Neo900 - finally a successor of N900

[quixote]

NSA crap in the US means there's more of an opportunity for FOSS than there has been for a while. Nothing huge or mass market, but bigger than it was.

I'm another potential customer for a Neo900. I've been nursing along my old N900 -- charging is getting wonky, some of the keys have been rubbed off from long use, etc. -- waiting for a real replacement.

One of my dreams was to get something lighter, but if that's the only thing wrong, I could live with it.

(My ideal form factor would be a clamshell, with a screen on the outside for when you don't need a real keyboard, and a screen on the inside for when you do. And, if we got really fancy, the keyboard would be a microfluidics one which could disappear and turn into more screen when you wanted to watch movies or whatever. And all that should weigh only a bit more than, say, a Samsung Galaxy III, and cost less than 300euros. )

[joerg_rw]

Originally Posted by Fabry

I have not read the full thread but as possible improvement (to add to wish-list) I suggest also to add an MHL chip to have HDMI output without having to change N900 external case.

Of course if TI Soc support HDMI (I have not verified)

It doesn't (only OMAP4 does) afaik. So I had removed that HDMI possible option from post#1

[joerg_rw]

Originally Posted by TomJ

Here's a thought - inductive charging. It's been done as a hack, but would it be possible to fit the kit in the case?

For sure as an option to retrofit under the battery lid. we will provide the needed contact pads to do such rework. I don't think we can go offer a complete inductive charging solution.

[Estel]

Originally Posted by joerg_rw

It doesn't (only OMAP4 does) afaik. So I had removed that HDMI possible option from post#1

Now you made me sad panda.

Nevertheless, is something like proposed here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...rd/keKdb1LDht4

...possible/feasible? It's discussion about implementing HDMI output for OMAP 3xxx-based boards - AIUI, requiring some additional low-cost components on board. It's completely out of my area of expertise, so sorry for being vague, and requesting you to read their discussion - I just couldn't wrap my mind if results are *real* DVI-D output (which would be great), our just RGB 24bit input converted to HDMI (which is pointless, anyway).

/Estel

// Edit

Is there planned, on the roadmap, evaluation follow-up of this:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=468
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=469
...?

I got impression that currently, we have no idea if OMAP4 compatibility with fremantle would or wouldn't be an issue, and that it needs checking deeper?

/Estel

[joerg_rw]

Originally Posted by Estel

Now you made me sad panda.

Nevertheless, is something like proposed here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...rd/keKdb1LDht4

...possible/feasible? It's discussion about implementing HDMI output for OMAP 3xxx-based boards - AIUI, requiring some additional low-cost components on board. It's completely out of my area of expertise, so sorry for being vague, and requesting you to read their discussion - I just couldn't wrap my mind if results are *real* DVI-D output (which would be great), our just RGB 24bit input converted to HDMI (which is pointless, anyway).

OMAP3 doesn't provide true HDMI out, so anything they invent may at best be 8/8/8->pseudo-HDMI, pointless. (not that 8/8/8 is too crappy for HDMI, but the resolution is) I'd much rather offer some VGA or component output than that (but prolly won't)
[edit] Oh I see they (ab)use the LCD interface as video data source and feed it to a HDMI converter chip (Sil9022, TPD12S521). Hmm, feasible but really high effort and risk, and we probably won't be able to cram all the needed stuff on the Neo900 PCB. Also no LCD display while HDMI then, aiui they switch between LCD and HDMI with a muxer (SN74AVC32T245). Sorry, won't fly. Also see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!ms...4/LtX_R782sJUJ and guess what's GolDeliCo's and OM's and my notion about it.

Originally Posted by Estel

Is there planned, on the roadmap, evaluation follow-up of this:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=468
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=469
...?

I got impression that currently, we have no idea if OMAP4 compatibility with fremantle would or wouldn't be an issue, and that it needs checking deeper?

/Estel

last statement in 2nd post holds. Too risky for Neo900, maye in a year or two we start plans about some new shiny device that will have OMAP4 or even OMAP5 (or sth completely new unheard). I guess there could be a market for maybe 200..500 really top notch feature monster devices on this globe, sth like TI blaze just with even more nice features and specs. Even when such device would cost 1500 or 2000 bucks in the end. But it has to fit into your pocket, unlike blaze.
/j

footnote: OK, a virtual 400EUR burned to evaluate HDMI and find out it doesn't meet our policies and capabilities. So you see where money goes in real commercial product design and why some inquiries are not even getting an answer from big corporate

[wicket]

In a previous post I suggested transmitting a DVB-T2 signal as an alternative to HDMI but it did not get much of a response. Apologies as I do not have an electronics background but would it be possible to implement something similar to this?

[joerg_rw]

Originally Posted by wicket

In a previous post I suggested transmitting a DVB-T2 signal as an alternative to HDMI but it did not get much of a response. Apologies as I do not have an electronics background but would it be possible to implement something similar to this?

Every VGA card contains high speed Digital to Analog Converters (DACs), one for each Red, Blue and Green component. Here we use only the red DAC. The provided images have been computed so that the signal output to the DAC is a valid RF signal.

The DVB-T signal is generated with a DVB-T and DVB-H modulator I wrote from scratch. This is the most complicated step because the DVB-T modulation is quite complicated (COFDM modulation).

This computation is extremely heavy and can not be done in realtime on a OMAP3 (heck, I doubt an i7 can encode dvb-t in realtime, not to mention the "SDR" for creating a red picture that acts as RF)
Bottom line: A great idea and a nice sugestion and desirable feature, but alas not technically feasible for any real-life useful usecase.

cheers
jOERG

[dion_starfire]

Originally Posted by joerg_rw

32GB eMMC Flash + 1GB RAM: http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...=7626&iaId=860
The series offers other combinations too, many of which still not in mass production. Some are allegedly available as POP (dunno if for OMAP).
Anyway a seemingly viable alternative to our flash-only eMMC in N900 that offers same flash storage capacity plus an additional 1GB of fast RAM. http://fuchaoic.en.alibaba.com/produ...00VM_B604.html

CAVEAT: it's still not 100% clear to me that Samsung actually means (M/G)Byte and not bit (as storage manufacturers usually do), in those docs.
Anyway look here for what I consider is a PoP for OMAP et al. Max 512MB RAM. So Neo900 most likely will have 512MB PoP RAM, plus 1GB of really ultra fast swap, which should be even better than 1GB of plain RAM with no swap at all or flash-based swap that's extremely slow. For all practical purposes the user experience will be that of a device with 1.5GB RAM (and we don't need to do any special trcks to maemo5 kernel and core system, it just uses 512MB RAM with 1GB of ultrafast swap - instead of 256MB RAM with 768MB of extremely slow swap as is now on N900).

Evaluation if such chip even can get connected to Neo900 DM3730 SoC and circuitry is ongoing! (usual problem: no datasheets publicly available)

The DM37xx series supports addressing up to 4GB, and if I'm reading the datasheet correctly requires a Mobile DDR (aka LPDDR1) chip with a 90-ball FBGA and a 16- or 32-bit width, and it can handle up to two of them. Going by that, why wouldn't either of these 2GB modules work with it?

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...=7860&iaId=749
http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...=7861&iaId=749

As much as I like the idea of 512MB + 1GB Fast Swap, I like the idea of 2-4GB of real RAM even more.

[joerg_rw]

Originally Posted by dion_starfire

The DM37xx series supports addressing up to 4GB, and if I'm reading the datasheet correctly requires a Mobile DDR (aka LPDDR1) chip with a 90-ball FBGA and a 16- or 32-bit width, and it can handle up to two of them. Going by that, why wouldn't either of these 2GB modules work with it?

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...=7860&iaId=749
http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...=7861&iaId=749

As much as I like the idea of 512MB + 1GB Fast Swap, I like the idea of 2-4GB of real RAM even more.

Umm, which packaging are you referring to? You're aware that we use a DM3730CBP100 515POP-FCBGA (CBP) and need a matching PackageOnPackage MultiChipPackage piggyback chip on top of the SoC, that contains the up to 1GB RAM (2 banks a 512MB via 2 CipSelect) and the NAND flash in one rather special packaging? Or did I miss something?
We even checked for availability of RAM-only POP that would give us 1GB without the NAND (we *could* make device boot from eMMC then instead of NAND), but no luck for that either.
We tried to find the chip that Nokia is using on top of the OMAP in N9, but that chip "doesn't exist" - means it's built to order for Nokia and not available for mere mortals.
/j

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index....election_Guide

AM/DM37x - PoP and Discrete
CBP package - 168 ball 12x12 PoP memories
DRAM - PoP only. SDRC signals occur only on top balls

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=331

So, if i'm not wrong, this means that with the DM3730, to reach 1GB of ram we must use 2 x ram chips of 512MBytes selecting the first or the second bank with the CS (chip select) pin.

[dos1]

Originally Posted by dion_starfire

The DM37xx series supports addressing up to 4GB, and if I'm reading the datasheet correctly requires a Mobile DDR (aka LPDDR1) chip with a 90-ball FBGA and a 16- or 32-bit width, and it can handle up to two of them. Going by that, why wouldn't either of these 2GB modules work with it?

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...=7860&iaId=749
http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...=7861&iaId=749

As much as I like the idea of 512MB + 1GB Fast Swap, I like the idea of 2-4GB of real RAM even more.

4Gb != 4GB
4Gb most often means 512MB.

And also PoP issue as noted above by Joerg.