There was a time when development boards were really hard to get for individuals with companies not wanting to waste their time with hobbyists, but the maker revolution changed all that, and now many companies want to get involved in “open source” board for the developer’s community. The latest board trying to emulate the Raspberry Pi is GoWarrior Tiger powered by ALi M3733 dual core cortex A9 processor with 1GB RAM, 4GB Flash, Ethernet and WiFi, HDMI and AV output, and two 40-pin expansion headers.
Tiger board specifications:
- SoC – ALi M3733-AFAAA dual Cortex A9 processor @ 1.0 GHz with ARM Mali-400 MP2 GPU
- System Memory – 1GB DDR3; dual channel 1600 MT/s, 800MHz
- Storage – 4GB on-board NAND Flash + micro SD slot
- Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4 port up to 1080p, with support for HDCP and CEC, 3.5 mm AV jack
- Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0
- USB – 2x host 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB device port for power, connect to computer, and flash the NAND chip.
- Expansion – 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header (J3) and 40-pin header (J4) with up to 63 GPIOs multiplexed with I2C, SPI, 2x UART, digital VOUT, digital VIN, SD, PCM, SSI, etc…
- Debugging – UART0 in J4 header gives access to the serial console, and unpopulated JTAG header
- Misc – 11x LEDs for power, Ethernet, and users (8x), 3x buttons, selection switch for NAND flash or micro SD boot, IR receiver
- Power Supply
- 5V via DC jack or micro USB port
- PMU with support for RTC, IR/Key standby and resume, system deeo standby mode compliant with EU green power standard.
- Dimensions – 93.2 x 59.7 mm
The company plans to provide at least three operating systems for the board with GoDroid (Android), GoBian (Debian), and GoTDS (FreeRTOS), but so far only GoDroid is available for download, and there are some repositories on GoWarrior’s github account related to GoBian. All documentation is currently only available for GoDroid, and you can also find some hardware design files such as the schematics (PDF only), PCB layout (.pcb), system reference manual, datasheet and so on. So documentation appears to be decent for the hardware and Android, and they also have Chinese and English forums for support.
The board used to be available on eBay for $79 shipped, but it can only be found on Taobao right now for 399 CNY (~$62). More details can be found on GoWarrior community website.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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