Hi

As I said before, the first SAKC [1] prototype Board was finished, Adam sent the design files for PCB production yesterday, so, we can start the mounting and testing phase the next week.

SAKC specification are [2]:

Ingenic JZ4725 processor (JZ4740 with TQFP package)
64MB SDRAM
2GB NAND 
Up to 500k Spartan 3E FPGA 
LCD connector (We can use the same Nano LCD)
mini USB Device
SD Memory
Stereo Audio Lines (input/Output)
10 Analog to Digital channels
25 Digital General Purpose Input/Output signals
RS232 Serial Port
I2C port


The main goal of SAKC platform is allow the creation of real world projects, using analog and digital interfaces with a powerful processor you can use SAKC from different levels:

1. As Embedded Linux Development kit: You can customize the Linux kernel for your application. You can learn the whole process behind Linux: Boot process, Linux architecture, Linux drivers creation.
2. As tool for co-design development: You can create your own peripheral on SAKC's FPGA and control it from SAKC processor.
3. Create artistic or publicity projects: The wide variety of ports and interface signals allow: controlling real world devices, interactive systems, multimedia applications.
4. Academic tool: For use in Physics laboratories. 
5. Robotics: SAKC is a perfect tool for robotics, you can drive a lot of Servo motors, and you can read a lot of sensor's signals. You can use commercial sensor with I2C protocol.
6. As HW/SW Hacking tool, you can use SAKC just for fun, download a lot of applications and running then on SAKC board. 


We decide to use Linux for development, we test eCos and rockbox, eCos port is very old from 2005, and don't support the JZ4740. so we need a lot of work for use it. Rockbox already support JZ4740, but just few  people work on this chip, and Rockbox have a specific target: MP4 devices, and maybe we can't find many developers, for this specific platform.

So our plan is use the work made by Mirko, Lars, Xiangfu,. We want to create  a new platform SAKC, for kernel and u-boot repository, there are little differences between nano and SAKC platforms, we will post the new files and changes for the new platform.

The next activities on SAKC project are:


1. Mount and test the first prototypes.
2. Create the SAKC platform on openwrt QI repository.
3. Test the existing useful applications on SAKC board.
3. Write basic applications for drive FPGA peripherals.
4. Make an exploration of useful SW for Hi - Level Programming, like Arduino API, Turtle-Arts [3], logo based tools [4] , labview[5], LEGO minndstorm tool [6]
5. Create/Adapt a High level Programming tool.


We can execute the first 4 task relatively quickly, For the 5 task we need some help from developers, right now, a little team in Colombia will work on it.


Best Regards


Carlos

[1] http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/SAKC
[2] http://en.qi-hardware.com/images/thumb/d/dd/Board_layout.png/500px-Board_layout.png
[3] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Turtle_Art
[4] http://llk.media.mit.edu/projects/cricket/doc/help/logoblocks/startingwithlogoblocks.htm
[5] http://www.ni.com/labview/
[6] http://blogs.wsd1.org/etr/files/browserloop2.png


-- 
Carlos Iván Camargo Bareño
Profesor Asistente
Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
cicamargoba@unal.edu.co