rhombus tech eoma68 ingenic jz4775 cpu card

rhombus tech eoma68 ingenic jz4775 cpu card

[lkcl .]

hi all,

i'm a long-standing software libre advocate and developer and i tend
to tackle the areas where free software doesn't have someone already
working on it.  that has taken me into hardware design, so i'd like to
let people here know that i have designed a hardware standard (eoma68)
and have been working with ingenic to create a CPU card using the
ingenic JZ4775. info on the standard is here:
http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68#Table_of_EOMA-68_pinouts

the PCB designs are done and will be sent off to be prototyped (qty 5
are planned at the moment) at the beginning of next month (september).
it will be the very first CPU card that could go into FSF-Endorseable
products and be reasonably popular, as Ingenic have, bless 'em, even
released the full source code of the VPU drivers.  no, not "a .a or
.so with some header files", *actual* full source.  also as people
familiar with Ingenic X-Burst will know, although it is a bit
challenging the 3D libraries are also fully software libre.

very very early Ingenic SoCs (JZ4740) only used X-Burst: ingenic then
unfortunately licensed proprietary 2D/3D/VPU hard macros for a while
but the JZ4775 is the first 1ghz (i.e. modern-ish) SoC that can
address 3Gb (i.e. modern-ish) DDR3 RAM and *doesn't* include
proprietary drivers.

so! :)

if anyone would like to get involved, just let me know, i will be
happy to answer.  just so you know, i am subscribed (digest) to
linux-mips.

l.

Re: rhombus tech eoma68 ingenic jz4775 cpu card

[Paul Burton]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 12:18:56PM +0100, lkcl . wrote:
> hi all,
> 
> i'm a long-standing software libre advocate and developer and i tend
> to tackle the areas where free software doesn't have someone already
> working on it.  that has taken me into hardware design, so i'd like to
> let people here know that i have designed a hardware standard (eoma68)
> and have been working with ingenic to create a CPU card using the
> ingenic JZ4775. info on the standard is here:
> http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68#Table_of_EOMA-68_pinouts
> 
> the PCB designs are done and will be sent off to be prototyped (qty 5
> are planned at the moment) at the beginning of next month (september).
> it will be the very first CPU card that could go into FSF-Endorseable
> products and be reasonably popular, as Ingenic have, bless 'em, even
> released the full source code of the VPU drivers.  no, not "a .a or
> .so with some header files", *actual* full source.  also as people
> familiar with Ingenic X-Burst will know, although it is a bit
> challenging the 3D libraries are also fully software libre.
> 
> very very early Ingenic SoCs (JZ4740) only used X-Burst: ingenic then
> unfortunately licensed proprietary 2D/3D/VPU hard macros for a while
> but the JZ4775 is the first 1ghz (i.e. modern-ish) SoC that can
> address 3Gb (i.e. modern-ish) DDR3 RAM and *doesn't* include
> proprietary drivers.
> 
> so! :)
> 
> if anyone would like to get involved, just let me know, i will be
> happy to answer.  just so you know, i am subscribed (digest) to
> linux-mips.
> 
> l.

Hi Luke :)

That all sounds very interesting! I would definitely be interested in
getting involved & helping out, and I imagine others at Imagination
may be too!

We have recently begun releasing a board based around the jz4780[1] so
have been doing a fair bit of work on that SoC, are familiar with some
of the older SoCs in the jz47xx series and I believe should have access
to some other jz4775 based boards. There is also the jz4770 based GCW
zero project[2] which is interested in developing, improving &
mainlining Linux support for that SoC and there is of course the
existing in-tree jz4740 support. Effectively we're all aiming towards
having in-tree support for the whole series of jz47xx SoCs so if you're
interested in collaborating on that, it would be fantastic!

Did you have anything concrete in mind that would be helpful at this
stage, or are you more judging interest?

Thanks,
    Paul

[1]: http://elinux.org/MIPS_Creator_CI20
[2]: http://www.gcw-zero.com/

Re: rhombus tech eoma68 ingenic jz4775 cpu card

[Paul Burton]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 12:18:56PM +0100, lkcl . wrote:
> hi all,
> 
> i'm a long-standing software libre advocate and developer and i tend
> to tackle the areas where free software doesn't have someone already
> working on it.  that has taken me into hardware design, so i'd like to
> let people here know that i have designed a hardware standard (eoma68)
> and have been working with ingenic to create a CPU card using the
> ingenic JZ4775. info on the standard is here:
> http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68#Table_of_EOMA-68_pinouts
> 
> the PCB designs are done and will be sent off to be prototyped (qty 5
> are planned at the moment) at the beginning of next month (september).
> it will be the very first CPU card that could go into FSF-Endorseable
> products and be reasonably popular, as Ingenic have, bless 'em, even
> released the full source code of the VPU drivers.  no, not "a .a or
> .so with some header files", *actual* full source.  also as people
> familiar with Ingenic X-Burst will know, although it is a bit
> challenging the 3D libraries are also fully software libre.
> 
> very very early Ingenic SoCs (JZ4740) only used X-Burst: ingenic then
> unfortunately licensed proprietary 2D/3D/VPU hard macros for a while
> but the JZ4775 is the first 1ghz (i.e. modern-ish) SoC that can
> address 3Gb (i.e. modern-ish) DDR3 RAM and *doesn't* include
> proprietary drivers.
> 
> so! :)
> 
> if anyone would like to get involved, just let me know, i will be
> happy to answer.  just so you know, i am subscribed (digest) to
> linux-mips.
> 
> l.

Hi Luke :)

That all sounds very interesting! I would definitely be interested in
getting involved & helping out, and I imagine others at Imagination
may be too!

We have recently begun releasing a board based around the jz4780[1] so
have been doing a fair bit of work on that SoC, are familiar with some
of the older SoCs in the jz47xx series and I believe should have access
to some other jz4775 based boards. There is also the jz4770 based GCW
zero project[2] which is interested in developing, improving &
mainlining Linux support for that SoC and there is of course the
existing in-tree jz4740 support. Effectively we're all aiming towards
having in-tree support for the whole series of jz47xx SoCs so if you're
interested in collaborating on that, it would be fantastic!

Did you have anything concrete in mind that would be helpful at this
stage, or are you more judging interest?

Thanks,
    Paul

[1]: http://elinux.org/MIPS_Creator_CI20
[2]: http://www.gcw-zero.com/

Re: rhombus tech eoma68 ingenic jz4775 cpu card

[lkcl .]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Paul Burton <paul.burton@imgtec.com> wrote:

> Hi Luke :)

 hii paul, nice to meet you

> That all sounds very interesting! I would definitely be interested in
> getting involved & helping out, and I imagine others at Imagination
> may be too!

 _great_.

> We have recently begun releasing a board based around the jz4780[1] so
> have been doing a fair bit of work on that SoC,

 yehhh i have been waiting a long time for ingenic to come up with a SoC
 that has reasonable (i'd prefer great!) specs that does *not* need proprietary
 libraries, so i have avoided the jz4780 although the GPU has been
 successfully reverse-engineered.

 what i am really looking forward to is when ingenic come out with a quad-core
 FSF-Endorseable SoC: that's when the fun really starts.

> are familiar with some
> of the older SoCs in the jz47xx series and I believe should have access
> to some other jz4775 based boards. There is also the jz4770 based GCW
> zero project[2]

 http://www.gcw-zero.com/specifications very cool.  you might be
interested to know that there is someone creating an eoma68 games
console base unit, with quite high specs (capacitive touchpanel, 5in
1280x720 LCD).

> Did you have anything concrete in mind that would be helpful at this
> stage, or are you more judging interest?

 bit of both.  background: with 4 CPU cards coming out (ICubeCorp
IC1T, Allwinner A20, Allwinner A33 and Ingenic JZ4775) in the next few
months and an upcoming (first) crowdfunding campaign i simply won't
have time to get everything done myself, so i will kinda need some
help.

so it's a "yes let people know the project exists, see who's out
there, who'd like some cool early hardware" and also a "these are the
things that need doing, who'd like to help" enquiry.

and on that list, getting *a* kernel and OS installed is right at the
top!  literally this will be a bare board, direct from the prototyping
company.  then begins the task of working out if the hardware's good
by learning at the same time how to get an OS onto the card *at all*
:)

so that's at the micro-level: at the larger level, to give some
perspective, the goal of the rhombus tech project is to create
desirable mass-volume affordable environmentally-conscious computing
appliances, and inviting software libre developers to be involved with
that process at every step of the way.

it's quite an ambitious long-term project and the EOMA68 standard is a
key part of that, being designed to last at least a decade.

l.

Re: rhombus tech eoma68 ingenic jz4775 cpu card

[Zubair Lutfullah Kakakhel]

On 27/08/14 13:05, lkcl . wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Paul Burton <paul.burton@imgtec.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Luke :)
> 
>  hii paul, nice to meet you
> 
>> That all sounds very interesting! I would definitely be interested in
>> getting involved & helping out, and I imagine others at Imagination
>> may be too!
> 

Indeed!

>> Did you have anything concrete in mind that would be helpful at this
>> stage, or are you more judging interest?
> 
>  bit of both.  background: with 4 CPU cards coming out (ICubeCorp
> IC1T, Allwinner A20, Allwinner A33 and Ingenic JZ4775) in the next few
> months and an upcoming (first) crowdfunding campaign i simply won't
> have time to get everything done myself, so i will kinda need some
> help.

That's an ambitious list of CPU cards..

> 
> so it's a "yes let people know the project exists, see who's out
> there, who'd like some cool early hardware" and also a "these are the
> things that need doing, who'd like to help" enquiry.

Hello from me as well. :)

> 
> and on that list, getting *a* kernel and OS installed is right at the
> top!  literally this will be a bare board, direct from the prototyping
> company.  then begins the task of working out if the hardware's good
> by learning at the same time how to get an OS onto the card *at all*
> :)
> 
> so that's at the micro-level: at the larger level, to give some
> perspective, the goal of the rhombus tech project is to create
> desirable mass-volume affordable environmentally-conscious computing
> appliances, and inviting software libre developers to be involved with
> that process at every step of the way.
> 
> it's quite an ambitious long-term project and the EOMA68 standard is a
> key part of that, being designed to last at least a decade.

Ambitious indeed. Hope it kicks off.

ZubairLK

Re: rhombus tech eoma68 ingenic jz4775 cpu card

[Zubair Lutfullah Kakakhel]

On 27/08/14 13:05, lkcl . wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Paul Burton <paul.burton@imgtec.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Luke :)
> 
>  hii paul, nice to meet you
> 
>> That all sounds very interesting! I would definitely be interested in
>> getting involved & helping out, and I imagine others at Imagination
>> may be too!
> 

Indeed!

>> Did you have anything concrete in mind that would be helpful at this
>> stage, or are you more judging interest?
> 
>  bit of both.  background: with 4 CPU cards coming out (ICubeCorp
> IC1T, Allwinner A20, Allwinner A33 and Ingenic JZ4775) in the next few
> months and an upcoming (first) crowdfunding campaign i simply won't
> have time to get everything done myself, so i will kinda need some
> help.

That's an ambitious list of CPU cards..

> 
> so it's a "yes let people know the project exists, see who's out
> there, who'd like some cool early hardware" and also a "these are the
> things that need doing, who'd like to help" enquiry.

Hello from me as well. :)

> 
> and on that list, getting *a* kernel and OS installed is right at the
> top!  literally this will be a bare board, direct from the prototyping
> company.  then begins the task of working out if the hardware's good
> by learning at the same time how to get an OS onto the card *at all*
> :)
> 
> so that's at the micro-level: at the larger level, to give some
> perspective, the goal of the rhombus tech project is to create
> desirable mass-volume affordable environmentally-conscious computing
> appliances, and inviting software libre developers to be involved with
> that process at every step of the way.
> 
> it's quite an ambitious long-term project and the EOMA68 standard is a
> key part of that, being designed to last at least a decade.

Ambitious indeed. Hope it kicks off.

ZubairLK

Re: rhombus tech eoma68 ingenic jz4775 cpu card

[lkcl .]

On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 10:43 AM, Zubair Lutfullah Kakakhel
<Zubair.Kakakhel@imgtec.com> wrote:

>>> Did you have anything concrete in mind that would be helpful at this
>>> stage, or are you more judging interest?
>>
>>  bit of both.  background: with 4 CPU cards coming out (ICubeCorp
>> IC1T, Allwinner A20, Allwinner A33 and Ingenic JZ4775) in the next few
>> months and an upcoming (first) crowdfunding campaign i simply won't
>> have time to get everything done myself, so i will kinda need some
>> help.
>
> That's an ambitious list of CPU cards..

 yes - and it makes it clear that the project is most definitely not
about "one product".  basically i have been preparing for a time when
i have enough funding to create the prototype hardware: that's now
happened (nice contract) so i can now get the boards done.  it just so
happens that there are 4 CPU cards ready and 2 base units ready, as i
have a looot of preparing-time available :)

 so, the first "base unit" will be a micro-desktop: this can also act
as a simple test station for the cpu cards; the second base will be a
tablet/netbook PCB.  the first prototypes of the micro-desktop will be
done in about 6 weeks, the tablet/netbook PCB will be a month after
that.

 so, the schedule of arriving hardware that's immediately relevant
will be that in about 6 weeks time i will have 5 JZ4775 CPU Cards
available and 5 micro-desktop base units.  they will be a bit like
gold-dust esp. the micro-desktop bases so i will be happy to loan them
out to anyone willing to help, and maybe give just the one to someone
who can definitely commit to helping with the board bring-up.

 if you and paul are at the same company maybe that would work out well, zubair?

l.