Preorders

This is the preorders page for EOMA-68-compliant Texas Instruments AM389x ARM Cortex A8 CPU modules.

This product will be FSF Hardware Endorseable, will have full GPL Source Code publicly available, and will be suitable for many purposes including Educational and R&D purposes, a Thin Client, Video-Conferencing Client, use as a Freedom Box, or as an embedded computer, or in the future to drive products such as Tablets, Laptops, IPTVs and Desktop PCs simply by plugging it in. Some options for hardware that is on the roadmap are described as example motherboards on the EOMA-68 page.

Features

The TI AM3892 EOMA-68-compliant module will have the following features:

• Credit-card size format (45mm x 75mm approximately) suitable for fitting into robust PCMCIA Type II frame-kits.
• A 1.2ghz Texas Instruments ARM Cortex A8 AM3892 (possibility of AM3894 or DM816x on special order)
• FSF Hardware-Endorseable due to no proprietary firmware being required
• 1gb of 1066 mhz DDR3 RAM (possibility of up to 1600mhz on special order) Note: only one of the 32-bit-wide memory interfaces will be used, due to power considerations.
• at least 1gb of NAND Flash (possibly up to 16gb)
• 1080p Video playback
• HDMI, Micro-SD, Micro-USB Host
• Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000
• EOMA-68-compliant interfaces (RGB/TTL, I2C, USB2, SATA-II, 10/100/1000 Eth)
• Expansion Header (similar to Beagleboard, IMX53QSB, Origen etc.)

Expansion Header

The Expansion header is 50 pins (DIL2-50) and includes the following interfaces:

• 1 Extra SATA-II
• 1x 2-lane PCIe
• 1x RS232
• 1x SPI
• 1x McASP (supports I2S, 8 pin)
• 1x McBSP (also supports I2S, 5 pin only)

Pricing

Pricing ESTIMATES are likely to be around $125: the BOM will be somewhere around the $70 to $80 mark, because the 1.2ghz AM3892 is around $32 in 1k volumes.

Please note: this cost excludes a case, power supply, packaging, shipping, tax, customs and import duty, all of which you will need to take into consideration.

Software Freedom Information

Regarding Software Freedom: the AM3892 is FSF Hardware-Endorseable. There is no proprietary firmware required. All source code for boot and operation of an AM3892 CPU Card is and will be available under Free Software Licenses.

If a special order is required for AM3894 however, then due to the fact that the PowerVR SGX GPU requires Reverse-engineering, it will not be possible to obtain a FSF Hardware-Endorsement Certificate for AM3894-based EOMA-68 CPU Cards.

Likewise, if a special order for an EOMA-68 CPU Card with the pin-compatible TMS320DM8167 is required, then this would also be FSF Hardware-Endorseable. However, also likewise: if a TMS320DM8168 was requested, then again due to the inclusion of PowerVR SGX on the TMS320DM8168, endorsement would not be possible.

This situation will change once the PowerVR SGX Reverse-Engineering effort begins to create a useable Free Software OpenGL library.

How to place a preorder committment

Please read the following so that the forms can be processed by software, later. In the section below "How to order", enter a unique reference into the inputbox and press "Edit", then fill in the fields on the page that is created.

Below the fields, feel free to use the page to keep any notes, conversations, wish-list items or anything else you would like to say that can be made public.

Unique Reference

This is for your convenience: it's actually the name of a unique wiki page that you can link to. If a page (reference) already exists, ikiwiki will try to help you out by appending numbers to the end of it. If you prefer not to do that, just use the back button on the browser and try again.

• Contact Details: Please remember that the email contact details are public, so it is adviseable to be aware of possible spam farming. We do however need to be able to contact you! If you wish to use obfuscation please do so but please try not to make it too complex.
• Max Unit Cost: Optionally, please fill in the maximum amount per unit that you would be prepared to pay.
• Max Budget: Optionally, please fill in the total amount that you would be prepared to spend on units. This will help us when speaking to the Factory.
• Development Stage: Please clearly state whether you would prefer earliest available sample hardware (which will greatly help support the project), beta hardware (likely to be working but will not have all drivers written), or fully-tested hardware.
• Purpose: It would help greatly to tell people a bit about what the intended purpose is for: this is a Free Software Community project, and this field is your opportunity to find people who may be interested in collaborating. Feel free to review community ideas, put in a page on this wiki, or put in a URL to an external web site.
• Status: Please leave this as "preorder" for now, then link to ?done when the modules have been received.

Pre-Order Committment Form

Enter a unique reference for the preorder