Faraday Technology SoCreative! IV Kit Facilitates Custom SoC Design and Software Implementation

Faraday Technology has unveiled “SoCreative! IV”, a SoC development kit based on Faraday A380 SoC featuring  a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor, an ARMv5-compliant core developed by the company, and a high speed expansion bus for interfacing with FPGA daughtercards. A380 SoC has been designed for cloud infrastructure market, including networking, computing, and storage applications.

The company has not listed the specifications, but here’s what I could derived from the picture above, and the info found on Linux Gizmos article.

• SoC – Farady A380 dual core Cortex A9 @ 1GHz, with ARMv5-compliant FA626TE RISC processor @ 500MHz, and 512MB L2 cache. BGA package (31x31mm), 40nm process.
• System Memory – 1GB DDR3-1600 RAM
• Storage – 4Gb NAND Flash (512MB), 128Mb of NOR flash, 64Mb of SPI flash, I2C EEPROM, and SD Card slot.
• Video Output – DSUB for 24-bit LCD I/F up to 1280×1280
• Audio – Mic In, Audio In/Out, Audio codec.
• I/Os, ports and expansions:
  • 2x Gigabit Ethernet with programmable SerDes support
  • 1x USB 2.0 host, and 1x USB 2.0 OTG.
  • SD/MMC controller,
  • dual 8-channel DMA controllers,
  • 10-bit ADC and DAC,
  • SRIO (Serial RapidIO), 32 GPIOs,  UARTS, 2x I2C interfaces, 3x SSP interfaces, I2S audio, and support for DES, 3DES, and AES.
  • Touchscreen controller
  • PCI Express Gen. 2 and Gen. 3.
• Debugging – Cortex A9 JTAG, FA626TE JTAG
• Misc – 4×4 keypad, 8x status LEDs
• Power Supply – 12V. 1.1V core power, 1.5V power for RAM, and I/O power available at an adjustable 3.3V.
• Dimensions – 275 x 225mm

The company provides Linux 3.3 and Android 4.x BSPs for the board, which are available with ARM DS-5 and JnD CVD debuggers, ARM DStream and JnD CodeViser ICE hardware, and GCC compilers (4.4 for Linux and 4.7 for Android). The platform is mainly used to create custom SoCs by adding selected IP blocks from Faraday. The board will then simulate the custom SoC before the silicon is ready, and firmware and software development can get started in a short period of time, months before the silicon becomes available.

Faraday SoCreative! IV A380 SoC development kit is available now, but pricing at not been disclosed publicly. There’s no information about the new kit on the company.s website, but it should eventually show up on their SoC Evaluation Platform page.

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