Earliest alpha or beta boards?
localroger
Posts: 3,452
OK, I've been lurking on the P2 threads and I'm keenly interested in it, but while I could afford a DEO I can't really justify it for the single use of a few months' alpha testing. So for those of us who aren't taking the FPGA plunge and whose days of maybe trying surface mount soldering ended in our early 40's, what is the earliest that we might be able to get a basic evaluation board with the P2, crystal, whatever will be passing for the P1's EEPROM, necessary voltage regulators, and pins broken out to thru-hole pads? I'm not talking about a production quality product. I'm talking about an alpha or beta review and testing platform so we can try our hand at video drivers, messing with the counters, and showing our bosses what will be coming down the line when P2 is finalized for regular production. It seems likely Parallax will have to do something like this for in-house testing anyway. Any chance of getting on an advance list for such a thing?
Comments
C.W.
Well, there aren't which is why we are playing Oliver Twist here.
Such a break out board can easily be production quality, it is just the Prop 2 that will have ES stamped on it
These can be pre-prepared as Parallax know the package and pinout, tho I would put adjustable regulators on the Alpha board { sometimes early silicon needs unusual voltages to avoid 'issues'...}
I'd guess pretty much as fast as Prop 2's come off the tester, they can be ready to mount on a prepared boards.
As much as I like FPGAs... I think I'll pass on testing a single COG, since the real chip is only a short time away. : ]
It's cool that some people are getting a head start, but that's not for everyone.
Yeah, I misstated that a bit; what I meant is that it doesn't need to be as thoroughly thought-out as a product like the Protoboard or Demoboard for actual hobbyist/sales potential. Just something like the P2 equivalent of a nano-ized protoboard with at least the 1.6v voltage regulator so we can use our thru-hole breadboards to get to work with it. I didn't meant to imply that the result would look like something hand-etched in a high schooler's garage lab LOL
Meanwhile, we'll design a board to test the returning chips. We should get about 40 chips back. If they work, we might be able to part with a few of them. Once we make sure that everything's okay, we'll order the final mask set and get it into production.
And here I thought you were going to say that Parallax doesn't put out alpha or beta chips to customers, they wait until it's right!
As I'm sure a lot of other people would as well.
Cool! I think that even if you find some flaws, those early chips could be useful to some of us for testing code over the functions that test OK.
With P1, the double row of headers are connected. But, with Prop2, I think each hole could be a different I/O pin, breaking out 64 I/O pins...
This should allow use of existing "shields"...
I had planned to do the exact same thing, actually. I'll have to rethink that now.
There are a lot of options for what to put on the board, as I see it.
I seriously doubt our designs would be identical.
I guess you'd have to have an extra non-standard connector to bring out more of the P2 I/O pins though.