"Since raspberry school started the DIY boom of global open source hardware, various types of open source hardware boards came into being. The well-known domestic boards include cubieboard, banana pie and beaglebone black. Although these boards have their own functional characteristics and the basic hardware configuration is better than raspberry school, the overall hardware system is similar to Raspberry school, So engineers who are familiar with raspberry pie can also start these boards quickly. The various and differentiated functions of these boards can also allow engineers to selectively select open-source hardware boards that are more in line with their expectations for project development or DIY. Thanks to the complex and multifaceted needs of the market, the open-source hardware boards on the market are still in a blowout state. No, a few days ago, aiban.com got another open-source single board computer based on dual core cortex-a9 processor - tigerboard, which is an open-source hardware board based on Ali m3733 dual core processor launched by gowarrior platform. Speaking of this, many engineers must wonder, what is gowarrior? What functions does tiger board have? What kind of processor is Ali m3733? With these questions, let's take a look at the boards to be evaluated today.
The tigerboard that got it is very model, and the packaging has the creative elements of the current intelligent hardware, which is concise and atmospheric.
On the side of the packing box, we can see some main resources and function introduction on the board, including Bluetooth, WiFi, Ethernet, 4GB flash, 1GB DDR3, dual core cortex-a9 processor, etc., as shown in the figure below.
On the back of the packing box, there is a more detailed resource introduction of the development board.
When we open the package, we can see the tigerboard wrapped in an anti-static bag at a glance. The internal accessories are very simple and clear at a glance.
Package internal accessories: (next page)
A tiger board
One microusb cable
A first-hand instruction document
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When it comes to tigerboard, I have to mention gowarrior first. According to the official explanation, gowarrior is a compact, open-source and community supported embedded Android / Linux computing platform. It seems that it is no different from the open-source hardware we usually contact. However, the official emphasizes that, Gowarrior brings a brand-new concept - "open hybrid". It not only provides separate open source hardware or open source software, but also provides a "well managed active community". The author's understanding of this is that "it also provides after-sales service for technical problems, which means a little service to your satisfaction". As for the actual situation, It has to be experienced by engineers.
Back to the tigerboard board, this should be the first open source hardware product born on the gowarrior platform. It adopts a 6-layer board design with a size of 93.2mm * 53.7mm, which is about the size of raspberry pie. The onboard resources are shown in the figure below.
The hardware system block diagram of tiger board card is as follows.
Compared with the mainstream open source hardware board, the hardware configuration of tigerboard is still worthy of recognition. It belongs to the current medium and high-end level, especially the Ali m3733 dual core processor + onboard WiFi / BT module. Let's take a look at the details of the board（ (next page)
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Give you a reason to put down raspberry pie -- free application for 399 open source hardware tiger board
Cortex-a9 development board recommendations:
1. Mx6q Evaluation Kit A Freescale rapid design intelligent application blueprint (Sabre) circuit board for intelligent devices, quad core processing, low power consumption and leading multimedia and image applications.
Pandaboard ES A powerful high-performance processor that provides symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) performance and rich multimedia and 3D graphics support.
RIoTboard A Freescale i.MX 6solo processor can help developers develop for netbooks, desktop all-in-one machines, high-end mobile Internet devices, high-end handheld computers and other fields.
The core processor of tigerboard adopts Ali (Yangzhi) m3733-afaaa. Speaking of Yangzhi, it is an IC designer mainly for DVB set-top box. The m3733-afaaa processor on the board belongs to its latest DVB set-top box solution. It is based on dual core arm cortex-a9 processor and internally integrates a mali-400 MP2 GPU, The same GPU as the Quanzhi A20 on banana pie supports 1080p video playback.
In addition, after careful observation of the board, it is found that the board is not equipped with additional power management unit, that is, m3733 should integrate a powerful PMU unit to supply power to each functional module, reduce the circuit cost and greatly reduce the design difficulty, which should be praised.
However, compared with some domestic open-source hardware boards mainly equipped with Ti, Quanzhi, Ruixin micro and other processor solutions, Yangzhi's m3733 is still a rare product. There are not many domestic open-source hardware boards, so we still have to use it for a period of time to roughly judge its performance.
Surprisingly, tigerboard is equipped with rtl8723 WiFi / BT two in one module. For the current intelligent hardware products, these two wireless communication technologies are necessary and very good.
Of course, in addition to these two relatively novel gadgets, tiger board has many other functions. Some are still very interesting. They are quite different and more attentive. For example, the row of "colorful" LEDs shown in the figure below, and eight colors of user LEDs (pink, purple, blue, white, orange, green, red and yellow). Different LED colors represent different states of the development board. The effect is still powerful when the lights are off at night.
The tigerboard card can support on-board NAND flash startup or microSD card startup, which is set through the boot switch in the card above.
In addition to supporting microusb interface power supply (the powered microusb interface supports USB slave mode), tigerboard is also equipped with 5V DC jack interface. In addition, the board is also equipped with the same a / V interface as raspberry Pie 2 to meet different audio and video output. It is worth mentioning that the tigerboard does have a wealth of expansion interfaces. As shown in the above figure, the board extends two 40pin IO interfaces J3 (blue) and J4 (yellow) respectively. Among them, the J3 (blue) expansion interface is compatible with the interface on raspberry Pie 2, that is, it is great to use some expansion modules on raspberry Pie 2.
In addition, tigerboard has all kinds of standard configurations on some open source hardware boards, such as HDMI, Ethernet and USB. However, it is a pity that Ethernet only supports 10 / 100 Mbps, and there are only two USB2.0 host interfaces. Engineers who need this can only expand through USB hub.
After understanding the basic peripherals of tigerboard, let's compare it with raspberry Pie 2, which is well known in the open source hardware board. As can be seen from the figure below, tigerboard and raspberry Pie 2 have their own flash points. Compared with raspberry Pie 2, tigerboard has good advantages in wireless module (WiFi / BT) and expansion interface, The advantages of raspberry Pie 2 are undoubtedly reflected in the huge number of users and mature ecosystem（ (next page)
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Give you a reason to put down raspberry pie -- free application for 399 open source hardware tiger board
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Pandaboard ES A powerful high-performance processor that provides symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) performance and rich multimedia and 3D graphics support.
RIoTboard A Freescale i.MX 6solo processor can help developers develop for netbooks, desktop all-in-one machines, high-end mobile Internet devices, high-end handheld computers and other fields.
Power on use
The tiger board development board has been pre installed with godroid operating system, which should be a set of system specially customized by gowarrior according to Android system. It can be started when powered on. We connect some peripherals to the development board and supply power through the power adapter.
The logo information of system startup can be viewed through the USB to TTL serial port.
After successful startup, the display displays the godroid flag.
It took about half a minute from power on to entering the system, which is not much different from the startup time of current Android phones.
Tigerboard can be networked through Ethernet or wireless network. After networking, it can surf the Internet normally. When you open the browser, the page style of mobile version is presented by default.
Similar to the operation of smart phones, it can also switch to desktop pages（ (next page)
Activity recommendation:
Give you a reason to put down raspberry pie -- free application for 399 open source hardware tiger board
Cortex-a9 development board recommendations:
1. Mx6q Evaluation Kit A Freescale rapid design intelligent application blueprint (Sabre) circuit board for intelligent devices, quad core processing, low power consumption and leading multimedia and image applications.
Pandaboard ES A powerful high-performance processor that provides symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) performance and rich multimedia and 3D graphics support.
RIoTboard A Freescale i.MX 6solo processor can help developers develop for netbooks, desktop all-in-one machines, high-end mobile Internet devices, high-end handheld computers and other fields.
There are many applications in the default storage of the development board, most of which are video watching apps. Don't sigh "worthy of being a TV box solution, laugh ~ ~". We can install the built-in Kodi software of the development board to play local multimedia files. 1080p has no pressure, as shown in the figure below.
With the video playback app installed, we can normally watch Internet TV through tiger board and have an effect with the TV box on the market. Oh, it's very good. We can use it as a TV box in our spare time, watch movies and play games.
As long as it's not a large 3D game, you can basically get up.
Finally, it is inevitable to run with an rabbit. For the open source hardware board, this run is only for entertainment. During the actual test, during the 3D benchmark test, tigerboard was obviously a little weak, and you can feel the jamming of the picture. After all, the FPS is only about 5. In fact, everyone knows the GPU of mali-400 MP2.
Ann rabbit's final running score is 11271. As a development board, this running style is actually OK.
In the actual experience and use, tigerboard generally gives people a good impression, especially the optimization of godrid, which is a better Android based system optimized in the open source hardware board. However, after a period of use, the author also found a problem. Ali m3733 is still hot, Engineers must deal with the heat dissipation when considering the design of products.
Summary
Introduced and experienced the open source hardware board tiger board of gowarrior platform. The board is equipped with ALI m3733 application processor (based on dual core arm cortex-a9 processor), 1GB ram, 4GB NAND flash, and WiFi / BT two in one wireless module. Other configurations are normal. It is worth mentioning that tigerboard leads to a wealth of extension interfaces, including the extension interface compatible with raspberry Pie 2, which is very good. In addition, godrid based on Android system is built into tiger board. The system optimization is excellent, which is the best of the open source hardware boards I have experienced. At the same time, according to the official introduction, tiger board also supports gobian based on GNU / Debian Linux operating system and gotds based on FreeRTOS operating system, and has made kernel level optimization and enhancement. However, no corresponding download point has been found in the official. I hope it will be released later. Love board network will also launch a free application trial activity of tigerboard board card later. Interested friends should not miss it.
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