work on best low cost mp3 player for rockbox

[hunterleo]

Hi guys,

We are a new company on portable audio device. We came out an inexpensive (under $30) mp3 player which plays 70 hours lossless music per charge and is good for long time travel. (Check more details about Agptek A02 on Amazon.co.uk and amazon.de) However, its SoC is mips4k core + DSP with limited memory which means it couldn't support Rockbox.

I also realized that ATJ2127 has many limits to make it a better player. I need some suggestions for choosing hardware or solution for rockbox.

Thanks a lot,

Leo

[pamaury]

Hi,
if I am correct, the ATJ2127 is the same soc as in the clip sport and does not features enough memory for Rockbox to run. In its current state, Rockbox requires at the very least 1MB of memory to run, with many features disabled. Ideally, you want 2MB or 4MB of memory.

[hunterleo]

Hi,
if I am correct, the ATJ2127 is the same soc as in the clip sport and does not features enough memory for Rockbox to run. In its current state, Rockbox requires at the very least 1MB of memory to run, with many features disabled. Ideally, you want 2MB or 4MB of memory.

Thank you for the reply. I wonder if I could work on a new model which to fit a current rockbox firmware. Which one is best to adapt?

[pamaury]

I am unsure if I undertsood your question properly: you meant which soc is supported by rockbox and is best to build a player with it ?

[ZincAlloy]

Yeah, sounds like he's not happy with the hardware they are currently using and wants their future players to be potential Rockbox targets - or even ship them with Rockbox?

[hunterleo]

I am unsure if I undertsood your question properly: you meant which soc is supported by rockbox and is best to build a player with it ?

Yeah, you got it. You guys were building rockbox for players. I want to do it the other way around.

[pamaury]

I see So obviously we support quite a number of SoC but not that many of them are still in production. I guess the following still are:

• Freescale i.MX233
• Rockchip 27xx
• Ingenic JZ47xx
• TCC 780x

Otherwise, just choose any chip that matches the following requirements:

• reasonable 32-bit CPU (ARM, MIPS)
• documentation available (including booting procedure/format and so on)
• external memory interface, connected to at least 4 MB of RAM
• optional but better: hardware USB DFU/recovery mode

I hope I listed everything.
Also it's far simpler if the device uses eMMC or microsd for storage and not raw flash (except possibly for the bootloader).
But all kinds of things are possible, like the Fiio X1 that uses a raw flash+SDRAM chip which contains the bootloader, and microsd for everything else.
The DAC does not need to be integrate in the SoC, same for power managment unit.

[ZincAlloy]

Good sounding hardware would be nice. And even nicer if Rockbox would run efficiently on it.

And even if you're  aiming to make a very affordable player, make sure it will last a bit. Don't cheap out on buttons and jacks. I bet I'm not the only one who prefers a great value for money to an incredibly cheap product.

Speaking of buttons: Your current players don't have enough buttons to use Rockbox comfortably.

[hunterleo]

Thanks a lots. Those suitable chips are quite old. Just talked with Rockchip. RK 27xxx discontinued. Current solutions are NANO-C and NANO-D.

NANO-C only has 1MB RAM. The specs of Nano-D is as attached. Is it great for Rockbox?

Which player is best for rockbox for now?

[hunterleo]

Good sounding hardware would be nice. And even nicer if Rockbox would run efficiently on it.

And even if you're  aiming to make a very affordable player, make sure it will last a bit. Don't cheap out on buttons and jacks. I bet I'm not the only one who prefers a great value for money to an incredibly cheap product.

Speaking of buttons: Your current players don't have enough buttons to use Rockbox comfortably.

Thank you for the advice! Although we are aiming the mass market, but we don't use cheap material. The buttons were imported in Japan. Check out our new model. AGPTEK B03 has two more buttons to A02.

[wodz]

Is atj213x still in stock? It is possible target for rockbox (I made some work for this SoC in this direction). Nano-d has too little ram (if I read the informations provided correctly). As pamaury stated earlier, 4MB of ram is about the smallest feasible amount unless you can memory map flash and run code from there which saves you something like ~300-400kB max.
Ingenic 4760 is used in Fiio X1 so I assume it is readily available.

[hunterleo]

Is atj213x still in stock? It is possible target for rockbox (I made some work for this SoC in this direction). Nano-d has too little ram (if I read the informations provided correctly). As pamaury stated earlier, 4MB of ram is about the smallest feasible amount unless you can memory map flash and run code from there which saves you something like ~300-400kB max.
Ingenic 4760 is used in Fiio X1 so I assume it is readily available.

Yes, ATJ2137 still is in production. Is it a good choice for rockbox?

Ingenic 4760 used BGA packages which is not good for mass production. (easy to get loose)

[ZincAlloy]

Thank you for the advice! Although we are aiming the mass market, but we don't use cheap material. The buttons were imported in Japan. Check out our new model. AGPTEK B03 has two more buttons to A02.

Nice! I'm currently using a Sansa Clip Zip, which is my only experience with a low cost player. The buttons seem to be one of its weaker points. The one I'm pressing the most doesn't "click" anymore like it's supposed to. Still works, though. It's other weakness is the display. It just isn't bright enough for outside use.

Thanks a lots. Those suitable chips are quite old.

The good thing about those old chips is that Rockbox is already running on them, so setting up a port for your new player would need less effort.

[pamaury]

If BGA is a no-no, I guess this rules out quite a number of chips, on the other hand, there probably are plenty of chips we don't know about. Doing a new port isn't really an obstacle here, as long as the soc has documentation. So I guess the real requirements boils down to ARM/MIPS and can be interfaced with at least 4MB of RAM. If it helps, Rockbox does not even need a MMU.
I think NXP might have such chips (the LPC series), as well as ST Micro (the higher-end STM32 have a external memory interface I believe). Atmel has such chips, they definitely do have BGA one but not sure for QFP. Cirrus Logic have some of these (like the EP9302 but possibly not powerful enough/suitable for MP3), might be worth a look. Freescale i.MX233 exists in QFP package, and possibly more recent Freescale chips might do. On the high-end of the spectrum, Allwiner has some QFP chips but those are probably beasts and are very big anyway. TI has tons of chips (OMAP, Sitara) but I can't really tell right-away from the website if they have QFP versions. Marvell used to do interesting chips, not sure what they are doing now

EDIT: I will fill this list when I find parts

• NXP: LPC177x/178x/407x/408x/2400/3100/3200 and virtually anything with an EMC, usually NXP makes all chips in TQFP

[saratoga]

Whats wrong with BGA?  Too expensive for you to assemble?  Seems widely used for low cost players.