Rockbox Development > New Ports
Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player
casainho:
--- Quote from: Bagder on April 30, 2009, 08:51:40 AM ---
--- Quote from: casainho on April 30, 2009, 05:30:17 AM ---NOTE: We pretend to use internal NAND Flash for booting and not the SD Card. That NAND will hold RB bootloader + firmware. SD Card for music files (expansion storage).
--- End quote ---
I suppose you mean "plan" or "are going" and not pretend in the above text. Look up what pretend means...
--- End quote ---
You are right. Oh, in Portuguese what I want to say would be with the verb "pretender", that's why I mistake. Thanks.
And looks like I were wrong, SD card 1 bit is not SPI. The only free royalties are SPI and MMC(just for host). There is more info here.
scharkalvin:
--- Quote from: casainho on April 30, 2009, 05:30:17 AM ---
--- Quote from: scharkalvin on April 29, 2009, 08:05:24 AM ---
--- Quote from: casainho on April 29, 2009, 07:59:03 AM ---
I think system will use NAND flash for boot but can also boot from SD Card (although I don't know how we will do with the royalties for using SD bus).
--- End quote ---
IIRC you only have to worry about royalties if you use the SD mode. If you use the spi mode to talk to the SD card you don't have pay any royalties.
The spi mode might be a little slower since in SD mode you can transfer several bits at a time.
--- End quote ---
Ok. The card is wired with a 4-bit bus but is the same for MMC and SD. For MMC there is no royalties, so, the final user will have just to pay if uses SD.
On LPC manual we can read: "LPC3130/31 boot ROM interacts with memory
cards in 1-bit bus mode only." So I think it reads the card by SPI
while trying to boot. SD BUS is 4-bit mode while SPI 1-bit, I think, so, it can boot without the need to pay royalties for using SD Card.
Now I must see if with the 4 wires for SD bus it can also uses 1 wire, to avoid the royalties and have the same schematic/wirings and give the people all the possibilities.
--- End quote ---
Actually SPI uses 4 signals, MOSI, MISO, SCK, and SS. However SPI is a single bit at a time serial protocol with separate wires for transmit and receive plus clock and attention.
SD uses more than 4 wires to send several bits in one clock. Sounds like you have wired the SD card up to only use the SPI protocol which is the same as the MMC card. This mode should be royalty free.
Llorean:
Are the royalties really high or something? You're planning to sell this player, it seems odd to me that you'd engineer it to have a disadvantage when you can pass the cost onto customers.
It seems advertising "It's slower that other players for accessing SD cards" is probably not ideal.
casainho:
DAP expansion board schematics released (edit on 21.05.2009)
Although not complete, the DAP expansion board schematics were released. Everyone can get them here (needs KiCad Free Software program).
This expansion board holds an LCD, buttons and audio codec IC.
The LCD will be a 320X240 (2.4") or a 1.8". We don't know if it will have touch screen or not, but maybe it will have.
The buttons are simple ON/OFF buttons.
The codec IC is a from TLV320 family, but is a low power version - TLV320AIC3204. Board includes headphones out, line out, line in, ext mic in and microphone.
All help is appreciated on the revision of the schematic.
A dreamer or an hero? (edit on 12.05.2009)
Os last 10 days Matt just draw the board, eat and sleep. The board is done and will go to fabrication tomorrow.
I am being reading the messages on LPC3000 yahoo groups and everybody there is pessimistic about the idea of doing a board like this, without professional tools, as expensive equipment to verify the BGA solder and an high end commercial board design program. Matt took 10 consecutive days to draw it using KiCAD (Free Software) which is far from professional programs (it don't have undo for example).
There are just one company in the world that is selling an development board with the LPC313x, but is very closed, they even don't share the schematic! (I think I understand all the investment). So if this work of making an Open Hardware LPC313x board goes ok, this will be very important on Open Hardware ARM9/Linux/Rockbox world. There is a lot of expectations on this LPC3130 ARM9 180MHz because it is cheap, it costs just 3€ (1000 units).
Matt started now the design of the expansion board for adding all the hardware needed to have the player/recorder.
The full schematic sources and a picture of the board can be found on SVN.
Here a picture of the board:
Moving from Atmel ARM9 to Phillips ARM9
As you may know, I chose at begin to use an ARM9 from Atmel, because there was already all tools(example codes, datasheets, OpenOCD scripts, bootstrap, other Open Hardware projects) for a quick and ready development. It were my first time with ARM.
Now, Matt (from AVROpendous) can help us by designing, assembling and selling us a board on his shop on Ebay.
Matt started by wanting to design and ARM9 board for running Linux, when I asked him for help. He did prefer to use an new ARM9 from Phillips - LPC3130.
For the previous ARM9 from Atmel he have working code for Rockbox (missing the audio), there is Linux for it from Atmel, software library, some Open Source projects, some cheap developments boards, all the tools needed for quickly deploy any application.
For the LPC3130, there is just one datasheet + software library. I couldn't find any development board for it, nor Linux, nor any project using it, nor OpenOCD scripts.
Even Matt told me that the first try to build the main board will cost not less than $500!! and that if it fails he will desist from this project (at least for some months until get more money). It will be a one shot try.
Definitively I would not do as Matt is doing, I would prefer to reuse the schematics of dev. board we are using and use the same ARM9 from Atmel. I think Matt is risking to much.
Anyway, let's see if all goes ok, if we have luck. I am being looking at the schematics to see If I found nay problem, before Matt put PCB for production.
Matt did update the schematics today, there is one picture showing the LPC3130 and the footprint printed on paper - he did used it to see if all is going ok. Please if anyone can help and see the schematics, we will appreciate.
Here is the picture:
--- Quote from: Llorean on April 30, 2009, 01:27:18 PM ---Are the royalties really high or something? You're planning to sell this player, it seems odd to me that you'd engineer it to have a disadvantage when you can pass the cost onto customers.
It seems advertising "It's slower that other players for accessing SD cards" is probably not ideal.
--- End quote ---
You are right. Actual boards/products of Opendous are very early stage, later if this project proves popular, maybe Matt can invest more money and search how to deal with this questions. For now we can go low speed and even "ilegal" for when using high speeds.
casainho:
PDF files of the schematics now available! - base board and DAP expansion board (edit on 03.06.2009)
The schematic files of all hardware are now available in PDF files. Don't forget that the source files are always available on SVN.
Base board PDF schematic files:
- LPC313x
- NAND
- RAM_MMC
- Power
- Connectors
DAP-Expansion board PDF schematic files:
- LCD
- Audio CODEC
- Buttons
--- Quote from: friendlyzookeeper on May 25, 2009, 02:45:18 AM ---Hi Casainho,
I have a question on the LyreLittlePrototype.
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/LyreLittlePrototype
this question is about your page on rockboxplayer-Revision 225,
http://rockboxplayer.googlecode.com/svn-history/r225/trunk/tools/sam-ba_cdc_2.8.linux_01/
applets/at91lib/peripherals/ac97c.c/
http://rockboxplayer.googlecode.com/svn-history/r225/trunk/tools/sam-ba_cdc_2.8.linux_01/applets/at91lib/peripherals/ac97c/
is this code for the AT73C213 (qfn 32) chip?
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=3591
It sells for around $4 but, this code seems to reference the AT91SAM9263 chip.
--- End quote ---
Hello :-)
That code for the AT73C213 is inside Sam-Ba for Linux. I just used Sam-ba for flash the AT91 Bootstrap code on DataFlash memory, from where the AT91SAM9260 boots.
The board I were using didn't have the AT73C213 IC.
I am on focus now on the ARMopendous board and the LPC3130 ARM9 (very cheap, price of $2,8 for 10000 units). The boards may arrive this week to Matt and I hope is all ok.
friendlyzookeeper, please give a look at ARMopendous schematic base board plus the DAP extension board.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version