Looking forward
Kerry S
Posts: 163
Looking forward to applying the P2 in real commercial products I have some questions.
Is the chip pinout fixed yet so we can start designing boards?
Chip had mentioned modules for the chip to make it easier for those not equipped for surface mount work. With Parallax needing to get focused on getting the chip finalized, and to the Fab on time, would designing something like that be a good community project? I am thinking something like what Microchip has for their processors with the plug in evaluation modules. A nice square board with headers on the outside with a standard spec for people to start working on using in their own devices. Something similar to the PropStick USB which is complete and stand alone. While rather expensive, compared to the raw parts, that makes a great Plug-and-Go module to design application boards around.
After seeing the incredible synergy of the community with the P2 conceptual redesign it just seems a project like this would be a great place put some of that creativity and energy to use while we wait for chips. Having a nice board done, and ready for when the first P2 chips arrive, would be wonderful for getting testing out to as many as possible quickly (with the limited initial chip run). It would also give the rest of us something to start designing real products around so we can jump right in once the first production run is ready.
One of the things that makes the Arduino so nice is the standard board that has all kinds of attachments available. If we look ahead now and get something really flexible designed and available for the P2 coming out of the starting gate, along with some accessory boards to go with it, it would only help with marketing and adoption.
Is the chip pinout fixed yet so we can start designing boards?
Chip had mentioned modules for the chip to make it easier for those not equipped for surface mount work. With Parallax needing to get focused on getting the chip finalized, and to the Fab on time, would designing something like that be a good community project? I am thinking something like what Microchip has for their processors with the plug in evaluation modules. A nice square board with headers on the outside with a standard spec for people to start working on using in their own devices. Something similar to the PropStick USB which is complete and stand alone. While rather expensive, compared to the raw parts, that makes a great Plug-and-Go module to design application boards around.
After seeing the incredible synergy of the community with the P2 conceptual redesign it just seems a project like this would be a great place put some of that creativity and energy to use while we wait for chips. Having a nice board done, and ready for when the first P2 chips arrive, would be wonderful for getting testing out to as many as possible quickly (with the limited initial chip run). It would also give the rest of us something to start designing real products around so we can jump right in once the first production run is ready.
One of the things that makes the Arduino so nice is the standard board that has all kinds of attachments available. If we look ahead now and get something really flexible designed and available for the P2 coming out of the starting gate, along with some accessory boards to go with it, it would only help with marketing and adoption.
Comments
Sure, I'd use the start-but-verify approach. Package is fixed as QFP128 0.4mm, pinout is unlikely to move much, if at all, but some pinout rules may apply, and expect long lead times.
There has also been talk of an Exposed Pad qfp128, but that is stalled mainly by the lack of a die-matching package.
If you allow for a ~7mm+ Exposed Pad, you cover all possible outcomes.
Meanwhile, a small pcb is more or less done within Parallax, with an onboard SDRAM and the PCIe4x connector gold fingers (or whatever its actually called). I have a connector here and it looks great.
That is great to hear!
Have they released a drawing/spec/pinout for it yet so we can start building around it (with the understanding that it might have to change once the real chips get mounted)? I have seen nothing on that on the Parallax site.
For the QFP package, is the one in the P2 PDF up to date? That is the only thing I have found for it. Though really I would rather use a Pro designed module with the critical core stuff done than do my own from scratch. I/O and basic logic boards I can do (well enough for my needs) but doing surface mount and critical 1.8/3.3v power, ground, filtering, ram, usb, etc. is a stretch.
<edit>
Hmmm, just looked up the PCIe4x spec and that is a 64 pin edge connector so I assume that the SDRAM on that card is parallel? Do you know if they will have a serial memory version (like the P1) as well to leave more I/O available?
The Parallax module is discussed somewhere in this forum (the P II forum). Its somewhere around 1.5" sq.