ARM CPUs & Speculation on Touchbook Future

[morphyman]

I'm waiting on a Touchbook and while cruising the web found this link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2341081,00.asp which talks about the ARM processors. I don't know much about CPUs (or Linux for that matter), however I'm curious which specifically of the OMAP 3 processors is in the Touchbook (3530?) and if there is an upgrade path planned to OMAP-4 when available? Anyone with more knowledge than myself care to speculate? (Links and explanations appreciated. )

[hyc]

It's a good question whether to adopt the OMAP36 right away, or hang on with OMAP35 for a while longer until OMAP4 is available. Fun times ahead...

[md84419]

Yes, the Touchbook uses OMAP3530 which is the current top-of-the-range for low volume OMAP3. There is a version of the 3530 that has just become available which is clocked at 720MHz for the main CPU and 520MHz for the DSP - which would be an easy update for AI to make on their production line,.

There are rumors that an OMAP35xx might soon be available at 840MHz or even 1GHz.

The OMAP36xx isn't an option - they are indended for high volume manufacturing such as mobile 'phones and aren't available in 1k or 10k quantities.

OMAP4 isn't going to be an option for another 9 months or so - I don't think they've started shipping in high volume yet. There are also rumors that TI are planning to rebrand OMAP4 as part of the DaVinci (TMS) product line, which I think would be A Good Thing.

[glenhawk]

Yes a very good thing.
One of the reasons I am not getting upset with the hardware limitations is that I am hoping that AI can offer us a revision2 main board sometime in the near future after the community has properly assessed the current hardware.

[hyc]

Yes, the Touchbook uses OMAP3530 which is the current top-of-the-range for low volume OMAP3. There is a version of the 3530 that has just become available which is clocked at 720MHz for the main CPU and 520MHz for the DSP - which would be an easy update for AI to make on their production line,.

There are rumors that an OMAP35xx might soon be available at 840MHz or even 1GHz.

Would be nice, but not until we get frequency scaling working in the kernel. Otherwise battery life is going to plummet.

The OMAP36xx isn't an option - they are indended for high volume manufacturing such as mobile 'phones and aren't available in 1k or 10k quantities.

OMAP4 isn't going to be an option for another 9 months or so - I don't think they've started shipping in high volume yet. There are also rumors that TI are planning to rebrand OMAP4 as part of the DaVinci (TMS) product line, which I think would be A Good Thing.

So far the OMAP4 product descriptions I've seen are also only for high volume. At the rate things are going though with mobile phones, I wouldn't mind having an OMAP4-based phone. Really if you can shrink all the useful guts into a tiny phone body, maybe that's all you need. Think of a docking design, where the Touchbook is just a shell with LCD, keyboard, battery, and USB hub, and the OMAP4 phone just slides into a slot in the shell. Total mobility for the majority of the time, and a book form factor for when you want a larger display, or need a decent keyboard.

[glenhawk]

Really cool idea!
However it might be better if the "shell" had some smarts to perform basic tasks (browsing, documents, etc) and by docking the phone you get a performance boost and additional capabilities. For example:
In the "Shell" part: WiFi, accelerometer, wired network port, serial port, USB
In the "Phone" part: Mobile Broadband, GPS, bluetooth, camera and mic for phone/Video calls and SMS/MMS (who'd-a-thought! )
Two devices rather than one device and an accessory. Separately they would both be useful, together they would be powerful.
I don't know about the ability to harness the processors in the phone and the "shell" for dual processing but it's an idea.

[hyc]

Looks like Motorola copied my idea with their Atrix. If they try to patent it, I could make things very ugly for them...

[infrared]

@hyc
check this out...
http://myjanky.com/beagleboard/?p=255
I believe motorola patented portions of the design and technology. The Atrix is based on the Tegra 2 by Nvidia (a dual core arm variant). Different then omap but the processor is just splitting hairs.

MyJanky is my site *shameless plug, although I know people that are interested in unlocking the Atrix hardware via the bootloader which is currently off limits to the end user. As a Moto developer I do not even have access to changing the boot loader (thus can not load new kernels).
The Atrix uses the same OS switching that the touch book uses. Its quick switching using the same kernel with different user space. There is even work being done by some to place Angstrom and other OS variants on the Atrix.