2014-12-05, 15:26
I posted about this before here when if was only available to qualified organization, but it have now been made available to buy for anyone.
Imagination Technologies MIPS Creator CI20 is a microcomputer development board with Linux and Android support that is now available to anyone for $65 (US) / £50 (UK)
https://www.mips.com/platform/mips-creator-ci20/
https://www.mips.com/develop/mips-creator-ci20/
https://elinux.org/CI20_Availability
If you live in North America, you can pre-order the board for $65, and people living in the European Union or the United Kingdom can purchase it for 50 GBP on the UK store. If you feel lucky, three boards will be given away on a Rafflecopter draw embedded on Imagination Technologies blog post:
http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/mips-crea...-available
Imagination Technologies who bought MIPS Technologies last year now want kickstart a trend for cheap development boards based on MIPS computer architecture for Linux and Android to both attract/encourage developers and to compete with affordable ARM development boards like Raspberry Pi Model B and BeagleBone Black.
To do this they have they have begun this journey by announcing that their "MIPS Creator CI20" development board is now available to anyone to buy for $65 / £50.
This is the same MIPS Creator CI20 development board that they were previously only offered (for free) to a limited amount of selected accredited developers against their promise to work on either developing new killer apps software for it or port popular existing open source applications to it, (you can read more about that here http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr-developer...oid-debuts ).
It should however be noted that this MIPS Creator CI20 is still really only targerted at developers and hackers, and not even really meant for entusists or power-users. As their plan is to first try to get popular software ported to the platform, and only then release new similar board models and devices that will be both smaller and cheaper to mass produce so when subsidized by Imagination Technologies they can be sold at the same price range as Raspberry Pi Model B and BeagleBone Black, or perhaps just a little more costly considering the CI20 have a more modern hardware and higher specification which also includes integrated 8GB storage, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi, as well as an IR-receiver and GPIO expansion headers.
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/08/28/m...evelopers/
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/08/13/m...x-android/
MIPS Creator CI20 specifications is quite impressive today when compared if you look at Raspberry Pi Model B and BeagleBone Black as being their main competition:
So this board / chipset and MIPS as an architecture could get very interesting now for XBMC/Kodi with the work that these guys are doing:
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/5570
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/5759
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=207865
For more information and code for the CI20 board, including User Guides, Hardware and Software Technical documentation, Component specifications, schematics, Linux kernel, U-Boot sources forum and more:
http://elinux.org/MIPS_Creator_CI20
http://developer.mips.com
https://github.com/MIPS
And no, I am not an Imagination Technologies employee or in any way affiliated with them or any companies selling their products, I'm just a fan of XBMC/Kodi.
Imagination Technologies MIPS Creator CI20 is a microcomputer development board with Linux and Android support that is now available to anyone for $65 (US) / £50 (UK)
https://www.mips.com/platform/mips-creator-ci20/
https://www.mips.com/develop/mips-creator-ci20/
https://elinux.org/CI20_Availability
If you live in North America, you can pre-order the board for $65, and people living in the European Union or the United Kingdom can purchase it for 50 GBP on the UK store. If you feel lucky, three boards will be given away on a Rafflecopter draw embedded on Imagination Technologies blog post:
http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/mips-crea...-available
Imagination Technologies who bought MIPS Technologies last year now want kickstart a trend for cheap development boards based on MIPS computer architecture for Linux and Android to both attract/encourage developers and to compete with affordable ARM development boards like Raspberry Pi Model B and BeagleBone Black.
To do this they have they have begun this journey by announcing that their "MIPS Creator CI20" development board is now available to anyone to buy for $65 / £50.
This is the same MIPS Creator CI20 development board that they were previously only offered (for free) to a limited amount of selected accredited developers against their promise to work on either developing new killer apps software for it or port popular existing open source applications to it, (you can read more about that here http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr-developer...oid-debuts ).
It should however be noted that this MIPS Creator CI20 is still really only targerted at developers and hackers, and not even really meant for entusists or power-users. As their plan is to first try to get popular software ported to the platform, and only then release new similar board models and devices that will be both smaller and cheaper to mass produce so when subsidized by Imagination Technologies they can be sold at the same price range as Raspberry Pi Model B and BeagleBone Black, or perhaps just a little more costly considering the CI20 have a more modern hardware and higher specification which also includes integrated 8GB storage, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi, as well as an IR-receiver and GPIO expansion headers.
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/08/28/m...evelopers/
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/08/13/m...x-android/
MIPS Creator CI20 specifications is quite impressive today when compared if you look at Raspberry Pi Model B and BeagleBone Black as being their main competition:
- SoC – Ingenic JZ4780 dual-core MIPS32 (MIPSel) processor @ 1.2 GHz with Imagination PowerVR SGX540 GPU. 32kI + 32kD per core, 512K shared L2.
- IEEE754 Floating Point Unit
- System Memory – 1GB DDR3
- Storage – 4GB flash storage (NOR), 1x SD card slot, 1x SD card slot via expansion
- Video Output – HDMI 1.4b up to 1080p
- Audio I/O – AC97 audio In and Out via 3.5mm 4-pin input/output jack and HDMI connector
- Video Playback – Up to 1080p @ 60 FPS
- Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet (wired RJ-45), 802.11 b/g/n WiFi + Bluetooth 4.0 module (IW8103)
- USB – 1x USB OTG, 1x USB 2.0 Host.
- Camera interface –ITU645 controller
- Expansions Headers – Access to 23x GPIOs, 2x SPI, 1x I2C, 7x ADC on header, including 5-wire touch and battery monitoring function, 1x UART, Transport Stream I/F.
- Debugging – UART, and 14-pin MIPS EJTAG header
- Misc – IR (infrared) receiver, power LED, and button
- Power Supply – 5V via 4mm/1.7mm barrel connector
- Dimensions – 90x95mm
So this board / chipset and MIPS as an architecture could get very interesting now for XBMC/Kodi with the work that these guys are doing:
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/5570
https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/5759
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=207865
For more information and code for the CI20 board, including User Guides, Hardware and Software Technical documentation, Component specifications, schematics, Linux kernel, U-Boot sources forum and more:
http://elinux.org/MIPS_Creator_CI20
http://developer.mips.com
https://github.com/MIPS
And no, I am not an Imagination Technologies employee or in any way affiliated with them or any companies selling their products, I'm just a fan of XBMC/Kodi.
