Power Developer :: New PowerPC mini-itx board

A board vendor in China/Taiwan is touting a mini-ITX system based on Freescale's fastest PowerQUICC II processor. Micetek, which specializes in 8- and 32-bit processor development boards, said its MPC8349E-mITX system comes with Linux, and can be used to build networking, communications, and "pervasive computing" equipment.

Micetek's mini-ITX system is based on its MPC8349E-mITX board, which it appears to have originally developed for Freescale. Freescale resells the board as its MPC8349E-mITXE reference platform, and will feature the board in this fall's 23-city MontaVista/Freescale roadshow. The board gained a MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 5.0 BSP earlier this year, and has already seen use in at least two Linux-based reference designs, including an Axentra/Freescale Digital Home Center and a Freescale home NAS (network-attached storage) appliance.

The board costs $699.

Marketing to the embedded market is a fractured as the market itself. That is why we gave up on Power.org. There is no meaningful message and everyone keeps doing their own thing - especially IBM. Until there are low and common denominators nothing will change. It is frustrating to watch the same old thing being tried over and over again. It does not work.

Standard form factor? What's wrong with the external CDROM case, 4 screws and gum pads?

It's not exactly mass producable to hand-modify them.

They're also a little large, far larger than they need to be to contain the Efika and graphics. Ideally a "standard form factor" for Efika would be nano ITX (12cm by 12cm) or Pico ITX (10cm by 7cm!) for which there are VERY few cases available but the same case would work for a Via board too.

If an enterprising individual made a case for a Pico Efika, it could be sold to x86 customers too, expanding the market and increasing product viability. I have no personal problem with tapping into the 'evil competitor market'.

If I may, I would not advise to make the board much smaller than a 2.5" HDD because the case would have to fit the peripherals more than the board - unless you target specifically Flash-based embedded systems.

What psu should be used with a 2,5 inch design then?

As an beside wil the next board design feature more internal connectors for like usb so that if wanted more external ports can be added, or be used for an internal usb flash sd card reader?

Author:	SoundSquare [ Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:38 pm ]
Post subject:	New PowerPC mini-itx board
Quote: A board vendor in China/Taiwan is touting a mini-ITX system based on Freescale's fastest PowerQUICC II processor. Micetek, which specializes in 8- and 32-bit processor development boards, said its MPC8349E-mITX system comes with Linux, and can be used to build networking, communications, and "pervasive computing" equipment. Micetek's mini-ITX system is based on its MPC8349E-mITX board, which it appears to have originally developed for Freescale. Freescale resells the board as its MPC8349E-mITXE reference platform, and will feature the board in this fall's 23-city MontaVista/Freescale roadshow. The board gained a MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 5.0 BSP earlier this year, and has already seen use in at least two Linux-based reference designs, including an Axentra/Freescale Digital Home Center and a Freescale home NAS (network-attached storage) appliance. more : http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7367183626.html

Author:	bbrv [ Fri Aug 24, 2007 7:45 am ]
Post subject:
The big question is how to "free the future from the dead hand of the past" (Lessig). The board costs $699. It discounts 30% when you log into the Freescale site, where you learn it will not ship until November. We can sympathize with that. We also understand the emphasis on entertainment/media, etc. Genesi was instrumental in helping Freescale and NCSG specifically move in this direction (FTF Best of Show, 2005). What we don't understand is the roadshow and confusingly the apparent lack of other Power.org involvement. The Montavista people are nice people and we have worked with them to develop Linux on PowerPC over the years, but is this the way to create new markets and attract new developers? We think not. It is sad to see so much money being spent on the same old thing. Even with the discount on the board, who is going to think about taking a shot a creating something new when the cost of taking the chance is the first barrier to innovation. Marketing to the embedded market is a fractured as the market itself. That is why we gave up on Power.org. There is no meaningful message and everyone keeps doing their own thing - especially IBM. Until there are low and common denominators nothing will change. It is frustrating to watch the same old thing being tried over and over again. It does not work. R&B :)

Author:	SoundSquare [ Fri Aug 24, 2007 9:50 am ]
Post subject:
Quote: The board costs $699. well, that changes everything. Quote: Marketing to the embedded market is a fractured as the market itself. That is why we gave up on Power.org. There is no meaningful message and everyone keeps doing their own thing - especially IBM. Until there are low and common denominators nothing will change. It is frustrating to watch the same old thing being tried over and over again. It does not work. i totally agree with it, that's a sad reality despite the effort you made to try to make a creative and collaborative community out of it.

Author:	meton [ Mon Aug 27, 2007 2:01 am ]
Post subject:	EfikATX
Well, I'm not the first one to notice the problem with finding a case for your Efika. I'm thinking that I should join a project and start making designs etc. Not just drawings that look cool, but I mean real practical internal case designs with heat-transfer, HDD placement etc. in mind. Anyway, just a thought. I would like to elaborate further but I need to get back to 'work'.

Author:	czp [ Mon Aug 27, 2007 2:31 am ]
Post subject:
I would rather suggest to make the next EFIKA use a standard form factor, so people don't need to reinvent the wheel. It's a lot better, when developers work on coding than on custom case design. For now there is https://www.pegasosppc.com/store.php?category=25 which is a way lot quicker with all the necessary parts, than doing on your own. OK, I must admit, that I'm a software guy, who does not like touching hardware, except for the power on button :-)

Power Developer https://powerdeveloper.org/forums/

New PowerPC mini-itx board https://powerdeveloper.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1357	Page 1 of 2

Author:	ogautherot [ Tue Aug 28, 2007 8:50 pm ]
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Standard form factor? What's wrong with the external CDROM case, 4 screws and gum pads? :-) It works great and may even come with a little fan if your graphics card is not low power. But maybe I'm from the other side of the fence (the hardware side ;-) ).

Author:	Neko [ Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:11 am ]
Post subject:
Quote: Standard form factor? What's wrong with the external CDROM case, 4 screws and gum pads? It's not exactly mass producable to hand-modify them. They're also a little large, far larger than they need to be to contain the Efika and graphics. Ideally a "standard form factor" for Efika would be nano ITX (12cm by 12cm) or Pico ITX (10cm by 7cm!) for which there are VERY few cases available but the same case would work for a Via board too. If an enterprising individual made a case for a Pico Efika, it could be sold to x86 customers too, expanding the market and increasing product viability. I have no personal problem with tapping into the 'evil competitor market'.

Author:	ogautherot [ Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:35 pm ]
Post subject:
Quote: It's not exactly mass producable to hand-modify them. I was joking. You're right but it's fun when you have the time and enjoy this type of activity :-) Quote: They're also a little large, far larger than they need to be to contain the Efika and graphics. Ideally a "standard form factor" for Efika would be nano ITX (12cm by 12cm) or Pico ITX (10cm by 7cm!) for which there are VERY few cases available but the same case would work for a Via board too. If I may, I would not advise to make the board much smaller than a 2.5" HDD because the case would have to fit the peripherals more than the board - unless you target specifically Flash-based embedded systems. Quote: If an enterprising individual made a case for a Pico Efika, it could be sold to x86 customers too, expanding the market and increasing product viability. I have no personal problem with tapping into the 'evil competitor market'. You do already for the power supply and the graphics cards, so why not adopt it for the case? The complete solution would become more attractive with a more reasonable price - as a reference, www.routerboard.com have enclosures ranging from 19,-USD for an indoor case to 89,-USD for outdoor. But you cannot reach these prices without a minimum sales volume (and probably use PVC).

Author:	Neko [ Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:04 am ]
Post subject:
Quote: If I may, I would not advise to make the board much smaller than a 2.5" HDD because the case would have to fit the peripherals more than the board - unless you target specifically Flash-based embedded systems. Well, PicoITX is roughly the same size as a 2.5" ATA disk. It might (should :) be possible to design a board whereby the disk is slung underneath the board and screwed in the same way. I think adding peripherals is up to the user. You may get a board with a single USB port and DVI output, and it is 100% useful. You could make a case which was the size of a bulky PDA to fit it into. What else do you need? Audio, multiple USB ports, SATA disks, serial ports are not always necessary, but having some kind of keyboard and display are all you need :)

Author:	mvdhoning [ Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:36 am ]
Post subject:
What psu should be used with a 2,5 inch design then? Recently i fitted my efika board into an 5 1/4 inch harddisk case. But the height was just enough with the videocard en pico psu being the heighest parts. From the floor of the case the picopsu is about 4cm heigh. Luckyly the case height was 4,5 cm. So it had some space left. But it wil never fit into an 2,5 inch design. Unles the connector if flexible. As an beside wil the next board design feature more internal connectors for like usb so that if wanted more external ports can be added, or be used for an internal usb flash sd card reader?

Author:	Neko [ Thu Aug 30, 2007 2:38 pm ]
Post subject:
Quote: What psu should be used with a 2,5 inch design then? A small one. PicoITX boards have a custom connector but it connects via a bundled cable to any ATX PSU. Maybe we should take a hint from this; or maybe the next board could be powered by PoE, or maybe it could have a simply 12V or 5V DC connection built-in (integrated PSU). Quote: As an beside wil the next board design feature more internal connectors for like usb so that if wanted more external ports can be added, or be used for an internal usb flash sd card reader? That's still under discussion.

Author:	ogautherot [ Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:46 pm ]
Post subject:
Matt, suggestion: VIA Technologies are coming out with new board and I guess it would be worthwhile checking the form factors and the layout they are using - not reinvent the wheel is a great idea... and follow the ones who designed a round one is even better :-) This should help case design and, from a marketing point of view, you could have a competitive offering with a drop-in replacement. With the level of integration of the processor, it should be an achievable target. By the way, is JTAG considered somehow? I have not seen it... but maybe it is just me... Cheers

Author:	SoundSquare [ Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:14 am ]
Post subject:
@Olivier Via uses the standard form factors that Matt mentioned earlier. (mini-itx, nano-itx, pico-itx etc.)

Author:	ogautherot [ Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:31 am ]
Post subject:
Thibaut, you're right. By layout, I meant try to follow the location of the connectors as much as possible (which is usually a weak definition in the standards to give freedom to the manufacturer - see the ATX back panel on standard PCs). The main issue when defining a box are the holes for the connectors... and with such a small box, leaving the space wide open would mean saw off half of the box :-) Cheers

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Author:	SoundSquare [ Fri Aug 31, 2007 2:16 pm ]
Post subject:
@Olivier as long as you decide to follow a form factor, you should also follow the connectors location recommendations. The problem is that even Via changes this on most of their boards, but they provide a back panel (just like Genesi did with the Pegasos). Now i'm glad Matt is talking about getting back to a standard form factor. IMO, the only thing that really sucked with the Efika was its alien form factor.