Re: Choice of Reference Design Board

[Steve Mueller <steve@segfault.net>]

Hi,

I found the OMAP 5912 OSK but it does not seem to come with any
GSM capability. The diagram does not show a GSM baseband chip and the
picture of a board does not show a plug for the antenna or a sim socket.

The OMAP 730 Reference Design Platform (P2) seems to have all this.
It is currently only available to handset manufacturers (correct?).

Unfortunately I'm not a handset manufacturer. I'm an independent developer
fascinated by GSM and the OMAP. Is there any way I can purchase a P2 from
TI or from a TI partner?

I'm happy to buy one second hand. If anyone on here is selling one
or can give me some tips it would be appreciated.

thanks for getting me started,
regards,

Steve Mueller

> 
> You will find there are a few OMAP variants.  Many are used in phones.  
> 
> On high end phones the chip set usually consists of 2 chips, an application processor and a modem processor.  The data you are looking for generally passes over some chip to chip link.  This link varies per vendor.  It might be on uart, usb, ssi, shared external memory...
> 
> On lower or mid phones you might find the app and modem are controlled from the same chip (either on 1 core, or some kind of multi-core, on 1 chip).  If its multi-core it is similar to the above but likely just shares via internal memory and some mailbox, but could be other.  You probably won't find as may single core ones in Linux as there are GPL worries for vendors.  There is some active research in virtualization as a way to try and address that.
> 
> For lower cost platforms you can get the OSK series.  TI also has other references platforms but are harder to get and cost more.  If you can wait a couple months you will likely see several low cost platforms starting to come out which may suit your itches much better.
> 
> Regards,
> Richard W.
>