looking for an embedded linux hw.

[geoffrey mendelson]

On Sep 15, 2011, at 2:37 PM, Erez D wrote:

> We need to design a system, which communicates data at rates of  
> around 30Mbs via ethernet.
> We are designing the hardware from scratch.

Is that bits or bytes? 30M BITS per second is high end router,  
dedicated 100Base T, 30M bytes per second is gigabit ethernet and a  
heck of a lot of CPU.

> I Thought of assembling a board with a processor (which will run  
> linux) and a small fpga.
>
> However, I do not want to invent the wheel. don't want to port linux  
> to a new system. don't want to create my own reference design.
>
> So i am looking for a reference design for the hardware. and an open  
> source project which will supply the linux system and toolchain.
>
> Anybody knows of such a project which both has a hardware reference  
> and toolchain ?
>



I think that before you do anything you should prototype it using PC  
hardware. Find out exactly what speeds you need of I/O CPU, memory,  
etc. It will make it a lot easier to do the embedded system.

If you use standard linux tools to develop the application, it should  
be quickly ported to whatever you build/buy.

It also depends upon the size factor you need. You can buy a board  
which is basically a mother board from a netbook, re-worked to fit in  
a PC case for around 500 NIS with ethernet, video, USB, a slot for  
DDR3 RAM, a PCI slot, 2 SATA ports, possibly an IDE port, and a dual  
core ATOM processor. IMHO would make one heck of a prototype for what  
I think you are doing.

You could put them in a small PC case with a disk drive and fan, and  
then shrink them by using a smaller case and fan and an SSD device. By  
that time you would have something working to show people (always a  
good thing) and could go to something custom by then.

On the other hand if you don't need a display port, and can be happy  
with USB and 30M bits per second of throughput, there are plenty of  
ARM based routers that would do the job. Or if you can shoe horn your  
software into an android system, buy a Galaxy S2, add an external  
ethernet and stuff it in a black box. :-)


Geoff.
-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson,  N3OWJ/4X1GM