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BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

beaglev.seeed.cc

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Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#81

Post by Octoth0rpe »

mrweasel wrote: post #53

Is there something inherently complicated in adding a SATA/M.2 port to board like this? The RaspberryPi is also "disk-less", which to me is one of the major limitations. It's a super interesting little board, and I love that it's a RISC-V, that could really help getting the CPU in the hands of people. I just don't know enough about these things to understand why there are no storage connectors (other than an SD card…

FWIW, I believe the IO boards available for the Pi4 CM variants have a PCIe slot that could use used for storage: https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-module-4-io-boa...

Lack of sata/m.2 port is very frustrating to me.

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#82

Post by mrweasel »

happimess wrote: post #59
mrweasel wrote: post #53

Is there something inherently complicated in adding a SATA/M.2 port to board like this? The RaspberryPi is also "disk-less", which to me is one of the major limitations. It's a super interesting little board, and I love that it's a RISC-V, that could really help getting the CPU in the hands of people. I just don't know enough about these things to understand why there are no storage connectors (other than an SD card…

I'm certainly no expert, but I've never been able to run a spinning disk HDD off of a raspberry pi without a powered USB hub. I imagine the thermals and form factor would be hurt pretty badly by including a plausible power supply.

It wouldn't need to be a spinning disk, I'm think SSD or NVME

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#84

Post by jdkticom »

coder543 wrote: post #37
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source refers solely to the software side of things in these groups and types of projects. Thus, all of the drivers and software you need to use the SiFive is open source and thus you can say it is an open source design. However, it is not an "open hardware" design in that the IP used to design the chip is not released.

> However, it is not an "open hardware" design in that the IP used to design the chip is not released. The marketing page for the BeagleV specifically says "Open Hardware Design", but I agree that they probably didn't mean Open Hardware beyond just the PCB layout or something similar. It would be very surprising if they released the detailed schematics for the SiFive cores. Until there's some kind of common micro-fab…

Correct. This is open at the ISA, PCB and software level, not the chip RTL.

Still, it is a step forward.

For something more open at the RTL level, I'd look at Precuror (https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor) right now.

Speaking as someone at Beagle, we see this board as an important step to more openness in the ecosystem, especially helping software developers improve the state of open source for RISC-V. It is also just a really cool board. Beagle will do more to try to get more openness at the RTL-level moving forward, perhaps even with FPGA boards at an interim step. The shuttle services are starting to make releasing a new chip design in reasonably modern nodes more possible.

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#85

Post by blacksmith_tb »

tyingq wrote: post #49
rwmj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone is well aware of that, but unless you're making and able to sell millions of boards and have hundreds of millions in cash flow, there's no real path to using 10nm or smaller nodes. FWIW AllWinner are currently manufacturing 5 million RISC-V chips (with TSMC IIRC). I don't know what node they are using.

AllWinner's XuanTie 906 RISCV chip is supposedly 22nm. https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/11/09/xuantie-c906-based-a...

With a claimed price of $12USD, too.

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#87

Post by rjsw »

mrweasel wrote: post #53

Is there something inherently complicated in adding a SATA/M.2 port to board like this? The RaspberryPi is also "disk-less", which to me is one of the major limitations. It's a super interesting little board, and I love that it's a RISC-V, that could really help getting the CPU in the hands of people. I just don't know enough about these things to understand why there are no storage connectors (other than an SD card…

If you already have an SD card controller then an eMMC slot is probably the easiest upgrade.

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#88

Post by numpad0 »

btreecat wrote: post #70
lsb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get an SD card with 0.5TB capacity on it for USD$30, what storage needs do you foresee? Also these tend to be used where weight is an issue, so, why do you want to lug around a huge disk?

How about _reliable_ storage needs?

SD in itself isn't technically unreliable. Lots of smartphones do just fine with eMMC, which is same thing as microSD card except in nonstandard IC chip form thus can't carry SD branding.

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#89

Post by brucehoult »

mrweasel wrote: post #79
hajile wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect they don't necessarily mean spinning platters. A SATA port also allows the connection of an SSD which is almost always a huge boost in usability over SD slots. The fact that you can add a large platter for a small NAS solution is just a nice option. I'd far rather see a 2x PCIe port that could be used for whatever you wanted.

I would love to see a Micro-ATX og Mini-ITX board with an ARM or RISC-V CPU, with PCIe ports and storage connectors. There are ARM boards, but they're a little pricy.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive-unmatched

PCIe, 16 GB DDR4, two M.2 (one for storage, one WIFI), quad core 1.5 GHz (same cores as this board, but twice as many)

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#90

Post by brucehoult »

mrweasel wrote: post #53

Is there something inherently complicated in adding a SATA/M.2 port to board like this? The RaspberryPi is also "disk-less", which to me is one of the major limitations. It's a super interesting little board, and I love that it's a RISC-V, that could really help getting the CPU in the hands of people. I just don't know enough about these things to understand why there are no storage connectors (other than an SD card…

https://www.crowdsupply.com/sifive/hifive-unmatched

PCIe, 16 GB DDR4, two M.2 (one for storage, one WIFI), quad core 1.5 GHz (same cores as this board, but twice as many)

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