[Gen9, Gen10 General] scholbert:
Hi,

it's me again... this time the victim of my surgery is my Archos 80 G9 tablet with 8GByte.

The device is working pretty nice, but it's always fun to start investigation on the hardware :D.

Some general words about the design:

It seems obvious that Archos engineers started developing with TI Blaze development platform.

There'd been some hints in the source code and the design looks pretty similar.

Unfortunately there's no schematics of this platform... but fortunately there's the PandaBoard :p.

This board is fully documented (schematics as well) and there are a lot of open development projects all over the web.

Basically the Archos Gen9 tablets share the same base chipset with the Pandaboard and that's why there are many similarities.

One thing notable is the fact, that Archos implemented a eMMC/SD card chipset on the mainboard, instead of using a fully integrated eMMC device as to be found on the Gen8 mainboards.

In other words they coupled an eMMC controller (Phison PS7000) together with raw NAND flash (64GBit MLC).

This subsystem then got connected to mmc2 interface and is used as boot media (eMMC raw boot).

The other thing we may observe, is that the A80G9 and the A101G9 mainboards look pretty much the same in form and shape.

I guess, there are only little differences in the design, if there are any at least ;).

EDIT2: Have a look over here...

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1449438

Harfainx did a great job and put down some high-res pics from his A101G9.

Anyway there might be a lot to report, but i think it'll be better to come back from time to time and add some details and information.

You may prepare for some pics as well :D

A80G9 chipset information:

Processor

• Ti OMAP4430/60 (547-pin CBS BGA package) ARM Cortex A9 dual-core at 1/1.5 GHz with DSP

• POWERVR SGX540 Graphic accelerator: 3D OpenGL ES 2.0

Memory

• 512MB/1024MB LPDDR SDRAM (216-pin PoP BGA package) soldered on top of OMAP4430/60

• 8/16GB NAND (52-pin VLGA package) with eMMC bridge chip (PS7000) connected on mmc2 interface

Interfaces

• USB 2.0 OTG (OMAP4430/60 internal interface, MicroUSB connector)

• USB 2.0 EHCI host interface (USB3322 ULPI phy, TYP A connector)

• Micro SD slot (OMAP4430/60 internal mmc1 interface, SDHC compatible)

Display subsystem

• ChiMei 8" TFT-Display EJ080NA-04B (24Bit-LVDS interface)

• Ti SN75LVDS83B LVDS transmitter (56-pin BGA package)

Touchscreen subsystem

• Capacitiv touchscreen unit (Cypress controller TMA340, I2C interface)

HDMI subsystem

• OMAP4430/60 internal 24-Bit HDMI transmitter

• HDMI output (19-pin Mini HDMI connector)

Communication

• Ti WL1271 WiFi (802.11 b/g/n)

• Ti WL1271 Bluetooth 2.1 EDR

GPS chipset

• Ti NL5550 AGPS connected to uart0

Audio chipset

• Ti TWL6040 multichannel audio codec

Miscellaneous

• Built-in speaker

• Built-in Microphone

• Aptina MT9M114 1/6" 720p HD camera (1.26M)

Sensors

• Freescale MMA8453Q G-sensor

• AsahiKasei AK8975 compass-sensor

Power source

• Ti TWL6030 power management chip

• Ti TPS62361 core voltage regulator

• Internal: Lithium Polymer battery

• External: 5V/1.5A Power adapter/charger

Again i did some web research and made a smart datasheet collection.

Grab this zip-file.

EDIT5:

Updated datasheet collection...

Read on for some more information.

So what's next:

I don't know yet...

will start some hacking because i got a damaged mainboard

EDIT1:

Added some low res pics of the mainboard...

EDIT3:

To consider the OMAP4460 variants i added some lines in the chipset spec.

Though i did not open one of these devices, it is likely that Archos did use the same mainboard and upgraded the CPU and PoP-Memory.

Search the Ti website for further information on that SoC.

There's also a document which clarifies the differences between OMAP4430 and OMAP4460.

I may put it here as well if you like :rolleyes:

EDIT4:

Some error corrections...

EDIT6:

Archos 3.0.8 kernel seems to be heavily based on this branch of Ti OMAP kernels:

http://git.omapzoom.org/?p=kernel/o...roid-omap-3.0-4470;hb=p-android-omap-3.0-4470

If you run a diff between these two you'll get a pretty good overview about the Archos specific changes.

Might be interesting for those who like to create a newer kernel for the Gen9 :)

Stay tuned!

scholbert