Raspberry Pi Compute Module Release

First time accepted submitter ControlsGeek (156589) writes "The Raspberry Pi Foundation has developed a new product. It is basically a Raspberry Pi model A processor, memory, and flash memory on a DDR2-style SODIMM connector. Also available will be a development board that breaks out all the internal connections. The board design will be open sourced so you can develop your own devices using the BCM2835 processor. No network, but support for 2 HDMI displays and 2 cameras, so 3D TV is a possibility.

Comments

Different use case than standard RPI

[Radium_]

As discussed on the Raspberry forum, there is some integrated memory, but no USB or Ethernet are present.
Liz from the RPI foundation writes that "there’s much more IO, so you can add your own . The idea here is that it’s the barest minimum, so folks working on industrial applications can add the ports and extra connectivity they need."

Re:Different use case than standard RPI

[Obfuscant]

The idea here is that itâ(TM)s the barest minimum, so folks working on industrial applications can add the ports and extra connectivity they need.

I thought the purpose of the Raspberry Pi foundation was for education, not to produce embedded hardware for industrial control developers. Yes, the latter was a side effect of the former, but this new board is hardly an educational tool anymore.

How about a backplane?

[nbritton]

How much compute power do these guys have, would it be worthwhile to produce a backplane to run several of them in parallel? What about for redundancy in mission critical applications?

Re:How about a backplane?

[bobbied]

How much compute power do these guys have, would it be worthwhile to produce a backplane to run several of them in parallel? What about for redundancy in mission critical applications?

They have an IO board that can run ONE of these, but you don't just toss multiple processors on the same bus to get redundancy. The CPU and inter-processor communication setup is going to be an issue you'd have to work out, not to mention the OS support for redundancy or Mufti-Processor operation. Neither the hardware or software problems are always straight forward...

Good luck and let me know when you get it working. I'd love to have one or two.

Re:How about a backplane?

[ArhcAngel]

You meant to say "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these" didn't you?

Re:How about a backplane?

[HeckRuler]

One of the previous times that Raspberry Pis came up in conversation around here I heard of a guy who set up a Hadoop cluster running on a number of Pis.
It's possible, and educational, but the throughput is simply not significant to justify.

Sure, they're cheap. But putting a bunch next to each other won't give you all the processing power you've ever dreamed of.

Re:How about a backplane?

[stor]

You don't need to simply imagine it:

http://hackaday.com/2013/05/21...

Complete with blinkenflashen!

Re:The Children

[olsmeister]

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charity, and as with everything we make here, all profits are pushed straight back into educating kids in computing.

Chistmas Lights

[Xmastrspy]

Must... go.... get... more... christmas.... lights... NOW!!! :)

Mostly pointless

[wiredlogic]

The Compute Module is primarily designed for those who are going to create their own PCB. However, we are also launching something called the Compute Module IO Board to help designers get started.

Anyone going through the process of developing a board can get a simpler and less constrained solution by slapping down the three ICs directly and not have to deal with the cost and headaches of integrating a separate module.

Re:Mostly pointless

[Lemming Mark]

I do remember a talk where Eben Upton said that the routing was relatively complex under the main chip. Pinning it out onto an edge connector presumably gives you the luxury of building a much simpler board to plug it into - design-wise and possibly cost-wise since you might get away with fewer layers.

Seems like small-to-mid volume manufacturers might find it handy, even though high volume manufacturers would presumably just plonk the chips directly on.

Not that I'm an electronic engineer, so obviously take this with a pinch of salt.

Re:Mostly pointless

[ebenupton]

That's about right. If you're making a small (and by small I mean 50k unit) run it's likely to be worth buying a system on module rather than paying someone to do the fiddly HDI PCB design, finding someone who can assemble PoP reliably and buying your application processor, RAM and Flash out of distribution at high margin.

Re:Mostly pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

1. SoC design work mostly done for you - you'll still need to add your own peripherals on your own board.
2. Fully working Linux with accelerated graphics/video comes as standard
3. It's the only way to buy the Bcm2835 in small quantities.
4. Prototype on the very cheap Raspberry Pi.

It's $30 in batches of 100. I'd say that's a bargain for this sort of thing and should save lower quantity embedded firms a load of money in dev time.

Re:Mostly pointless

[labnet]

You are one the money. Our company has done exactly this. An imx.287 with ram, rom, eth. Laid out on sodimm module. I did the layout and it took me 8 layers and plated in hole vias to do it. The hardest part of these designs is the impedance and length matching between cpu and dram.
The advantage of this design is being able to fit it too a 2 layer board, and upgrade cpu without having to change the baseboard.

Re:BUT, More RAM please sir...

[psergiu]

The BMC chip can access 1GB of RAM, but unfortunatelly 512MB is the largest size currently produced in that form-factor (Chip-on-Chip BGA DDR1).
And the Raspberry Pi Foundations does not buy RAM chips in enough volume to justify to any vendor a custom made memory chip at that price.
So we're stuck with 512MB ... unless this new SODIMM form-factor is so succesful that they have enough volume to get that custom 1GB chip made for them at the same price as the current 512MB one.