Snowball board - ARM Dual Cortex A9+ Mali 400 GPU - 1Ghz

[nicolas gomez]

Hi all !! I find this board called Snowball with size of (85 x 85mm) may be another brain for the robots.

Single Board Computer based AP9500 processor (Dual Cortex A9 + Mali 400 GPU) that targets hobbyists and professional developers wanting to prototype new embedded designs. It will help developers to create applications for Android, Meego and Ubuntu

Specifications :

- ARM Dual Cortex A9 @ 1GHz,
- 4 / 8GByte e-MMC,
- 1GByte LP-DDR2,
- 1x Micro-SD,
- 1x RTC Battery Backup,
- 1x HDMI Full HD,
- 1x Ethernet 10/100Mbits,
- 1x CVBS Video OUT,
- 1x Audio OUT,
- 1x Audio IN,
- 1x USB OTG HS (480Mbits),
- 1x DC IN +5V,
- 1x Li-Ion Battery Charger
- 1x Serial Port (RS232 / Over USB),
- 1x JTAG Connector,
- 1x MiPi34 Debug Connector,
- 1x IEEE 802.11 b/g/n WLAN,
- 1 x Bluetooth 2.1+EDR (Ex. Antenna),
- 1 x GPS (Ex. Antenna),
- 1x 3 Axis Accelerometer,
- 1x 3 Axis Magnetometer,
- 1x 3 Axis Gyrometer,
- 1x Pressure sensor,
- 3x Expansion Connectors (FSMC,HSI, Audio, MiPi CSI /Camera,LCD,MiPi DSI, UART, SPI, I2C, GPIO).

Datasheet of the sensor

1- 3-axis digital output gyroscope

http://www.calao-systems.com/repository/pub/EMBEDDED%20COMPUTERS/SKY-S9500-ULP-XXX/DATASHEETS/L3G4200D.pdf

1- 3-axis accelerometer

1- 3-axis magnetometer

http://www.calao-systems.com/repository/pub/EMBEDDED%20COMPUTERS/SKY-S9500-ULP-XXX/DATASHEETS/LSM303DLH.pdf

1- MEMS pressure sensor 300-1300 mbar absolute digital output barometer

http://www.calao-systems.com/repository/pub/EMBEDDED%20COMPUTERS/SKY-S9500-ULP-XXX/DATASHEETS/LPS001WM.pdf

High-Performance 16-bit Non-PCI 10/100 Ethernet Controller with Variable Voltage I/O

http://www.calao-systems.com/repository/pub/EMBEDDED%20COMPUTERS/SKY-S9500-ULP-XXX/DATASHEETS/LAN9221.pdf

the price of the board for the versison of 4 8GByte e-MMC about 169€
















here a pdfs whit thee Datasheet

http://www.igloocommunity.org/Snowball_Datasheet.pdf

and the diferent form of conection in (Android, Meego and Ubuntu )

http://www.calao-systems.com/repository/pub/EMBEDDED%20COMPUTERS/SKY-S9500-ULP-XXX/DOCS/SKY-S9500-ULP-C01-QRG-V1.5.pdf

Here a video demostration

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and here more informatiion

http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Calao-Systems-Snowball


and preorder sales site

http://shop.strato.com/epages/61428605.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/61428605/Products/905-00024-A11

and more embedded pc
http://specialcomp.com/index.htm

[limor]

The size of the board may be a bit big for some humanoids.
The price is good if this really comes with decent gyros/accelerometers/magnetometer
This board should perform pretty well with opencv video processing tasks and should beat the A8 boards. i'm curious to see if the manufacturer provides some free compiler that utilizes the floating-point unit.

[limor]

The size of the board may be a bit big for some humanoids.
The price is good if this really comes with decent gyros/accelerometers/magnetometer
This board should perform pretty well with opencv video processing tasks and should beat the A8 boards. i'm curious to see if the manufacturer provides some free compiler that utilizes the floating-point unit.

looking at the specs again, i don't think it comes with the optional floating point unit as in the beagle-board. but with dual cpu maybe it can on average perform better (?)

[nicolas gomez]

Hi!!
here more informartion about it

http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a9.php

and float ponit unit

http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/vector-floating-point.php

Dhrystone Performance 2.50 DMIPS/MHz per core


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A9_MPCore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A9_MPCore



software support
http://igloocommunity.org/news/

and the last price
164.00 €
Price before VAT, shipping costs not included

http://shop.strato.com/epages/61428605.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/61428605/Products/905-00024-B11

phpBB [media]

phpBB [media]

[siempre.aprendiendo]

It seems amazing!

What does mean "Serial Port (RS232 / Over USB "? Is it FTDI?

Umm, I see it explained here

Code: Select all

Serial Console

Serial console is provided through a USB serial port.

    A USB cable with a Mini-B connector is required.

[nicolas gomez]

you can Read the post from the begin if need more info about the sensors

1x Console over USB (FTDI FT232RL) and/or Console via RS-232 (LTC2801)

3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis magnetometer

Features
■ Analog supply voltage: 2.5 V to 3.3 V
■ Digital supply voltage IOs: 1.8 V
■ Power-down mode
■ 3 magnetic field channels and 3 acceleration
channels
■ ±1.3 to ±8,1 gauss magnetic field full-scale
■ ±2 g/±4 g/±8 g dynamically selectable full-
scale
■ 16-bit data out
■ I2C serial interface
■ 2 independent programmable interrupt
generators for free-fall and motion detection
■ Embedded self-test
■ Accelerometer sleep-to-wakeup function
■ 6D orientation detection
■ ECOPACK® RoHS and “Green” compliant

The
LSM303DLH has a linear acceleration full-scale
of ±2 g / ±4 g / ±8 g and a magnetic field full-scale
of ±1.3 / ±1.9 / ±2.5 / ±4.0 / ±4.7 / ±5,6 / ±8.1
gauss, both fully selectable by the user. The
LSM303DLH includes an I2C serial bus interface
that supports standard mode (100 kHz) and fast
mode (400 kHz)

L3G4200D
MEMS motion sensor:
three-axis digital output gyroscope

Features
■ Three selectable full scales
(±250/500/2000 dps)
■ I2C/SPI digital output interface
■ 16 bit rate value data output
■ Two digital output lines (interrupt and
dataready)
■ Integrated low and high pass filters with user
selectable bandwidth
■ Embedded self-test
■ Wide supply voltage, 2.4 V to 3.6 V
■ Low voltage compatible IOs, 1.8 V
■ Embedded power-down and sleep mode
■ High shock survivability
■ Extended operating temperature range
(-40 °C to +85 °C)
■ ECOPACK® RoHS and “Green” compliant

The L3G4200D is a low-power three-axis
gyroscope providing three different user
selectable full scales (±250/±500/±2000 dps)
It includes a sensing element and an IC interface
able to provide the detected angular rate to the
external world through a digital interface
(I2C/SPI

http://www.calao-systems.com/repository/EMBEDDED%20COMPUTERS/SKY-S9500-ULP-XXX/DATASHEETS/

http://www.calao-systems.com/articles.php?lng=en&pg=6186

and here more information

Mobile multimedia processor

http://www.calao-systems.com/articles.php?lng=en&pg=6186

Here DATASHEETS
http://www.calao-systems.com/repository/EMBEDDED%20COMPUTERS/SKY-S9500-ULP-XXX/DATASHEETS/

[siempre.aprendiendo]

¡Gracias, Nicolás! Por cierto, ¿de dónde eres?

(Thanks, Nicolás! By the way, where are you from?)