Beagleboard clone re-design

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1

Dear Beagleboard friends,

I am an avid fan of beagleboard, don't have a board yet, but intend to
make one myself.
Have been looking at the schematics and the complexities of the board
and its manufacturing process. The crux of the problem is the pcb
manufacturing process and also the soldering process is very critical.

I have been pondering over the idea of redesigning the Beagleboard
where these are the main points for considering re-design.

1. The board should be 2-4 layer design, even if it increases the
size. In India we have manufacturing process up to 4 layer design, 6
layer seems currently next to impossible.

2. Put DDR2/DDR3/SDRAM memory chipset we use in the computers instead
of the POP Package, this will reduce the soldering re-flow
complexity. DDR would be appropriate as now a days SDRAM chip are not
easily available.

3. Keep the I2C, I2S, SPI, JTAG, Stereo I/O, RS232, USB 2.0 OTG, S-
video and Alternate power remove DVI, most cases S-Video or standard
VGA adapter would work in developing countries.

4. Introduce SATA HDD capabilities, along with the already available
SD/MMC interface using SPI.

5. Reducing the cost, try to put non-SMD component to SMD wherever
possible, soldering would be easier.

Keeping the cost low, is like the TATA Nano, $2000 small wonder car
effect,
want to bring the same effect to Beagleboard initiative.

Gerard, need your opinion and support to make this.

Beagleboard friends your thoughts on this one.

2

Sid wrote:

Dear Beagleboard friends,

I am an avid fan of beagleboard, don't have a board yet, but intend to
make one myself.
Have been looking at the schematics and the complexities of the board
and its manufacturing process. The crux of the problem is the pcb
manufacturing process and also the soldering process is very critical.

I have been pondering over the idea of redesigning the Beagleboard
where these are the main points for considering re-design.

1. The board should be 2-4 layer design, even if it increases the
size. In India we have manufacturing process up to 4 layer design, 6
layer seems currently next to impossible.

good luck.

2. Put DDR2/DDR3/SDRAM memory chipset we use in the computers instead
of the POP Package, this will reduce the soldering re-flow
complexity. DDR would be appropriate as now a days SDRAM chip are not
easily available.

the omap3 used on the BB does not support that type of memory, only
mobile-DDR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_DDR)

3. Keep the I2C, I2S, SPI, JTAG, Stereo I/O, RS232, USB 2.0 OTG, S-
video and Alternate power remove DVI, most cases S-Video or standard
VGA adapter would work in developing countries.

4. Introduce SATA HDD capabilities, along with the already available
SD/MMC interface using SPI.

SPI? you want to connect SATA over SPI? or add a USB2SATA bridge?
how does any of that relate to 5)

5. Reducing the cost, try to put non-SMD component to SMD wherever
possible, soldering would be easier.

really?

3

Thanks Vladimir,

What i meant was keep the existing expansion bus as it is , only add
SATA interface,
along with the existing SD/MMC interface which i think is SPI based.

Really :slight_smile:

Cheers
Sid

4

I think many of ideas seem to be possible but I don't think the
implementation of them will reduce the system cost. As Vladimir
mentioned, OMAP3 itself is not ready to utilize DDR2+ memory or SATA,
so you will obviously have to install different bridges or adapters.
And I'm pretty sure they are not so cheap as expected. But, if you are
going to sell thousands of your devices annually then this effort can
be vital. Anyway the use of 2-4 layer boards for DDR2+ system is
almost impossible.

5

If you really want to use DDR2 memory, there is another 833Mhz cortex-A8
processor based open source project.

http://dev.odroid.com/projects/odroid/wiki/HardwareInformation

6

he-he

i.MX51 supports DDR2 and all the same features as omap3. And comparing
to Samsung, Freescale has more convenient support. Frankly speaking
Samsung has not any :slight_smile:

If I'm not mistaken, TI plans to release omap3730 which will support
DDR2 memory. but I don't know when :slight_smile:

Max

7

it has a dsp?

8

No, i.MX51 doesn't have the DSP.
But, it has powerful hardwired Video accelerator.
You can also use NEON-SIMD.

9

Hi Koen!

imx51 does not have DSP, but it can decode 720p video. Mentioned
S5PC100 does not either, but still can decode 720p. Can DSP in omap3
decode higher resolution?

Anyway I chose omap because of open Beagleboard design and a lot of
free software. I can't say the same about i.mx and samsung

Regards,
Max

10

Hi Koen!

imx51 does not have DSP, but it can decode 720p video. Mentioned
S5PC100 does not either, but still can decode 720p. Can DSP in omap3
decode higher resolution?

Anyway I chose omap because of open Beagleboard design and a lot of
free software. I can't say the same about i.mx and samsung

Regards,
Max

11

Maxim Podbereznyi wrote:

Hi Koen!

imx51 does not have DSP, but it can decode 720p video. Mentioned
S5PC100 does not either, but still can decode 720p. Can DSP in omap3
decode higher resolution?

Anyway I chose omap because of open Beagleboard design and a lot of
free software. I can't say the same about i.mx and samsung

yes, we can go back and forth about the different cpus all day, but designing your
own hw with any of them is a huge task (even more in 4 layers...)