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The Raspberry Pi is based on an SOC from Broadcom that was derived from SOCs designed for Set top box and Over The Top box products (i.e. Roku, AppleTV, etc.).

The Raspberry Pi is based on an SOC from Broadcom that was derived from SOCs designed for Set top box and Over The Top box products (i.e. Roku, AppleTV, etc.). The Beaglebone is based on an SOC from TI that was designed for (at the time High End) Smartphones. Therefore it supports much lower power consumption and idle modes.

rossoldfield 5y ago
The BCM2835 used in the PiZero was used in the Nokia 808 PureView as a coprocessor for graphics and the camera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_808_PureView https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_808_PureView The BCM2763 and BCM2835 are the same silicon in a different package: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/840/why-is-the-cpu-sometimes-referred-to-as-bcm2708-sometimes-bcm2835/56155#56155 https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/840/why-is-t...
- somethoughts 5y ago
  Didn't know that. That makes sense. As a discrete coprocessor to the primary Smartphone SOC for a very high end smartphone, for power management the discrete coprocessor chip can be completely powered down when going into idle mode. The trick/indicator about the design goal of primary Smartphone SOC usage for the OMAP SOCs and most mobile CPU is the existence of deep sleep, RAM retention modes. Additionally every GPIO pin is configurable for Pull-Up/Pull-Down to prevent current leakage. I haven't looked extensively but I don't believe the Broadcom SOCs support this mode. Actually after more extensive review - I think the story is probably that Broadcom attempted to make a smartphone processor from Alpamosaic's Video Coprocessor, but didn't adequately support the low power modes and didn't get any design wins for smart phone. They then pivoted and found traction in the Over the Top TV space. https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/chasing-pixels/alphamosaic-to-pi-to-doom https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/chasing-pixe...
somethoughts 5y ago
Some additional reading. [0] https://www.anandtech.com/show/10716/roku-unveils-streaming-media-players-with-4kp60-and-hdr-support https://www.anandtech.com/show/10716/roku-unveils-streaming-... Roku Ultra: 900 MHz Broadcom BCM2836 CPU (quad-core) [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/4903/roku-2-xs-review-streaming-videos-and-casual-gaming-on-the-big-screen/3 https://www.anandtech.com/show/4903/roku-2-xs-review-streami... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/egwo6z/was_the_broadcom_bcm2711_designed_specifically/ https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/egwo6z/was_th... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMAP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMAP

rossoldfield 5y ago

The BCM2835 used in the PiZero was used in the Nokia 808 PureView as a coprocessor for graphics and the camera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_808_PureView https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_808_PureView The BCM2763 and BCM2835 are the same silicon in a different package: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/840/why-is-the-cpu-sometimes-referred-to-as-bcm2708-sometimes-bcm2835/56155#56155 https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/840/why-is-t...

somethoughts 5y ago
Didn't know that. That makes sense. As a discrete coprocessor to the primary Smartphone SOC for a very high end smartphone, for power management the discrete coprocessor chip can be completely powered down when going into idle mode. The trick/indicator about the design goal of primary Smartphone SOC usage for the OMAP SOCs and most mobile CPU is the existence of deep sleep, RAM retention modes. Additionally every GPIO pin is configurable for Pull-Up/Pull-Down to prevent current leakage. I haven't looked extensively but I don't believe the Broadcom SOCs support this mode. Actually after more extensive review - I think the story is probably that Broadcom attempted to make a smartphone processor from Alpamosaic's Video Coprocessor, but didn't adequately support the low power modes and didn't get any design wins for smart phone. They then pivoted and found traction in the Over the Top TV space. https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/chasing-pixels/alphamosaic-to-pi-to-doom https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/chasing-pixe...

somethoughts 5y ago

Some additional reading. [0] https://www.anandtech.com/show/10716/roku-unveils-streaming-media-players-with-4kp60-and-hdr-support https://www.anandtech.com/show/10716/roku-unveils-streaming-... Roku Ultra: 900 MHz Broadcom BCM2836 CPU (quad-core) [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/4903/roku-2-xs-review-streaming-videos-and-casual-gaming-on-the-big-screen/3 https://www.anandtech.com/show/4903/roku-2-xs-review-streami... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/egwo6z/was_the_broadcom_bcm2711_designed_specifically/ https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/egwo6z/was_th... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMAP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMAP