Figure 1 Let’s have better control and put AM335x based system in package into all these Air Conditioner units!
Some applications of IoT are still being debated. Does your refrigerator really need an operating system and be connected to the internet? Should it try to detect when you’re out of milk and automatically order more? What if there’s an error and 50 gallons shows up on your doorstep? Just like many others, I do not know the answers to all these questions. One thing I know for sure is that IoT does belong in air conditioning and the control systems of medium-to-large buildings. The OSD335x family of System-in-Package products featuring the AM335x, provides an excellent foundation for the design of an Open-Hardware Building Automation System Controller. This article introduces a series of technical application notes for building a reference design with the OSD335x-SM.
Empowering Electronic Engineers – OrCAD and Octavo Systems’ System-in-Package share this focus. Now by adding an OrCAD symbol library for the C-SiP, we empower embedded systems design engineers with more time to add features to new applications. Download the OrCAD library from our website.
Completing an embedded design in record time. Reducing the BOM to very few devices. Giving a designer time to add more features to the application. Sound like your wish list? C-SiP is the answer.
The goal of our System-in-Package technology is to create modular building blocks that abstract away tedious, repetitive, and complex tasks that designers are forced to spend time on, but don’t really add value to the end system so that they can create better, more innovate products. At Octavo Systems, we designed a completely integrated 1GHz Arm® Cortex®-A8 computing platform, the OSD335x C-SiP™. The OSD335x C-SiP (Complete System-In-Package) integrates the required components for a computing system into a single IC package.
Today we took another step in making designing with the C-SiP easier by adding an Altium symbol library for you to download from our website.
You have a great new design idea. Now that you’ve chosen your processor and the System-in-Package that meets your needs, you need to get up to speed on the device. You grab your cup of coffee and sit down at your computer to check out the resources, but there is so much information out there! Where to begin?
When starting a new embedded systems design, wouldn’t it be nice to have a technical support mentor? Could you use an embedded engineer with years of experience, at your elbow helping you navigate all the information on the web? It can be difficult to navigate through the hundreds of pages of information to find key pieces that can help you get a jump-start on your design:
Sometimes 512MB of DDR memory just isn’t enough. No matter how hard you try your application just needs more space. Maybe you are trying to process large datasets gathered from thousands of sensors around a building. Perhaps you developed a platform that is capable of running many completely different applications at the same time, or you have some awesome graphics you are trying to render. Whatever your software dilemma or creative idea for your embedded product may be, you just want to have more memory coupled with your computing system. Octavo Systems has heard your requests. We are happy to announce the general availability of a 1GB DDR memory option for the OSD335x-SM family of devices.
The OSD3358-SM-RED is our Reference, Evaluation and Development platform for the OSD335x Family of System-in-Package (SiP) devices. It was designed to make it easy for anybody with some knowledge or a desire to learn to begin developing applications on the OSD335x family of SiPs. In fact, it is so easy to use even a Marketing Person like me can quickly develop on it!
Here at Octavo Systems, we pride ourselves in making our devices easy to use. This extends to reducing the challenges that designers have in laying out a new printed circuit board (PCB). Our System-in-Package devices by their very nature will reduce a bill of materials (BOM) from over one hundred discreet devices to only one. This saves enormous amounts of layout time and effort purely from a component placement and routing point of view. However, Octavo Systems goes to the next level in simplifying your design layout.
Ball-grid Array (BGA) packages can be difficult to route during layout. Routing out, or escaping, the signals on the inner balls of a BGA can be difficult and can add many layers to the PCB. However, the ball maps of our System-in-Package devices are specifically designed from a system integration point of view. By moving all signal pins to the outer three rows and columns, with the 1.27mm (50 mil) ball pitch, it allows all signals to be escaped in one PCB layer with very standard 0.15mm (6 mil) trace / space routing rules. Then we designed the power inputs and outputs to be easy to use by grouping the ball together such that it is easy to use copper pours to connect them together. Similarly all control signals between the processor and power management IC (PMIC) are pinned out next to each other for easy connections. This not only reduces design complexity but makes laying out the BGA much easier which saves engineering time and money.
As Moore’s Law approaches retirement age[1][2], the technological advances wrought through the improvements in silicon process technology are staggering. The ability to tailor a process for high power, high voltage power electronics vs low power, low voltage, extremely dense microprocessor and memories enables the proliferation of technology in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT). However, for all the advancements, each silicon component can only have one process; a compromise necessary for each circuit that needs to be optimally built. Where Moore’s Law left off from the perspective of the individual component, packaging technology has taken up the reigns. Packaging technologies are able push the boundaries of form, fit, and function beyond that which is possible with System on a Chip (SoC) technology. Systems in a Package (“SiP”s) can enable new levels of integration and size reduction for embedded systems[3][4]. However, like the technologies that have come before it, SiPs require enormous investments of design time and effort. In this paper, we introduce the future of SiP: the Universal Connection Matrix (UCM) . This allows for faster design and prototyping with SiP devices. Instead of large, monolithic designs, the UCM provides a breadboard in a package.
