Embedded Platform

I just worked with a product called PICOBSD. It is an embedded small Linux, that boots on X86 hardware. The app I was looking at was "DUMMYNET", made by an Italian profession, Luigi Rizzo. This BSD based system boots from a floppy, is fully configurable, and can be a basis for a first embedded project. You don't even have to format the drive....It will boot from the floppy.

Give it a try...then invest in your expensive hardware.

Take a look at

-- Shutruk

Huh? A _BSD_ based _Linux_ system?

I didn't find anything there. Are you talking about to download the linux source. Actually I was asking for cheap hardware platform.

Thanks and regards

--Himanshu

I guess this is similar to your classmate's question "Changing PC to Hardware Reference Design (PPC/ARM,etc)". The purpose of a reference design is to learn and get familiar with a chip's architecture. If you are tied to the x86 (pc), you are leaning nothing more than x86.

Of course, you can put an ARM core in FPGA/ASIC for x86 compatible I/O and plug in an x86 MB, but what's the point of doing so?

Oh! great! thanks for the information! But the thing is x86 is something that is ubiquitous. I don't know about my __classmate__ because I don't think he is in India. I have order a simputer for my purposes which already runs linux 2.4.18 series kernel and X window system. Its ARM based device designed by scientists at IISc Banglore. You can visit

Thanks and Regards

--Himanshu

Just kidding, since there are so many similar questions here.

This is based on the xscale pxa27x with 32M embedded SDRAM. I don't think you can do much with 32M on X. There are some others with 64M. But we really want 128M or 256M SDRAM on a board we are working on.

I agree resources might be low, but its something that you can get for peanuts here. Moreover, its possibly the best way to get started. Even if you can do much with X, I agree, but there is alots of space to tinker with kernel. Which I am mainly into. So do you think even for that purposes its too low on resources? I dont think :-)

regards

--Himanshu

If you don't need X, that would be fine. We checked into using one of those in a project, but the memory spaces are too limited. We also looked into the gumstik (with expansion bus capabilities), but the processor is older (pxa255 vs. pxa27x). We are still waiting for the next version of gumstik (pxa27x with USB host) or our own board, whichever come first. Basically, we need USB host (or OTG) with at least 128M.

You mean you tried a simputer in a project or are you talking about the uc used? The uc they are using have been discontinued by intel. But still it would prove to be a good jump start.

Regards

--Himanshu

We are trying to use the Xscale pxa270, bare chip or in modules. But most of the modules we checked are limited in memory and require building a board anyone. So, we are close to building a 3.5"x3.5" module with SDRAM and CF. Now, we need to figure out how to port linux on it. Our idea is to Jtag a 2K boot loader on the CF in memory mapped mode and the rest in IDE mode. The board will have 128M minimum and USB host controller (for external devices).

We can provide hardware and incentive for people who want to contribute on the

1. Boot loader itself (ARM assembler)
2. Jtag loader (loading the above from a PC) etc.

The rest should be just standard ARM linux.

So, you are going for your own PCB connections instead of modules or evaluation boards right?

I would love to contribute if you find its alright. But then more information is needed. Whats to be done for that? I would love to work on boot loader.

Thanks and regards

--Himanshu

Yes, we are almost done with a 6 layers board (8 mils) (still need to redo some paths for trace clearances). The chip is a 22x22x4 (LengthxWidthxRows) big Plastic Ball Grid Array. Unfortunately, it does not have options for FLASH or SDRAM, unlike the micro BGA version. Most other designs use the micro BGA with embedded FLASH/SDRAM, but the board will be very fine (4 mils) and expensive.

We are going to boot from CF. In linear mode, CF allows 2K bytes of directly addressable boot code. The Xscale has jtag (namely, we can take over most I/O pins), so we can download into the CF. The boot loader needs to enable the SDRAM controller and load the kernel on it.

We can send you a board

By the way, the connectors on the top are: 10 pins Jtag/I2C, 22 pins LCD, 10 pins USB host/client. SDRAM expansion on the left, CF expansion on the right. IDE (40 pins) and SFIDE (44 pins) on the bottom.

Hi!!

But that link doesn't seem to work!!

regards

--Himanshu

Sorry, you can try

Ok! it works fine. When is the board supposed to be ready?

Regards

--Himanshu

Good question, that what we've been asking the factory as well. We designed the micro-via/pad (through each Ball) with 0.3mm/0.5mm, but they are re-designing it with 0.5mm/0.7mm. We don't want them to push for their process limit any way.

But we can go ahead with the software and tools. We plan to program it through a PC parallel port, so we need a 5V (PC) to 3.3V (Xscale) level shifting cable.