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A $1, Linux-Capable, Hand-Solderable Processor (hackaday.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over on the EEVblog, someone noticed an interesting chip that's been apparently flying under our radar for a while. This is an ARM processor capable of running Linux. It's hand-solderable in a TQFP package, has a built-in Mali GPU, support for a touch panel, and has support for 512MB of DDR3. If you do it right, this will get you into the territory of a BeagleBone or a Raspberry Pi Zero, on a board that's whatever form factor you can imagine. Here's the best part: you can get this part for $1 USD in large-ish quantities. A cursory glance at the usual online retailers tells me you can get this part in quantity one for under $3. This is interesting, to say the least.

The chip in question, the Allwinner A13, is a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor. While it's not much, it is a chip that can run Linux in a hand-solderable package. There is no HDMI support, you'll need to add some more chips (that are probably in a BGA package), but, hey, it's only a dollar. If you'd like to prototype with this chip, the best options right now are a few boards from Olimex, and a System on Module from the same company. That SoM is an interesting bit of kit, allowing anyone to connect a power supply, load an SD card, and get this chip doing something. Currently, there aren't really any good solutions for a cheap Linux system you can build at home, with hand-solderable chips.

11 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Waiting for RISC-V by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm waiting for the future of computing: RISC-V.

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  2. This only cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Unless you want to do it yourself or you have a project that needs it. 5 dollar will get you a Raspberry Pi Zero with a full system minus storage.

    1. Re:This only cheap by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I can see if you are making something that you plan to semi-mass-produce say with a custom PCB boards. While cheap, is also very under feature, and soldering for your own little project would just take up more then it would be worth getting full computer on a board like the Raspberry Pi or an Arduino. For a single use project the difference between $1.00, $5.00 or $20.00 isn't that big of a deal. Especially if you are going to manually solder it.

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    2. Re:This only cheap by barc0001 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can't, really. It's $5 for a Pi Zero with tons of support for the platform and a million people doing stuff with that exact size build to draw on for info/experience/inspiration. Someone comes out with the $3.50 SalmonBerry Cake Zero that nobody's seen before with some kitbashed board config, are you really going to try and save $1.50 going with the weirdo board? If it causes you 20 minutes of trouble, then you've already lost compared to just going with the Pi Zero.

  3. Allwinner is garbage by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Allwinner is garbage. This is the shit you get in those chinese Raspberry Pi clones. The support and documentation are essentially nonexistant. If you even have a reference linux image to work with, it will break all of the time and never be updated

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    1. Re:Allwinner is garbage by KiloByte · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Allwinner is garbage. This is the shit you get in those chinese Raspberry Pi clones.

      Uhm, what? They run circles around anything Raspberry Pi can do. Here's for example why rpi open firemware died because Raspberry is utter shit. And just see what the author recommends instead. Allwinner is a cheap-and-cut-corners alternative, but at least it gets shit done. Its support is also mostly non-existant, but the community managed to write free drivers — including beating the ATF into shape, so it's ready, included in Debian and mostly merged upstream (this one lacks a few patches for Pinebook/etc).

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    2. Re:Allwinner is garbage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Likely the broadcom chips in the PIs are unavailable because the chips in all the PIs are EOL. The PI foundation clears out broadcom's remaining stock for pennies on the dollar cranks out PI boards till they run out of chips and then spins up a new PI board using the next EOL part that broadcom has. Win Win for most everyone. Broadcom gets to clear out their EOL stock, PI foundation gets cheap chips, We get cheap SBCs.

      Likely the reason we are stuck with binary blobs for the drivers is because of the licensed audio/video codecs in the chip. You have to pay extra licensing fees to the PI foundation to unlock these codecs. If the drivers were open sourced anyone would be able to unlock these codecs without paying the license fee, likely putting broadcom and the PI foundation in some hot water with the patent owners of said codecs.

  4. About that hand computer... by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 3, Funny

    Shouldn't a chip for your hand be implanted? Soldering a chip to your hand sounds painful.

  5. Can you imagine... by ArhcAngel · · Score: 5, Funny

    a Beowulf cluster of these?

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  6. This Chip is NOT Hand Solderable by mykepredko · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, maybe it is if you have $2k+ in SMT soldering equipment like: https://www.weller-tools.com/p... and a reasonable quality microscope: https://www.microscope.com/oma...

    A TQFP chip usually has pins on 0.8mm centres or less (down to 0.4mm). In case you don't know what this means, this chip will have 32 to 64 pins per inch that need soldering.

    In any case, you need to have a PCB of appropriate quality to solder it on and, if you aren't experienced in working with them, you'll fuck up a lot of PCBs and chips. These chips are meant to be soldered on an appropriately solder pasted PCB and then run through an oven. Single pins can be reworked with the tools noted above or with custom hot gas tools.

    I'm sure shortly somebody with the appropriate knowledge, skills and resources will design a Single Board Computer (SBC) around this chip with an appropriate BIOS chip or tools to flash it. If they don't come up with the SBC, then there is a reason why they didn't (or stopped before offering a product) and you will avoid going down a rabbit hole.

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  7. It is easily Hand Solderable by Maddog+Batty · · Score: 4, Informative

    Have a look at some youtube videos of hand soldering TQFP, there are loads.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... for example

    I'm happy hand soldering 0.65mm devices and I have done 0.5mm. It is easy enough to do if you are careful however my preferred method is to get a £30 stencil and use solder paste together with hand placement. I then chuck it in my £30 oven and get results good enough that my customers assume that it has been made on a pick and place machine.

    Yes it takes a bit of practise and experience but certainly no expensive equipment.

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