[emh203]

@avikde:

These modules were never generally available and are EOL. I have some internal knowledge of the history and you will never seem them through general distribution in low quantities like the Octavo product. They are only being offered to teir 1 customers. Also, the BGA package is *very* difficult with the POP RAM. It is a .65mm BGA and much more difficult than the current octavo offerings. Once you go down that road you might as well use the raw chips.

@Greg:

The i.MX integrates standard cortex MCU microcontroller cores along side the application processors. It is a bit easier to do development vs the PRU’s as there is a lot more cortex M support in the wild.

The new Quad Max devices support hardware virtualization. I was at a training event where a couple VM’s were created with the internal cores/peripherals partitioned in hardware. It is an advanced use case but it is possible to boot android for a GUI and Linux for a processing backend on a single chip. Also, some of the device support instant on video for applications that require cameras to come on with graphics before linux is booted.

This is certainly on the high end but the i.MX is a good family for automotive and robotics.

I would be happy with a TI part inside built on a smaller process node for the power efficiency and to get a bit more horsepower. The other key feature to keep is the easy BGA layout!

[emh203]

Are TI based SOC’s a constraint? I would love to see something from the NXP i.MX series. (i.e. the new i.MX8 with Cortex A53’s and A72’s).
The new i.MX8 devices use LPDDR4 which is challenging to route. A SIP would be a very nice product! A Multicore SOC built on a smaller geometry process for power efficiency would be a helpful. The current TI parts seem to run quite hot at idle.

Having a part with an easily accessibly datasheet for the SoC (which pretty much limits you to TI and NXP these days) is a big deal for me. I avoid anything “Rasberri Pi” like as it is impossible to dig into any details unless you have lawyers to deal with Broadcomm directly.

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