New PPC/Linux PDA Reference Design From IBM

kinema writes "It looks like IBM has released a new Linux/PowerPC based PDA reference design called e-LAP ("embedded Linux application platform"). It features a PowerPC 405LP, 30MB SDRAM, 32MB NOR Flash, 64MB Disk-On-Chip Flash, 240 x 320 color LCD, Stereo speakers, Microphone, USB (both host and client ports), a 3000 gate Xilinx FPGA, SDIO slot and last but not least a TCPA security chip. I for one would love to see some good PowerPC based PDAs on the market."

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[RupW]

Why wouldn't they run a Linux version on it with a regular PC chip and be able to sell the device cheaper?

You mean an x86? They eat too much power to use portably.

There are a couple of low-power x86 compatibles - the Transmeta Crusoe and VIA Epic - but don't know if they're low power enough. Plus they're someone else's technology whereas PowerPC is IBM's own.

Here's the IBM press release

[dietlein]

Here [ibm.com] is the official IBM press release.

Re:FPGA?

[llamafresh]

Field Programmable Gate Array

I learned a bit about these when I was in college...when set up right, they are much faster than microprocessors, and can be changed on-the-fly by writing new array logic to it.

Future DRM?

That would be the TCPA chip, my friend. Palladium anyone?

llamafresh

Re:FPGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Field Programmable Gate Array. Its a chip that allows you to 're-wire' its internals. If the original pentium with its F00F bug was an FPGA, they could have released a patch (the pentium would have also been a lot slower though)

developer sled

[SonOfSengaya]

From http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9222005703.html [linuxdevices.com]

-----
Additionally, a plug-in "developer sled" adds the following options, for development and debug purposes . . .

USB 1.1 host

10/100 Ethernet

Serial port

8- or 16-bit PCMCIA slot

JTAG debug port

Flash programming port -----

Re:lower power consumption

[dietlein]

IBM says that the 405LP has good power management features (see link). I tend to agree with them, but also with the parent who says that this won't be the cheap solution for everyone.

The 405LP PR [ibm.com]

Re:PowerPC Advantages? Power Consumption...

[dietlein]

From http://www.ibm.com/ibm/environment/annual2002/prod uct.shtml [ibm.com]:

The first product to emerge from the Low-Power Computing Research Center is the low-power 405LP chip, which enables system software to control and reduce active power by dynamically scaling processor performance to the level required to support the application. Wherever possible, the 405LP offloads processor demands by use of hardware accelerators and aggressively shuts off portions of the device when not in use. Standby power is also reduced. The 405LP includes a mode in which power is reduced virtually to zero while still providing "instant-on" response to an external stimulus, such as a pen stylus on a touch screen.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article. Notice that it mentions that the PowerPC 405LP chip not only contains a PPC 405 core, but a substantial number of other devices. DDR Controller, DMA Controller, LCD Controller.. and a myriad of others important ones. This significantly reduces the number of chips a manufacturer needs to put in a device, with the result of dramatically reduced cost.

Also, anecdotal "PowerPC chips are more expensive" _may_ hold for the PC market, but remember that this is a radically different chip geared for a radically different market (the article mentions a top speed of ~380 MHz!). In reality, IBM has priced this particular chip very reasonably -- wholesale price $100. Those numbers ought to be available soon.

Development of this chip was on Linux right from the beginning, and people were using them around the lab as MP3 players throughout! A great platform for hacking around with.

Re:crazy

[qwijibrumm]

I think you miss the whole point of the powerPC architecture. The fact of the matter is powerPCs were designed to be extremely scaleable. They are all over the place in systems you would never know. The best example I can think of is the electronic control unit in many cars. It just happens that the powerPCs you hear about the most are Motorola's G4s, IBM's Power970, etc. The whole concept of the powerPC is to have a powerful unified processor "backbone" for anything from a blender to a rackmount server.

Re:Power/Battery Life

[colinleroy]

powerpc, not ARM :)
According to this [ibm.com] ,500mW @ 380 MHz, 1.8V.

. . . and another one (today) from Motorola

[Anonymous Coward]

from the "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" department . . .

Here's another interesting announcement [linuxdevices.com] from LinuxWorld today: "Motorola's Metrowerks software tools subsidiary demonstrated a pre-release version of its Linux-based OpenPDA mobile device software platform at LinuxWorld in New York today. The software was shown running on AMD's Alchemy Au1100 system-on-chip based Mobile Client Reference Design Kit (RDK)."

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[mlyle]

This is a typical artifact of RISC chips. Instructions are fixed size, and usually the same size as the general purpose registers. When you load from an immediate value (a value contained in the instruction), the instruction has insufficient room for a value as wide as the instruction itself after specifying the instruction, the destination operand, etc.

Photos!

[IceFox]

A few photos taken this morning. Stop by the Intel both and say hello and see the C700 and 5600 Sharp Zaurus.

Photos here! [rit.edu]

Not an FPGA - it is a CPLD

[brandido]

The reference in the post and in the article to a Xilinx XCR3128XL FPGA is incorrect - the XCR3128XL is actually a Xilinx CPLD. While both are reconfigurable, the primary difference between an FPGA and a CPLD is that an FPGA is SRAM based, and must be programmed each time it is turned on, while a CPLD is Flash based, and can keeps its configuration between power cycles. Additionally, FPGAs tend to have more logic and more features.

Re:lower power consumption

[kryptobiotic]

Apple notebooks (well at least my iBook) do reduce processor performance when using the battery. This is the "automatic" energy saver setting that is set by default.

PowerPC's major market is embedded devices

[MyNameIsFred]

Don't forget that the major market for PowerPCs is embedded devices. One of the reasons Apple has lagged in the MegaHertz war is that Motorolla sells many more embedded CPUs then desktop CPUs. Since users of embedded CPUs generally are more interested in power consumption then speed, you can guess where Motorolla has focused.

PowerPC 405LP has no FPU

[Wesley Felter]

But I'm sure you can run Tremor.

Re:lower power consumption

[Hank the Lion]

XScale is just the ARM compatible processor of Intel. GCC supports it.

Re:Not an FPGA - it is a CPLD

[twalk]

CPLDs can use SRAM, and FPGAs can use flash. The difference is in how routing is done.

CPLDs have a pretty firm definition of having several large blocks, holding many macrocells, with feedback to a global (and often also local) switch matrix.

FPGAs don't have a firm definition, but Xilinx ones use SRAM based LUTs connected in a grid pattern with manhatten routing. Most of Altera's FPGAs have a more CPLD bent, while Actel uses antifuse and flash technology with more of a "sea of gates" look to the developer.

Re:lower power consumption

[Strog]

Check out handhelds.org [handhelds.org] for good info on Linux on many handheld platforms.

There is a working distro [handhelds.org] or two [handhelds.org] for the 3900 [handhelds.org] . The 1900 [handhelds.org] and 5400 [handhelds.org] use the same cpu but the onboard peripherals are different. No one has started the port for these 2 but it could potentially go quickly because a lot of the groundwork is done.

Re:big corporation loses plot again

[Gogo Dodo]

The new IBM design supports "SD", i.e. "Secure Digital". What fricking use is a big storage device if you can't store your MP3's on it?

You need to look up what Secure Digital cards really are before assuming that they're automatically a DRM thing. Secure Digital [sdcard.org] is a card format that has the ability of doing DRM, but not required. It's a follow on to the MMC cards. Happens to be the same card as the Palm units. See SanDisk for more info. [sandisk.com]

I have Bonzai USB Mini-Drive [simpletech.com] that uses SD cards and I am not restricted in what I can cart on it. Works great as a bit-bucket to carry stuff around and I'm not stuck at a fixed capacity like the more popular Disk-On-Key Flash memory USB things.

Also, don't forget that this is a reference design. If an OEM wants to built in CF or Bluetooth, there is nothing stopping them except for some engineering.

Re:lower power consumption

[Anonymous Coward]

Say a PowerPC chip costs $(1.5 * X)

Let's not say that. PowerPC chip cost no more in quantity than Pentium4 class chips. In fact they are usually closer to the AMD price point than the Intel price point. The embedded PowerPC chips are even cheaper. The embedded market Intel x86 chips do not even have P4 class chips yet. You're talking 486 maybe PII.

The PPC 405 competes against Intel's Xscale (i.e., ARM), not the x86 architecture. How many Pocket PC PDAs use x86??? Isn't that number very close to zero?

[ Extrapolating the PowerPC chip price, from the price of Mac is folly. 1) the other system components are a more dominating factor of system cost. 2). Apple has 'fit and polish' overhead that they add to the system. That is immaterial to PowerPC costs. That fact that PowerPCs are cheaper has kept Apple in the game; not more expensive. ]

peace

QTopia/Zaurus compatibility?

[Simon Brooke]

It looks to me from the pictures as it the machines is running Trolltech's QTopia [trolltech.com] palmtop environment, just like the Sharp Zaurus [zaurus.com]. This is good from at least two points of view. Firstly it means it's easy to port the existing software [killefiz.de] for the Zaurus, and relatively easy to port KDE [kde.org] and other Qt based apps; and secondly because it means that people producing software for Linux palmtop devices get a wider market with a consistent UI look-and-feel.

Re:lower power consumption

[Anonymous Coward]

Think i'm gonna hold this linux-on-ipaq adventure until the SD memory cards get some kind of support.

I think the reason for that is not lack of support, check this (extracted from www.openzaurus.org [openzaurus.org]):

Unfortunately, due to the wonderful DMCA [wikipedia.org], we have no way of providing support for SD cards in our new kernel. The code for the SD driver used with .6 is not available, and any attempts to reverse engineer the driver will land us in jail. As of now, our best option is to port the IPaq MMC driver to the Zaurus, which will support MMC, but not SD cards.