MIPS® Creator CI20, Debian 7, Android 4.4, Gentoo, Yocto dev kit PowerVR GPU

[miguelvp]

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 MIPS

MIPS® 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 Features

• Ingenic JZ4780, dual-core2GHz MIPS32 processor, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, 32k I&D L1 cache,
• 512k L2 cache
• IEEE754 Floating Point Unit
• 4GB Flash, 1GB DDR3 memory
• Video playback up to 1080p
• AC97 audio, via 4-pin input/output jack and HDMI connector
• Camera interface – ITU645 controller
• Connectivity – 10/100 ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
• HDMI output up to 2K resolution
• 2 x USB – host and OTG
• 14-pin EJTAG connector
• 2 x UART, GPIO, SPI, I2C, ADC, expansion headers

http://community.imgtec.com/platforms/single-platform/mips-creator-ci20/

Tech Specs:
http://elinux.org/CI20_Hardware#Tech_Spec_overview

More Info:
http://elinux.org/MIPS_Creator_CI20


So 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_Semiconductor

Looks cool, but not sure were they will end up I think it's hard to displace ARM.

[legacy]

the problem of this platform is the GPU, closed sources

[nctnico]

All the GPU drivers are closed source. In general that is not a problem as long as you link the right version.

[legacy]

under linux is always a great problem

[legacy]

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 GPU

i 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 machine

actually i am using an Atheros9 @ 800Mhz

[miguelvp]

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

[legacy]

i will get two units on january (i hope), who else has planned to buy this machine ?
in case, which use have you planned ?

[nctnico]

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).

[miguelvp]

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.

[legacy]

@nctnico
read the gentoo/alternative machine first thread post
you will find a discussion between me and Kumba about SGI/Octane2
that machine is stalled with linux 2.6.17, and the discussion was related about 'what do to" about newer 3.* kernels

MIPS is related to routers, as Fonera or RouterStation, both designed around Atheros Chips

from my point of view is not a problem: i have been developing a LIDAR using an Atheros9 chip as "robot" board
just because i am a MIPS fan 


p.s.
also products like YUN, Carambola, Dragino, and so on, which are similar to my MIPS-robot board
the CI20 is faster than my 800Mhz Atheros9 and also it adds an FPU
i am still using FPU emulation from Kernel space

Code: [Select]

Algorithmics/MIPS FPU Emulator v1.5


[Rasz]

earlier Ingenic chip was used in some linux handhelds sold to emulate game consoles
GCW? and dintoo or something

it 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.