Discussion:
[Arm-netbook] ARM Cortex-A15
Wolfgang Romey (hier)
2016-08-05 14:35:12 UTC
Permalink
Hallo Luke,

surely you know the ARM Cortex-A15. I would like the drawbacks of the PYRA.
Can you please, if you have the time, tell me something about it. Especially
the GPU, are there any gpl violations of the producers of the Cortex A15 and
why you did not choose it for the eoma68. I do not find it in your comparison
of the processors.

Many thanks!

Wolfgang
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Wolfgang Romey (hier)
2016-08-05 14:37:31 UTC
Permalink
Hallo Luke,

surely you know the ARM Cortex-A15. I would like the drawbacks of the PYRA.
Can you please, if you have the time, tell me something about it. Especially
the GPU, are there any gpl violations of the producers of the Cortex A15 and
why you did not choose it for the eoma68. I do not find it in your comparison
of the processors.

Many thanks!

Wolfgang
--
Wolfgang Romey
Krokusstraße 37
47249 Duisburg

geraspora: https://pod.geraspora.de/people/9002a1416a4e4a9d
loadaverage: https://loadaverage.org/hier
tox: ***@toxme.se

Bitte Anhänge nur in freien Formaten.
Die Nachricht ist signiert, der öffentliche Schlüssel wird auf Anfrage
zugeleitet.
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2016-08-05 14:43:31 UTC
Permalink
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68


On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Wolfgang Romey (hier)
Post by Wolfgang Romey (hier)
Hallo Luke,
surely you know the ARM Cortex-A15.
yes. it's the much-higher-power-performance variant of the A15. as
such about the only possible SoCs we could put into EOMA68 if they use
A15 is if they were single-core.
Post by Wolfgang Romey (hier)
I would like the drawbacks of the PYRA.
Can you please, if you have the time, tell me something about it.
the pyra uses the OMAP5 which is fine... i just won't use it because
of PowerVR. every single company that has ever gotten involved with a
PowerVR GPU has had absolute hell from its users. that includes
Intel, with their early Atom series about a decade ago.
Post by Wolfgang Romey (hier)
Especially
the GPU, are there any gpl violations of the producers of the Cortex A15 and
why you did not choose it for the eoma68. I do not find it in your comparison
of the processors.
that's because Cortex A15 is a *type of processor* - it's a
licenseable hard macro from ARM - not an *actual* processor make/model
in and of itself.

remember, ARM licenses processor *designs*, they do **NOT** actually
*MAKE* processors. they're what's called a "fabless semiconductor
design company".

l.

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Xavi Drudis Ferran
2016-08-05 17:21:23 UTC
Permalink
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Wolfgang Romey (hier)
Post by Wolfgang Romey (hier)
Hallo Luke,
surely you know the ARM Cortex-A15.
yes. it's the much-higher-power-performance variant of the A15. as
such about the only possible SoCs we could put into EOMA68 if they use
A15 is if they were single-core.
I'm not sure I understand Luke's text. Are you saying that OMAP5432
(the SOC in the Pyra, dual A15 cores + dual small M4 cores + etc)
dissipates or consumes too much power for EOMA-68 ?


I have no idea how much power it consumes, I've only found:

The TI OMAP5432EVM uses a 12 Volt, laptop-style power brick. When the
board is plugged into power and left off it used 0.7 Watts. At idle
without X Window running, it used 3.4 Watts. Running one instance of
"openssl speed" needed 4.4 Watts and two simultaneous instances moved
up to 5.2 Watts. Playing the h264 1080p Big Buck Bunny took 4.7 Watts
when using the special hardware video decoding. Note that these
numbers are using the 60 Watt laptop style power brick which itself
will likely be running at a fairly low efficiency at the low end of
its power spectrum. So, for example, the OMAP5432EVM might only be
seeing less than half the 4.4 Watts consumed at the wall.

https://www.linux.com/news/omap5432-review-texas-instruments-dual-core-arm-a15

I don't know enough electronics to understand it but I think it means
they measured the power that went into the power source, not the power
that went out, and they think the power source efficiency might be less than
50% (but they don't seem to know). This tells little of the actual power
used by the SOC or SBC, just an upper limit. That's with 2GB RAM and
4GB flash.

The passive heat dissipator in the photo (other photos here
http://www.ti.com/tool/omap5432-evm#0 ) does not seem
huge, but a dissipator obviously won't fit in a EOMA68 card.

When I search for images of "Allwinner A20 board" I don't see
dissipators over the A20, so it looks like the OMAP5432 will
get hotter. If you add flash and RAM (you might want to put more than
the current EOMA-68 cpu card) ... looks like too hot. But who
knows, it doesn't look like terribly hot...

If this is current and I interpret it right...

http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68#Physical_Dimensions

Connectors or antenas can protude outside of a EOMA-68 card.
Maybe some type of kind of heat sink could protude also (if you can
protect it against burning someone's hand or something), or maybe
a card could be longer than 90 mm with the more heating components
falling outside the device for easier ventilation ? Not sure that'd
be compliant, though.
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
the pyra uses the OMAP5 which is fine... i just won't use it because
of PowerVR. every single company that has ever gotten involved with a
PowerVR GPU has had absolute hell from its users. that includes
Intel, with their early Atom series about a decade ago.
That's just the 3D acceleration. It could go unused just like Mali
goes in the RYF A20 card. 2D aceleration is Vivante GC320 (the
analogue to G2D) and might eventually have free drivers with etnaviv
(needs porting/adaptation). But there may be more components without free
drivers (video acceleration?) .


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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2016-08-05 17:38:48 UTC
Permalink
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
Post by Xavi Drudis Ferran
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Wolfgang Romey (hier)
Post by Wolfgang Romey (hier)
Hallo Luke,
surely you know the ARM Cortex-A15.
yes. it's the much-higher-power-performance variant of the A15. as
such about the only possible SoCs we could put into EOMA68 if they use
A15 is if they were single-core.
I'm not sure I understand Luke's text. Are you saying that OMAP5432
(the SOC in the Pyra, dual A15 cores + dual small M4 cores + etc)
dissipates or consumes too much power for EOMA-68 ?
too much power.. 4.7 watts to do video playback is far too
uncomfortable. 5.2 watts and the power will be hard-cut without
warning by the Housing's external PMICs (current limited to 1A @ 5V).

but, more than that: the reason why i'm not including the OMAP5 range
is because Texas Instruments refuse to allow access to it.

the only reason that the pyra team is allowed access is because of
the big splash and P.R. that went into the pandora, they were
permitted access to the OMAP4.. thus the relationship is
pre-established and they could gain access to the OMAP5.

for everybody else, the OMAP4 and OMAP5 is considered
"mass-volume"... and is also BXPA "Weapons-Grade" Export-restricted...
despite the fact that it's manufactured in Taiwan and that boards are
usually made in the Far East.

TI have .. err... bureaucracy problems, shall we say.

l.

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Wolfgang Romey
2016-08-05 14:58:26 UTC
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Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
that's because Cortex A15 is a *type of processor* - it's a
licenseable hard macro from ARM - not an *actual* processor make/model
in and of itself.
So one has to look, who is the actual producer of the processor and if they
are gpl violators.

BTW: https://pod.geraspora.de/posts/5099003
https://loadaverage.org/notice/8377990

Wolfgang
--
Wolfgang Romey
Krokusstraße 37
47249 Duisburg

geraspora: https://pod.geraspora.de/people/9002a1416a4e4a9d
loadaverage: https://loadaverage.org/hier
tox: ***@toxme.se

Bitte Anhänge nur in freien Formaten.
Die Nachricht ist signiert, der öffentliche Schlüssel wird auf Anfrage
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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2016-08-06 15:27:27 UTC
Permalink
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
Post by Wolfgang Romey
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
that's because Cortex A15 is a *type of processor* - it's a
licenseable hard macro from ARM - not an *actual* processor make/model
in and of itself.
So one has to look, who is the actual producer of the processor and if they
are gpl violators.
correct. it's got nothing to do with ARM... despite ARM being the
licensor of their processor design.
Post by Wolfgang Romey
BTW: https://pod.geraspora.de/posts/5099003
https://loadaverage.org/notice/8377990
cool!

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