Raspberry Pi PCB artwork

[Fir3Chi3f]

Don't know how many people here follow Raspberry but the board layout is finally finished. A bit cluttered, but heck is it small! It's about the size of a business card!
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/344





Edit: first post!

[Psi]

Do you know how many layers it is?

[PedroDiogo]

Do you know how many layers it is?

According to the comments from their post it's 6 layers.

I think they were trying to reduce the number of layers from 6 to 4, but after seeing this board I wonder if that's even possible with a board this size.
 

[amspire]

I want one!

One thing is that it looks like they haven't worried about mounting holes at all, and with connectors on all sides, it is hard to mount in a larger box along with other electronics. Someone will probably come up with a box that just fits the board and supports it along the edges, but the box will not have room for anything else.

Hopefully, once it is all running, someone will make another larger version with mounting holes and all the connectors along one edge.

Richard

[8086]

There are a few ARM boards of this size.

I will be interested to see if they can stick to their prices for the minimal board.

[Fir3Chi3f]

Agreed with 8086, after just watching Dave's video on lowing the cost of production, we'll see what the price ends up being. I do plan on getting one of these even if they have to raise the cost a little.

[firewalker]

This will be my Xmas present!

Alexander.

[Slobodan]

watching Dave's video on lowing the cost of production

Can you post a link to that video?

[firewalker]

They seem to be pretty sure for the prices. As I can understand there are sponsors that allow the low price.

Alexander.

[Fir3Chi3f]

watching Dave's video on lowing the cost of production

Can you post a link to that video?

Here you go:

They seemed pretty sure of the cost, but 35$ still seems so low. I hope they turn a profit and I want them to be successful. This looks like a great product to me.

[firewalker]

The main cpu is a sponsorship of Broadcom. Isn't it?

Alexander.

[Slobodan]

watching Dave's video on lowing the cost of production

Can you post a link to that video?

Here you go:

Thanks.

[Fir3Chi3f]

The main cpu is a sponsorship of Broadcom. Isn't it?

Alexander.

I don't think so, the only sponsor listed is University of Cambridge (This is actually on the homepage). But I've found that the Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charitable organization registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. So I guess they don't intend on turning a profit. Also, Qt seems very involved with the development on the software side, but I see that as Nokia trying to expand it's market. Hopefully our next posts on the subject can be an actual review of the physical product in December. Cheers

Supporting Links:

http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/11/24/qt-5-with-rasberry-pi-a-delicious-mix-with-home-delivery/
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithoutPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1129409&SubsidiaryNumber=0

[baljemmett]

I don't think so, the only sponsor listed is University of Cambridge (This is actually on the homepage). But I've found that the Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charitable organization registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. So I guess they don't intend on turning a profit.

There are some details on the charity and the people behind it in a piece in The Register today -- it also explains the Broadcom connection.  That link is the third (most relevant) page, but the whole thing could be worth a read.  The first page is basically an overview of the project and the second goes into the cost engineering that's been done to meet the intended price.

[Fir3Chi3f]

Thanks baljemmett! That is a great find. It's neat that most of what we've discussed is mentioned in that article.

From the link:

As well as founding the RaspberryPi Foundation, Cambridge graduate Upton is associate technical director and SoC architect at chip powerhouse Broadcom – the company that designed the Pi's silicon heart. Although the alpha revision of the Pi's circuit board is stamped with the Broadcom logo, everyone involved stresses that the Pi is not a Broadcom product nor is the berry-flavoured project commercially affiliated with Broadcom, which is otherwise occupied with churning out wireless and broadband equipment and raking in billions in revenue.

However by working at Broadcom's Cambridge office, Upton has helped secure the team a source of chips for modest production runs – usually if you ask Broadcom for a part, they'll reply: "How many million do you need per quarter?" It has also helped the foundation to get hold of the information it needs to design a motherboard and write driver software for the BCM2835; there are no publicly available documents for the chip, although the internal ARM core is documented.

[tesla500]

Thanks baljemmett! That is a great find. It's neat that most of what we've discussed is mentioned in that article.

From the link:

As well as founding the RaspberryPi Foundation, Cambridge graduate Upton is associate technical director and SoC architect at chip powerhouse Broadcom – the company that designed the Pi's silicon heart. Although the alpha revision of the Pi's circuit board is stamped with the Broadcom logo, everyone involved stresses that the Pi is not a Broadcom product nor is the berry-flavoured project commercially affiliated with Broadcom, which is otherwise occupied with churning out wireless and broadband equipment and raking in billions in revenue.

However by working at Broadcom's Cambridge office, Upton has helped secure the team a source of chips for modest production runs – usually if you ask Broadcom for a part, they'll reply: "How many million do you need per quarter?" It has also helped the foundation to get hold of the information it needs to design a motherboard and write driver software for the BCM2835; there are no publicly available documents for the chip, although the internal ARM core is documented.

I hope they work out a deal to make the datasheet public. Otherwise you're pretty much stuck with the drivers the developers provide, it would be hard to do any custom software drivers, or potentially even use some any expansion ports. Although, I'm sure someone will leak the datasheet if they don't release it.

[firewalker]

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/389

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/402

[firewalker]

Introducing Gertboard

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/411

[firewalker]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180786734741?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649#ht_500wt_1413

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180786751081?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649#ht_500wt_1415

Happy bidding.

Alexander.

[hacklordsniper]

Amazing what prices are those boards achieving, i think i will wait a little bit