FriendlyArm has two boards, Micro 2440 & Mini 2440 based on Samsung S3C2440A SoC which contains ARM9 processor core.
Both board have common 64 MB SDRAM, NAND & NOR flash, LCD interface, Touch panel interface, camera interface, Ethernet & Audio In/Out, RTC, SD Card slot, Serial port & JTAG for debug & one USB device port.
While Micro 2440 has 1 USB Host, Mini 2440 has 4 port of USB Host. [Detailed comparison]
FriendlyArm also has 3.5 & 7 inch LCD & VGA board for expansion. Also USB Wifi & CMOS camera module is available as extra accessories.
Linux, Android & Win CE 5 & 6 support is available, which should be very handy. Schematics, User Manual & Data sheets are also available. Forum to discuss about board is quite active.
Quick Pros:
- Good form factor with compact design.
- 400 MHz is fairly good clock rate & device should be use full for hand held application.
Archive for the ‘ARM Core’ category
Micro 2440 & Mini 2440 from Friendlyarm.net
March 8th, 2010Neuros OSD2 : Open Internet Television Platform
January 30th, 2010Neuros Technology offers Open Internet Television Platform with simple aim to bring internet to TV. Neuros OSD1 was first in this series of product, which was upgraded to OSD2 with better functionality.
Neuros OSD2 is based on Texas Instruments Davinci Series of SoC TMS320DM6446 having ARM 9 processor core. It has capability to be used as capture AV content as well as playback content from USB storage device or network. OSD2 developer guide contains good list of available resources.
Pro:
- One can efficiently use Neuros OSD2 for Personal Video Recorder or Network Media Player.
Neo FreeRunner from Openmoko
January 20th, 2010Neo 1973 was first first major open hardware platform by Openmoko. Neo Freerunner was follow up of Neo 1973. Building open hardware mobile is challenge in itself. Primary because GSM chipset vendor do not provide small quantity of baseband chipset & would also not like to provide support for same.
Neo FreeRunner uses ARM9 processor based SC32442 from Samsung. FreeRunner is complete smartphone with LCD, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, Accelerometer besides GSM Baseband support for call & GPRS.
Neo FreeRunner is support by multiple Linux distribution & holds capabilities to support multi boot, This is clearly big feature on smartphone. Neo FreeRunner provides good platform for developing any hardware or software for Smartphone. Schematics, hardware reference manual etc are available to community for use.
Odroid : Entertainment Device
January 10th, 2010Odroid is developer focused entertainment / gaming device. It comes with schematics & includes itś support in Linux & Android.
Odroid contains Samsung S5PC100 SoC, which contains ARM Cortex-A8 833MHz processor. This gives healthy competition to Beagleboard, which contains ARM Cortex-A8 of 600 MHz.
Quick Pros:
- ARM Cortex-A8 833MHz processor. 512 MB RAM, Touch screen & HDMI output, WiFi, Bluetooth gives big advantage over Beagleboard in terms of hardware capability.
- Odroid is more useful as complete device rather than as reference platform. Thus, It is easy to developer software over it & use it.
Quick Cons:
- Odroid is released much latter than Beagleboard, thus odroid community is less active compare to Beagleboard.
- Odroid has little option to interface external piece of hardware such as any sensor.
- Priced at 349 USD, Quite premier & out of reach for many.
Beagleboard
January 1st, 2010Beagleboard is one of the most successful project in terms of community support & activity. It uses OMAP3530 soc, which belongs to OMAP35# series from TI. Many recently launched smart phones (such as Droid, N900, Palm Pre ) use similar kind of soc.
Besides having strong hardware, Beagleboard project also comes with all required data-sheets, schematics, layout & it is supported well by various Linux distribution, making it ideal plateform for embedded researchers & hackers. Lot of other hardware boards are available which are modified version of beagleboard.
Although, first impression of Beagle board hardware suggest that it is targeted to Mobile / Multimedia or entertainment device, It is practically very useful for many kind of application.
Quick Pros:
- Standard interfaces such as USB, DVI-D, Serial console for debug, SD card slot
- USB Host & Gadget mode support, making it ideal for usb device driver development / testing and validation
- Supported by various linux distribution, in particular Angstrom includes various debugging tools, making beagleboard as strong reference platform of ARM Cortex-A8 for Application testing & debugging.
- Although (as of now) Open GLES driver is available in binary only format, it is fairly usable.
I would also suggest beagleboard to any one who is beginner in embedded Linux or college student for their academic project as platform.
