MIPS® Creator CI20, Debian 7, Android 4.4, Gentoo, Yocto dev kit PowerVR GPU - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 02:21:25 am
content: Got an email with a one off 10% discount of £50 or $65, but shipping is $10 so even with the discount it would be around $70, not sure yet if I want it yet. It's made and sold by Imagination Technologies the holders of PowerVR and MIPS.I haven't look at how open their schematics etc are yet, but looks interesting. The wiki is not completed yet but it has some information and place holders for future entries. The MIPS32 processor looks beefy enough and the PowerVR SGX540 is what the original iPad had, so it's not the full quad core SGX543MP4 that the IPad 3rd gen had or the SGX554MP4 (quad core as well of the 4th gen) Still the MIPS32 seem to have DSP, multithreading and other goodies, although I bet you can't just install ARM apps from the Google store.The price is not too bad if you want to develop Yocto on MIPSMIPS® Creator CI20 incorporates an Ingenic JZ4780 SoC which includes a 1.2 GHz, dual-core MIPS32 processor and PowerVR SGX540 GPU. Creator CI20 is preloaded with Debian 7. Android 4.4, Gentoo, Yocto are available for download.Key Hardware FeaturesIngenic JZ4780, dual-core2GHz MIPS32 processor, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, 32k I&D L1 cache,512k L2 cacheIEEE754 Floating Point Unit4GB Flash, 1GB DDR3 memoryVideo playback up to 1080pAC97 audio, via 4-pin input/output jack and HDMI connectorCamera interface – ITU645 controllerConnectivity – 10/100 ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0HDMI output up to 2K resolution2 x USB – host and OTG14-pin EJTAG connector2 x UART, GPIO, SPI, I2C, ADC, expansion headershttp://community.imgtec.com/platforms/single-platform/mips-creator-ci20/Tech Specs:http://elinux.org/CI20_Hardware#Tech_Spec_overviewMore Info:http://elinux.org/MIPS_Creator_CI20So MIPS seems to want to move into the Android ecosystem with their MIPS32 and MIPS64 chipsets. The fabless semiconductor company is Ingenic from China.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenic_SemiconductorLooks cool, but not sure were they will end up I think it's hard to displace ARM.

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 12:01:37 pm
content: the problem of this platform is the GPU, closed sources

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 04:22:52 pm
content: All the GPU drivers are closed source. In general that is not a problem as long as you link the right version.

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 06:42:08 pm
content: under linux is always a great problem

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 06:47:29 pm
content: btw, in my case i will use my usb-fb driver, that is just a video frame buffer without any acceleration, i do not want to have nothing to deal with such a closed source GPUi have ordered 2 units a few days ago, i am a gentoo/mips developer (in particular for SGI/MIPS and Fonera2) so in any case this machine will help me to develop and to try things on a fast machineactually i am using an Atheros9 @ 800Mhz

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 07:39:56 pm
content: Nothing stops you to use the frame buffer since it does supports standard interfaces, but if you want to drive it directly look at 4.2 EXtreme 2D, 5 LCD Controller, 6 Smart LCD Controller, 9 Image Process Unit and others in:http://mipscreator.imgtec.com/CI20/hardware/soc/JZ4780_PM.pdf

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 09:06:07 pm
content: i will get two units on january (i hope), who else has planned to buy this machine ?in case, which use have you planned ?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 09:13:31 pm
content: Not me. I've been down the MIPS road onto a deserted island before and I don't want to go there again. MIPS just isn't mainstream and there is a lot of software out there with CPU dependant assembly code (web browsers, Java engines, video/audio processing, etc).

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2014, 10:39:28 pm
content: Yeah, there are a lot of offerings out there like the olimex board:https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME/I just found it interesting that imagination tech if moving into the ARM turf.I'm still hopping to get the Jetson K1 instead. My plan is just to use the GPIOs to interface with random bits using an FPGA as glue in between them, just to learn.

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 11:53:31 am
content: @nctnicoread the gentoo/alternative machine first thread postyou will find a discussion between me and Kumba about SGI/Octane2that machine is stalled with linux 2.6.17, and the discussion was related about 'what do to" about newer 3.* kernelsMIPS is related to routers, as Fonera or RouterStation, both designed around Atheros Chipsfrom my point of view is not a problem: i have been developing a LIDAR using an Atheros9 chip as "robot" boardjust because i am a MIPS fanp.s.also products like YUN, Carambola, Dragino, and so on, which are similar to my MIPS-robot boardthe CI20 is faster than my 800Mhz Atheros9 and also it adds an FPUi am still using FPU emulation from Kernel spaceCode:Algorithmics/MIPS FPU Emulator v1.5

author: Rasz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2014, 10:47:11 pm
content: earlier Ingenic chip was used in some linux handhelds sold to emulate game consolesGCW? and dintoo or somethingit had vivante GPU, one good thing that came out of it was open source reverse engineered driver for that gpu. Interestingly Bunnie hired author of that driver to port it to i.mx6's higher model GPU used in Bunnies open laptop.