upper limit. That's with 2GB RAM and 4GB flash.
The passive heat dissipator in the photo (other photos here http://www.ti.com/tool/omap5432-evm#0 ) does not seem huge, but a dissipator obviously won't fit in a EOMA68 card.
When I search for images of "Allwinner A20 board" I don't see dissipators over the A20, so it looks like the OMAP5432 will get hotter. If you add flash and RAM (you might want to put more than the current EOMA-68 cpu card) ... looks like too hot. But who knows, it doesn't look like terribly hot...
If this is current and I interpret it right...
http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68#Physical_Dimens...
Connectors or antenas can protude outside of a EOMA-68 card. Maybe some type of kind of heat sink could protude also (if you can protect it against burning someone's hand or something), or maybe a card could be longer than 90 mm with the more heating components falling outside the device for easier ventilation ? Not sure that'd be compliant, though.
the pyra uses the OMAP5 which is fine... i just won't use it because of PowerVR. every single company that has ever gotten involved with a PowerVR GPU has had absolute hell from its users. that includes Intel, with their early Atom series about a decade ago.
That's just the 3D acceleration. It could go unused just like Mali goes in the RYF A20 card. 2D aceleration is Vivante GC320 (the analogue to G2D) and might eventually have free drivers with etnaviv (needs porting/adaptation). But there may be more components without free drivers (video acceleration?) .
--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 6:21 PM, Xavi Drudis Ferran xdrudis@tinet.cat wrote:
El Fri, Aug 05, 2016 at 03:43:31PM +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton deia:
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Wolfgang Romey (hier) hier@wolfgangromey.de wrote:
Hallo Luke,
surely you know the ARM Cortex-A15.
yes. it's the much-higher-power-performance variant of the A15. as such about the only possible SoCs we could put into EOMA68 if they use A15 is if they were single-core.
I'm not sure I understand Luke's text. Are you saying that OMAP5432 (the SOC in the Pyra, dual A15 cores + dual small M4 cores + etc) dissipates or consumes too much power for EOMA-68 ?
too much power.. 4.7 watts to do video playback is far too uncomfortable. 5.2 watts and the power will be hard-cut without warning by the Housing's external PMICs (current limited to 1A @ 5V).
but, more than that: the reason why i'm not including the OMAP5 range is because Texas Instruments refuse to allow access to it.
the only reason that the pyra team is allowed access is because of the big splash and P.R. that went into the pandora, they were permitted access to the OMAP4.. thus the relationship is pre-established and they could gain access to the OMAP5.
for everybody else, the OMAP4 and OMAP5 is considered "mass-volume"... and is also BXPA "Weapons-Grade" Export-restricted... despite the fact that it's manufactured in Taiwan and that boards are usually made in the Far East.
TI have .. err... bureaucracy problems, shall we say.
l.
arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk
-
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton -
Wolfgang Romey -
Wolfgang Romey (hier)
-
Xavi Drudis Ferran