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Single-Chip Linux Computer
goombah99 writes "Axis Computer has announced a single-chip Linux-based computer that integrates 2MB Flash, 8MB SDRAM and an Ethernet transceiver into a single chip with a 27mm x 27mm footprint. 'Just add power to the chip and you have a Linux computer with network connection.' It runs the Linux 2.4 kernel without any patches. The announcement says the chip is 'available' but the tech specs are labeled as preliminary, and the order form on the web site is broken, so it's hard to confirm if it is out yet or not. Some specifications in html and pdf are available at the company's web site."
Add some BlueTooth and you might finally have a decent platform to run all those household appliances you've been wanting to network at home. Interesting possibilities at least...
but really, serial ports? parallel ports? i'm not too sure that the scsi is going to win them any points either, but what the hell. they might have well integrated a video controler, an audio controler, and a 9600 baud modem to boot!
Well, I think they target embedded applications and not laptops here. Most embedded applications don't need sound or video capabilities and most engineers love to have serial and parallel I/O, because of their simplicity.
For some reason, even imagining a Beowulf cluster of these doesn't do the slightest thing for me...
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
It is available.
The chip itself is $40. The eval board for the ETRAX 100LX is available for $299 as well as a version with bluetooth for $495.
Finally, the order page for both of these is at https://www.axis.com/shop/technology.htm.
--Tim
We'd be talking real power...
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Nope, you're all wrong. It uses the CRIS architecture. See here for the architectural description.
I control the time!
For a project I worked on at Keio Univ. in Japan, we ordered some of the Axis web cams, which use an older
version of the same chip, as well as some of the developer boards.
The system works as advertised; developing software and
deploying it is very easy, you just do a "make" in the source directory on your host, and it builds the flash rom image, and you download it via ethernet with a single command. You can ftp over to the board to upload binaries or other files, and there's a telnet client.
The only problems I had with the dev board were that it doesn't really have much useful I/O on it.
It has three serial ports and 16 bit parallel port, which can be used as an IDE drive or USB port, but at the time we got the system, you had to kind of roll your own interface. And at the time the drivers for the parallel port weren't
shipping standard so I had to write my own kernel
driver for it.