[oc] Re: Need a little direction

["Devesh Kothari" <dkothari@protosys.com>]

Hello Patrick,

The platform which we are developing, we dont have much hardware design
capabilities. do you know someone or could get me in touch with freelancers
who can design this hardware board for us. We would definitely keep all the
boards and designs and everything as GPL'ed so people could just take
it/modify it.

Well Linus gave us Linux, and I of the opinion that we should take that to
every device and to the people, what i see standing in the way is the
affordable hardware.

We want to concentrate on headless devices, as these are what i personally
believe would provide the distributed intelligence to the masses, the things
they do and interact day in and out. I dont want the displays because of the
simple reason, a)they are expensive b)they consume power c)they are fragile
d)they can not be shared. I believe as more and more mobile phone and mobile
terminals (whatever shape and size) would be owned by the masses and they
would interact with these headless devices, and the headless devices over
wireless (bluetooth or ...) would provide services using the mobile terminal
display. these displays could be as small as display in a watch, mobile
phone, PDA or webpads.

We want to create the following platform and we would appreciate all help.
We would even try and support the efforts in reasonable financial ways.

1. BOM should not cross USD $50.
2. Should have wireless (Bluetooth, short range)
3. Should have 32MB Flash
4. Should have 256 MB SDRAM
5. Should have two PC Card slots.
6. CPU (could be a SOC)

After doing considerable search, there are some of the options
1. taking the SA1110 reference design and depopoulate the board extensively.
2. design from scratch

Now biggest thing to be descided is what SOC/CPU to use. The options are
(you can suggest more)
1. StrongArm from Intel
2. DragonBall MX1 from Motorola (would be mass produced in March 2002),
having integrated support for bluetooth and cost less than $25, they claim.
3. AMD Elan processors (they are x86, and they consume as i am told too much
power, but they are cheaper)

The massive amount of SDRAM (I guess they are faster than flash and lot
cheaper too) , is for big enough RAM filesystem, which can then download
content from masterstation, like MP3 and MPEG video etc to be streamed on
wireless (BT), this content would get lost if power goes off, which we
believe is not the most often case.(the unit would be externally powered)
and would have battery for maybe 1 hour operation.

What we need is
1. freelancers to work on the designboard or any volunteers
2. pointers to information and any feedback to help us achieve what we set
out to achieve. Any criticism or any sort of feedback is appreciated.
3. Component manufacturers/contract manufacturers who can give help us
achieve that price.
4. any kind of support.

We are based in India (Bangalore), and if anyone happens to be in Bangalore
and want to drop by our place you are more than welcomed to do that. Any
enquires please send it to me

Looking forward for more pointers , feedback, answers in search for the
perfect solution.

Best Regards
Devesh Kothari
Director
ProtoSys Technologies Pvt Ltd
www.protosys.com
dkothari@protosys.com
22/2 Mission Rd, Samson Complex,
Bangalore, 27, INDIA

>
>  > [..] I am complete novice in terms of
>  > hardware (please dont suggest to just drop it then).
> I will not. I do not know what you are into exactly. Nothing is
impossible.
>
>  > Then I would start the porting on one of Linux variant on the box.
> You may know that Linux has already been ported to the Strong Arm
> architecture and Debian for example is providing a complete
> distribution.
>
>  > [..] I have
>  > all the BOM/Gerber files and schematic diagram from intel, but not sure
how
>  > to proceed.
> I guess that you want to use the gEDA tools and other free tools and
> that is why you mailed me.
>
> If so, basically you will have to reenter all the schematics from Intel
> into gschem. That mean that you will also have to create a new symbol
> for almost all the components, i.e. SA1110, bluetooth module ...
> Then you will have to generate a netlist from the schematic - with
> gnetlist.
> And finally, you will have to route the board. I am not sure that the pcb
> software from Harry Eaton would be complete enough for this task. In fact,
> SA1110 is quite a complex component as it is in a BGA - Ball Grid Array -
> package. At the working frequency you also have to take into account
> the way the board is tracked.
>
> Of course, that was the scheme for the software manageable part. You will
> have to place an order for this board to a pcb maker.
> As the package for SA1110 is a BGA you will not be able to solder it by
> yourself and will require external help for that.
>
>  > It would be quite useful if someone could help us finnish this
>  > project. If you can provide us with some direction please.
> I would be pleased to help you as much as I can. Let me know how far
> in the specification of the device you are, what kind of direction
> you need.
>
>  > Maybe I am just wasting your time. In that case please accept my
apologies.
>  > Sorry for the trouble
> I am not sure to have answered all your questions. If my explanations
> were too basic, excuse me.
>
>
> Patrick BERNAUD
>
>
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