5 ms·

BeagleBoard X-15

39 points by tdicola 12y ago

tdicola 12y ago
Interesting new board from the BeagleBoard.org Foundation that designs the BeagleBone Black and other embedded Linux boards. Has a dual core ARM Cortex A15 processor and what appears to be a lot of peripherals like USB ports, ethernet ports, etc. More good info here too: http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/11/07/beagleboard-x15-development-board-to-feature-ti-sitara-am5728-dual-core-cortex-a15-processor/ http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/11/07/beagleboard-x15-devel... Looks like the SoC is quite full featured and includes a couple Cortex M4 cores, presumably for realtime logic like the PRU's in the BeagleBone Black, and even a DSP.
- pritambaral 12y ago
  > a couple Cortex M4 cores, presumably for realtime logic like the PRU's Those M4s in that link are labelled 'IPU's. Can Image Processing Units be so easily used for general purpose programming as PRUs?
  - alexalex 12y ago
    Often the IPUs will provide an interface to setup a PRU systeml... but, "so easily"? While the functionality will appear on the spec sheet, it can be difficult to program. If you're using GCC, you'll want permission from your husband/wife/roommates before you start, because you're going to be occupied and accruing some significant brain damage. (I'm a hobbyist, not a professional.)
- Alupis 12y ago
  just an fyi for those who don't know -- BeagleBoard is run by Texas Instruments (TI).
- tmuir 12y ago
  The PRUs are a waste of perfectly good silicon until there is a C compiler for them. I haven't seen any project outside of TI's demos that uses these in any advanced fashion. It sounds like an excellent idea. Completely separate processors on the same memory bus that allow higher IO speeds than the main processor. But since it can only be coded in assembly, Altera SOCs are much more attractive. Instead of cortex M4s, there is an FPGA on the same chip. Instead of making the interprocessor feature a crippled afterthought, the FPGA/ARM interface is central to the system, and the bus can be made as wide as practical. Since you can create the precise peripheral to suit your application on the FPGA, its kind of a blank slate. Edit: As it turns out, there is now a C compiler for the PRU, 3 years after the hardware was released. http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/PRU-ICSS_Getting_Started_Guide http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/PRU-ICSS_Getting_Sta...
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    This has always kind of been TI's thing. I worked with a group that wrote H.264 codecs running on the IVA of the old OMAP2/3 and Hollywood chips. The IVA was straightforward DSP but the "bridge" method of getting that to talk to the CPU was just...awful.
  - rasz_pl 12y ago
    When I read nonsense like that I immediately think you meant C++, or java, or python. Embedded is hard, If you cant handle assembler you wont be able to handle verilog either.
    - tmuir 12y ago
      Except that there is no way to scale assembly. You write every instruction. There are no companies that offer prewritten assembly for different common functions. Toga vendors offer all sorts of ip. Understanding assembly and choosing to develop with assembly are two different things. I see absolutely no correlation between learning assembly and learning verilog. They are about as orthogonal as you can get.
Alupis 12y ago
why only dual core!?!?!?!?! This thing would be amazing, if it were quad. I think I'll still go with the wandboard for now (quad core arm A9, 2GB ddr3, sata port, 2 microSD slots, gigabit ethernet, etc)
- wmf 12y ago
  Here's a quad A15: http://www.arndaleboard.org/ http://www.arndaleboard.org/
wmf 12y ago
It's interesting that TI "got out of the OMAP business" but now they're making chips that are basically OMAP under a different name.
- joezydeco 12y ago
  I was thinking the exact same thing. Cortex-A? IVA? This is an OMAP6. But it also looks like a remix of the "Jacinto 6" architecture they've been pushing around for a while. http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1315978 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1315978 I mean, 10 UARTs? That just screams automotive. Can't think of anything else that would benefit from all this I/O. And, really, automotive is the only battlefield left for TI (and Freescale's i.MX). Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm have locked up the handheld arena.
  - lgeek 12y ago
    > Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm have locked up the handheld arena. Not really. Many low end to mid range devices use Allwinner, Rockchip, MediaTek or Amlogic SoCs. NVIDIA's Tegra series has also been somewhat popular and the two K1 SoCs are really nice.
    - joezydeco 12y ago
      Was describing the fates of TI and Freescale more than the second-tier SoC groups. The larger chipmakers aren't getting back into Apple or Samsung's shop any time soon. And making small design wins for third-world handsets doesn't interest them.
ISL 12y ago
Can HNers point toward a purpose-built system-on-a-board for data acquisition tasks? I keep seeing improvement in compute capability with Arduinos, RPis, BeagleBoards, etc. , but no movement in ADC precision. Arduinos are wonderful for handing off to a student for a quick DAQ job, but invariably we require higher precision once they get things working, which requires additional engineering from our end. Price <$100, 4+ 14-16-bit ADCs at 1-2 kSamples/s, 2+ 10+-bit DACs, reasonably stable clock?
- harshreality 12y ago
  Nothing at that price I can recall, but you're looking for a watered-down Red Pitaya? (A single board doesn't have enough 14 bit inputs, but in all other ways, particularly frequencies, it exceeds those specs?)
  - ISL 12y ago
    Really watered-down, yeah. It might be more appropriate to think, "arduino with higher-resolution inputs". It's really the Arduino ADC resolution that is a major headache for us.
- mty312 12y ago
  Cypress PSoC5? 1x20bit and 2x12bit, but at sample rates far higher than you are looking for. Powerfulboard.com and moeller.io both make proto boards for them.
progman 12y ago
I am glad that there are new Linux compatible boards on the market almost every week. http://linuxgizmos.com http://linuxgizmos.com I have the impression that the competition of Linux implemented UEFI/SecureBoot just to lock Linux out from "their" boards. I wish the Linux community would stop to support UEFI systems completely. Linux pretending to be "Win 8.1" to outsmart the bootloader is not an acceptable solution. The Linux community has a much better choice in embedded boards, and they should support the makers of those boards instead of buying UEFI products. There are a lot of boards which are powerful enough to be used as full blown office PCs. Soon we will even have ARM quad cores with 4 GB, dual HDMI and full SSD support. This is the way to go!
A_COMPUTER 12y ago
Am I right that this thing has ECC RAM? Could this work as a (relatively) inexpensive ZFS NAS?

39 points by tdicola 12y ago

Interesting new board from the BeagleBoard.org Foundation that designs the BeagleBone Black and other embedded Linux boards. Has a dual core ARM Cortex A15 processor and what appears to be a lot of peripherals like USB ports, ethernet ports, etc. More good info here too: http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/11/07/beagleboard-x15-development-board-to-feature-ti-sitara-am5728-dual-core-cortex-a15-processor/ http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/11/07/beagleboard-x15-devel... Looks like the SoC is quite full featured and includes a couple Cortex M4 cores, presumably for realtime logic like the PRU's in the BeagleBone Black, and even a DSP.

pritambaral 12y ago
> a couple Cortex M4 cores, presumably for realtime logic like the PRU's Those M4s in that link are labelled 'IPU's. Can Image Processing Units be so easily used for general purpose programming as PRUs?
- alexalex 12y ago
  Often the IPUs will provide an interface to setup a PRU systeml... but, "so easily"? While the functionality will appear on the spec sheet, it can be difficult to program. If you're using GCC, you'll want permission from your husband/wife/roommates before you start, because you're going to be occupied and accruing some significant brain damage. (I'm a hobbyist, not a professional.)
Alupis 12y ago
just an fyi for those who don't know -- BeagleBoard is run by Texas Instruments (TI).
tmuir 12y ago
The PRUs are a waste of perfectly good silicon until there is a C compiler for them. I haven't seen any project outside of TI's demos that uses these in any advanced fashion. It sounds like an excellent idea. Completely separate processors on the same memory bus that allow higher IO speeds than the main processor. But since it can only be coded in assembly, Altera SOCs are much more attractive. Instead of cortex M4s, there is an FPGA on the same chip. Instead of making the interprocessor feature a crippled afterthought, the FPGA/ARM interface is central to the system, and the bus can be made as wide as practical. Since you can create the precise peripheral to suit your application on the FPGA, its kind of a blank slate. Edit: As it turns out, there is now a C compiler for the PRU, 3 years after the hardware was released. http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/PRU-ICSS_Getting_Started_Guide http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/PRU-ICSS_Getting_Sta...
- joezydeco 12y ago
  This has always kind of been TI's thing. I worked with a group that wrote H.264 codecs running on the IVA of the old OMAP2/3 and Hollywood chips. The IVA was straightforward DSP but the "bridge" method of getting that to talk to the CPU was just...awful.
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  When I read nonsense like that I immediately think you meant C++, or java, or python. Embedded is hard, If you cant handle assembler you wont be able to handle verilog either.
  - tmuir 12y ago
    Except that there is no way to scale assembly. You write every instruction. There are no companies that offer prewritten assembly for different common functions. Toga vendors offer all sorts of ip. Understanding assembly and choosing to develop with assembly are two different things. I see absolutely no correlation between learning assembly and learning verilog. They are about as orthogonal as you can get.

Alupis 12y ago

why only dual core!?!?!?!?! This thing would be amazing, if it were quad. I think I'll still go with the wandboard for now (quad core arm A9, 2GB ddr3, sata port, 2 microSD slots, gigabit ethernet, etc)

wmf 12y ago
Here's a quad A15: http://www.arndaleboard.org/ http://www.arndaleboard.org/

wmf 12y ago

It's interesting that TI "got out of the OMAP business" but now they're making chips that are basically OMAP under a different name.

joezydeco 12y ago
I was thinking the exact same thing. Cortex-A? IVA? This is an OMAP6. But it also looks like a remix of the "Jacinto 6" architecture they've been pushing around for a while. http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1315978 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1315978 I mean, 10 UARTs? That just screams automotive. Can't think of anything else that would benefit from all this I/O. And, really, automotive is the only battlefield left for TI (and Freescale's i.MX). Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm have locked up the handheld arena.
- lgeek 12y ago
  > Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm have locked up the handheld arena. Not really. Many low end to mid range devices use Allwinner, Rockchip, MediaTek or Amlogic SoCs. NVIDIA's Tegra series has also been somewhat popular and the two K1 SoCs are really nice.
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    Was describing the fates of TI and Freescale more than the second-tier SoC groups. The larger chipmakers aren't getting back into Apple or Samsung's shop any time soon. And making small design wins for third-world handsets doesn't interest them.

ISL 12y ago

Can HNers point toward a purpose-built system-on-a-board for data acquisition tasks? I keep seeing improvement in compute capability with Arduinos, RPis, BeagleBoards, etc. , but no movement in ADC precision. Arduinos are wonderful for handing off to a student for a quick DAQ job, but invariably we require higher precision once they get things working, which requires additional engineering from our end. Price <$100, 4+ 14-16-bit ADCs at 1-2 kSamples/s, 2+ 10+-bit DACs, reasonably stable clock?

harshreality 12y ago
Nothing at that price I can recall, but you're looking for a watered-down Red Pitaya? (A single board doesn't have enough 14 bit inputs, but in all other ways, particularly frequencies, it exceeds those specs?)
- ISL 12y ago
  Really watered-down, yeah. It might be more appropriate to think, "arduino with higher-resolution inputs". It's really the Arduino ADC resolution that is a major headache for us.
mty312 12y ago
Cypress PSoC5? 1x20bit and 2x12bit, but at sample rates far higher than you are looking for. Powerfulboard.com and moeller.io both make proto boards for them.

progman 12y ago

I am glad that there are new Linux compatible boards on the market almost every week. http://linuxgizmos.com http://linuxgizmos.com I have the impression that the competition of Linux implemented UEFI/SecureBoot just to lock Linux out from "their" boards. I wish the Linux community would stop to support UEFI systems completely. Linux pretending to be "Win 8.1" to outsmart the bootloader is not an acceptable solution. The Linux community has a much better choice in embedded boards, and they should support the makers of those boards instead of buying UEFI products. There are a lot of boards which are powerful enough to be used as full blown office PCs. Soon we will even have ARM quad cores with 4 GB, dual HDMI and full SSD support. This is the way to go!

A_COMPUTER 12y ago

Am I right that this thing has ECC RAM? Could this work as a (relatively) inexpensive ZFS NAS?