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Exynos based quad-core developer boards, starting at $69

71 points| sharmajai | 13 years ago |hardkernel.com | reply

50 comments

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[+] trotsky|13 years ago|reply
Too bad none of these various hobbyist boards come with socs that support gigabit and sata. my $400 512mb single core synology nas is very jealous.
[+] 18pfsmt|13 years ago|reply
Agreed, this is all too common. Not to mention these supposed developer boards should not have audio, or half of the USB ports on offer. I would actually prefer dual gigabit LAN, as I'd guess most of us would prefer using these boards for headless operation (accessible via a browser for an end user). From what I've seen, most hobbyists aren't planning on making a mobile device, but more something like this:

http://www.marvell.com/solutions/education/cloud-computer-fo...

[+] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
Not to worry, they are coming. The current SOC vendors are targeting 'phones' and there isn't a market for a sata port and GbE on a phone yet. However Texas Instruments and others have seen the "Chromebook" light (which is so say that its not suicide to make a more general chip using the ARM instruction set architecture) so they are baking new chips as we speak. I'd expect that early next year, or at the latest summer 2013 we'll start seeing samples of the first chips that have these capabilities.
[+] brigade|13 years ago|reply
Freescale SoCs support gigabit ethernet and SATA, not many others do.

So i.MX6 based boards like the Sabre Lite and Nitrogen6X have both paired with quad core A9, at $200.

[+] gregsq|13 years ago|reply
I don't think gigabit Ethernet is common ( yet ). 10/100 is. The Arnedale board, with an Exynos 5 has sata and 10/100. Samsungs on a push in South Korea with partners. It's happening a little in the US too with TI partnering with Phytec and others.

This som doesn't have sata either.

http://www.phytec.com/products/som/phycore/omap5.html

[+] tucosan|13 years ago|reply
Exactly this. I wonder what the factor is that hinders gigabit ethernet and especially multiple sata ports. My pogoplug actually has an onboard sata port so it should be possible to integrate those without choking the arm board or running up hardware prices.
[+] est|13 years ago|reply
allwinner a10 does support sata and gigabit.

but not all boards have the ports

[+] zurn|13 years ago|reply
There's Pogoplug 4 with those. Amazon seems to have them for $59.
[+] coolnow|13 years ago|reply
Can someone clear something up for me? Are these chips comparable to the one in the Raspberry Pi? And are these developer boards are vastly more powerful than the Pi?

I'm not trying to start any arguments, i know the real purpose of the Pi and the usefulness of it, especially with the GPIO pins but i was just curious.

[+] stusmall|13 years ago|reply
That core is considerably faster but I don't know about its graphics if it has any.
[+] sriram_sun|13 years ago|reply
Wouldn't mind a larger board that exposes a number of pins for GPIO, I2C, SPI etc. from the SoC. I'm using the SoCs at www.gumstix.org with OpenEmbedded Linux for rapid work related prototyping.
[+] neya|13 years ago|reply
Just curious, is this stuff open source? Meaning, I use them for commercial production and I won't be sued for just using these boards(assuming I don't infringe on anything else)? Just curious.
[+] ajross|13 years ago|reply
That's not what open source means. But surely they wouldn't be legally able to sell them if the devices were encumbered somehow; the hardware isn't any different than what's in phones you can already buy.

But as far as open source goes: not quite. The Exynos runs linux, but with a driver suite that is partially closed. You'll be able to run whatever versions of whatever distros are supported, and not much else.

[+] donpark|13 years ago|reply
All I could find at the site (I can read Korean) was a rather ambiguous statement: "Full Schematics will be publically released on 31-January-2013." Nothing explicitly stating that their circuit board design will be placed in public domain. Also no signs of them having done full IP research.

Given that South Korean open source community is still in its infancy, I doubt their schematics will be released like Raspberry Pi guys did.

[+] tinco|13 years ago|reply
Yes, it's built using industry standard stuff. But that's not at all what open source means.

None of the schematics are freely available or reproduceable without permission, nor is the embedded software opensource.

The embedded software does expose 'open' standardized API's so the device works with opensource software.

[+] unknown|13 years ago|reply

[deleted]

[+] Luc|13 years ago|reply
It's a great way of showing off the size of the board (the VISA number has been 'shopped).
[+] drivebyacct2|13 years ago|reply
This is the SOC in the Nexus 10 right? Is someone working on a linux port for the N10?

How's the video acceleration on this? I need to start a blog. I read like 2-3 hours worth of ARM news once or twice a week trying to track down the best HW/SW/price combination for a simple dumb XBMC-upnp frontend.

The Rockchip devices have pretty crap support, though AMLogic released some sources that might help. Allwinner is finally making progress via AW's CedarX, though it's apparently still sufficiently buggy and they're back at the mercy of Allwinner.

I've yet to see much about the Samsung setup though. I love the Exynos and would very happily spend another $100 in an attempt to find the right thing.

That having been said, there are ~$50 versions of the HDMI stick that have powerful Cortex A9s in them that make these look over priced.

[+] mtgx|13 years ago|reply
No, this is based on Cortex A9 and Mali400. It's the SoC inside all the latest Samsung devices except Nexus 10. If you want the Nexus 10 board (Cortex A15/Mali T604), you can get it here:

http://www.arndaleboard.org

As for XBMC, there are several $100-$200 dual core Cortex A9 Google TV options, or you can get an OUYA:

http://www.ouya.tv

[+] 18pfsmt|13 years ago|reply
>trying to track down the best HW/SW/price combination for a simple dumb XBMC-upnp frontend.

What's wrong with the Apple TV 2 with XBMC? Does it really need to be cheaper than $100 which includes power supply, and a decent enclosure? I've considered this a solved problem for a while.

[+] makmanalp|13 years ago|reply
Such a blog would be awesome, or even better a comparison site like snapsort.com. There are so many new ones coming out and so much vaporware that it's hard to keep track.

A killer dev board for me would have:

- at least 2 cores - Linux-supported GPU, preferably with open drivers that are being actively developed - Able to run rudimentary linux desktop powerwise)

Nice to haves: - USB powered - HDMI

I don't want to buy a dev board and have to add 10 different addons with cables and junk hanging around it. If a lot of this comes builtin, I'm willing to drop a larger chunk of cash.

[+] esolyt|13 years ago|reply
> This is the SOC in the Nexus 10 right?

Unfortunately no. Nexus 10 has the more powerful Exynos 5250.

[+] thaumaturgy|13 years ago|reply
We love our first-gen Raspberry Pi running XBMC.