
Raspberry Pi Compute Module - markhemmings
http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-compute-module-new-product/
======
alexandros
This is the answer to the question of how to move from prototyping to
production with the Raspberry Pi. So far the answer had been to either deploy
(and pay for) a bunch of peripherals you don't need (applications most
certainly don't use _everything_ on a board) or to move to a different/custom
board.

With the compute module, that answer is now much more concrete. People will
still build own boards, but most of the complexity will live on the SOM.

Very exciting times, can't wait to see if the gambit pays off.

------
Zuph
I'll be interested to see how this progresses. With any luck, it'll open up a
market of cheap, well-distributed SOMs, similar to the Pi opening up a market
for cheap, well-distributed ARM/Linux Dev Boards.

The situation's surprisingly similar: Powerful ARM Dev boards existed before
the Pi, but the price was steep, they couldn't be found in traditional
distribution channels, and the OS/Driver support was poor at best. This is,
more or less, the place we're at with embedded SOMs.

~~~
ris
You really see these being sold in Radio Shack?

With Pis, all the average person needed was a regular keyboard, mouse &
monitor to plug in. That's why it worked. That's all been thrown out here.

~~~
peteforde
I think you're gravely misunderstanding the intended goal and target user for
this device. It's not "for consumers" but a path for hardware developers to
prototype with a full Pi and then ship with a custom unit that's been
configured as needed - without having to modify your code.

~~~
ris
Right, but what I've said in other replies, why can the Pi do this any better
than any of the existing SO-DIMM modules on the market?

------
noonespecial
The price is getting better but it's still in the "I used _my_ pi for the
project" vs the "I used _a_ pi..." range.

Things get interesting when a general purpose Linux computer reaches
disposable pricing where you just pull a new one from the bin for each
project. This feels like about $20usd or less to me.

~~~
Touche
So what happens to all that e-waste when you throw out an old computer board
because you don't feel like wiping it?

~~~
simik
Patiently waiting in a trash field for a future entrepreneur genius who would
devise a way to extract on the cheap anything and everything useful from it.

~~~
noonespecial
Unfortunately, we have that already and it looks like this:

[http://www.occupyforanimals.org/uploads/7/7/3/5/7735203/__95...](http://www.occupyforanimals.org/uploads/7/7/3/5/7735203/__9508423_orig.png)

------
tcas
This is very interesting in regards to a having cheap Linux SoM (system on
module) for businesses to use in their products as well, by far the cheapest I
know of with these specs. Doing routing and verification for a chip like that
is no easy task.

I'm really curious to see if the foundation will commit to a product lifespan
/ availability for commercial use. If so this could become pretty big.
Obviously if you are selling a product in 100,000s+ you will probably roll
your own, but for a small business to produce a niche product that's going to
be sold in the high hundreds, or product a proof of concept this is awesome.

EDIT: rereading the blog post, this is aimed at commercial use, definitely
great in regards to pricing, however, I wouldn't want to base a product on it
without a guarantee of availability / compatibility from them. The Beaglebone
black specifically says that they don't guarantee compatibility between
revisions for this reason.

------
chrisBob
The SODIMM form factor is interesting. I know in this case they are just using
it because the connectors are easy to come by, but are there any examples of a
computer designed to fit in a RAM socket and do processing rather than just
statically storing the memory information?

~~~
astrodust
I recall one processor upgrade for a 1990-era Mac that slotted into the L2
cache slot, back when L2 cache was on the motherboard and used a similar DIMM
format.

It was extremely unusual, but apparently worked.

~~~
bcohen5055
I had one of those... it was installed on a IICI, I think it was manufactured
by sonnet tech and it was marketed as a PPC upgrade card for the motorolla
68040

Here is a list of all of the sonnect upgrade cards and how they connected
[http://www.everymac.com/upgrade_cards/sonnettech/](http://www.everymac.com/upgrade_cards/sonnettech/)

Edit: Added link

~~~
astrodust
Yeah, that was the one. I had a hard time tracking down the proper link, but
it's on the page you linked:
[http://www.everymac.com/upgrade_cards/sonnettech/crescendo_g...](http://www.everymac.com/upgrade_cards/sonnettech/crescendo_g3_l2/crescendo_g3_l2_500.html)

It's clever and insane at the same time. Most processor upgrades physically
replace the processor, but this one just bypassed it.

------
malanj
Wow - SODIMM form factor is a game changer.

A few years back I built a bunch of robots with the main processing unit a
SIMM Java processing module -
[http://www.systronix.com/tini/tini_simm.htm](http://www.systronix.com/tini/tini_simm.htm).
Having a standard (and super compact) form-factor for processing was a game
changer. It meant I could quickly prototype the main robot board and add in
processing module really easily. I wish I had this available then.

------
apawloski
So for many distributed computations in my field (pretty much anything that
isn't embarrassingly parallel [0]), the limiting factor is often network
communication -- how quickly nodes can send messages to each other.

Even as just a toy, putting an affordable arm chip with a serious interconnect
would be a really big deal. This is a great step closer.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarrassingly_parallel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarrassingly_parallel)

~~~
timthorn
The Calxeda ECX-1000/2000 would have been ideal for you then - 4x10GbE
interconnects with a quad core A9/A15.

Shame they went under - but there are alternatives from Marvell, Applied Micro
and others. Look for ARM server chipsets and you'll usually find a good fabric
attached.

~~~
justincormack
You will also find a large price tag. And probably inability to actually buy
one alas.

~~~
timthorn
You can get the Mirabox based on the Marvell Armada 370 for about £150, one-
off. Includes dual 1GbE.

Eg [http://www.newit.co.uk/shop/All-
MiraBox/MiraBox](http://www.newit.co.uk/shop/All-MiraBox/MiraBox)

~~~
justincormack
That's not really server class, more a consumer product.

------
Ellipsis753
Looks really cool but I'm slightly disappointed to see that when buying these
Compute Modules in bulk they still each cost about the same as a single full
Raspberry Pi (Version A). The Compute Modules do have 4gb of built in flash
that the Version A doesn't have though.

~~~
wyager
It looks like the module _plus_ the I/O board costs $30 in large quantities.
So aren't you really getting pretty much the same deal? I'm sure the modules
alone will be cheaper.

~~~
harpastum
No, from the article it appears the module by itself will be $30. With the I/O
board the price will be higher:

"...the Compute Module will be available to buy separately, with a unit cost
of around $30 in batches of 100"

------
idlewan
I could see this being a really interesting way of having a slim and
upgradable __raspberry-pi-powered tablet __.

Year after year, you could upgrade the SoC and memory while keeping your
case+screen+screeniopcb+batterypcb+battery.

~~~
zokier
You might be interested in EOMA-68 project. They have similar ideas, albeit
using proper HW instead of RPi

------
ris
Isn't the Pi incredibly underpowered for use as a compute node?

~~~
outside1234
Hilarious - i was just thinking it was overpowered!

It depends on your use case. If you are thinking of this for industrial
controls, its overpowered. If you are thinking of this for mining bitcoins, it
is underpowered.

~~~
tlrobinson
(FYI mining Bitcoin can only be reasonably done using custom ASIC hardware
these days)

~~~
whyenot
The funny thing is those ASICs more often than not are hooked up to a
RaspberryPi running cgminer or equivalent.

------
fit2rule
I'm a little disappointed that this isn't a compute-addon for the rPi that
gives it some serious calculation power. Ah well .. guess I'll stick to the
IMX platform for that ..

~~~
jnbiche
Well, the existing RPi's GPU has 24 GFLOP capability, which is roughly the
same as the GPU on the baseline i.MX6 (the Vivante GC2000).

Now, a lot of that capability has historically been unavailable to RPi users,
but they're slowly responding to pressure and opening up the GPU.

But I also saw the headline and was hoping for some nice little GPU compute
add-on the RPi. Oh well. I still think this is a very promising form factor
for the RPi.

~~~
astrodust
It's pretty nuts that a tiny little thing like this has _gigaflops_ of compute
power.

~~~
jnbiche
I agree -- I know it's silly but I still marvel at the fact that the $10
microcontroller I'm working on has almost the processing power of the laptop I
used in college in the 90s (and in the case of the RPi, vastly more).

------
bronson
Yay, they are putting onboard flash! That's going to make the Pi way more
reliable.

But boo, no more clock or memory. Lots of apps bump gracelessly into the 512M
limit (libre office, IDEs, OpenElec+plugins, ...) 1G should give all of them
enough breathing room that they don't need babying them all the time.

A little more grunt to the CPU would have been nice but that's minor.
Overclocking the Pi seems mostly futile -- it just lets the CPU spend even
more time waiting on I/O and cache.

~~~
learc83
>Lots of apps bump gracelessly into the 512M limit (libre office, IDEs,
OpenElec+plugins, ...)

The compute unit isn't meant to be used as a desktop, but as an embedded
system.

------
ryanmk
Can other computer-on-modules in a SODIMM package be used in the Compute
Module IO Board they are developing?

I've searched online, and I think the boards that the SODIMM modules are
plugged-in to are called "base-boards" or "carrier-boards". In general, are
these kinds of boards generic in nature, so that you can mix-and-match modules
with different carrier-boards, as long as they all use the SODIMM package?

~~~
kbaker
No, usually each manufacturer has a custom pinout for the SODIMM connector,
they are not interchangeable.

For that you may want to look at the Qseven standard: [http://www.qseven-
standard.org/](http://www.qseven-standard.org/)

This also gives you a bump in processing power as well, with the ability to
use ARM or x86 processors. (of course it is a lot more expensive...)

------
wmf
I wonder if they're working on a RPi II; in the two years since its
introduction I'd hope you could get a lot more for the same price.

------
JimmaDaRustla
I wonder what type of applications will come out of this.

For example, I want to build security cameras with Raspberry Pis, but I don't
need audio output, USB, HDMI, etc...but I would need WiFi, camera unit, and
power. But I doubt we'd see custom IO boards for specific applications such as
this, and I don't think it'd be any cheaper than just buying a regular Pi.

~~~
mschuster91
Well, just custom-build a PCB. Either laserprinter-etch it yourself or use one
of the maker services. If you're just after USB (for the wifi) + camera +
power, you don't need that many pins so you can solder the SMD SODIMM socket
even by hand.

------
ausjke
None of these ideas or practices are true, but indeed RPi is selling these
used-to-be-EE-only to the public, which is great!

------
milliams
How would people compare this to Improv?
[http://makeplaylive.com](http://makeplaylive.com)
[http://aseigo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/introducing-
improv.html](http://aseigo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/introducing-improv.html)

~~~
zokier
First impression: Improv has still all those bulky connectors on it. Second
impression: It costs twice as much as the RPi module.

~~~
makomk
I think those connectors are on the detachable baseboard, not the processor
board.

~~~
zokier
It seems you are right. In that case it is more comparable to this RPi module.
The price difference stands though, if you can't get the processor board
separately significantly cheaper somewhere.

------
coreymgilmore
Very interesting. Definitely makes integrating the Pi into projects a lot
easier. The form fact will help with making things smaller and reducing a lot
of external connections (gpio breakout, Gertboard,...). I'm interested and
ready to buy!

------
hatfieej
It kind of bothers me that the Raspberry Pi Foundation is supposed to an
educational charity, yet they are devoting resources towards developing
products aimed business and industrial users. It doesn't seem aligned with
their stated mission.

~~~
erbo
From the announcement:

"We are also aware that there are a very significant number of users out there
who are embedding the Raspberry Pi into systems and even commercial products.
We think there needs to be a better way to allow people to get their hands on
this great technology in a more flexible form factor, but still keep things at
a sensible price."

"The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charity, and as with everything we make
here, all profits are pushed straight back into educating kids in computing."

In other words, they found a need, they're filling it, and all the profits
from filling that need will be plowed back into their primary mission. More
money = more kids educated in computing = Good.

------
agumonkey
Beside high-end SMP, is there a system where you can buy computing modules to
extend the, well, compute power of your 'machine' ? cpu as daughter boards,
like the rpi compute module.

------
maguirre
It's about time they put some FLASH on-board. SD card has proven time and time
again an unreliable medium. You never know if the device would boot up after a
"dirty shutdown"

~~~
someperson
My understanding is eMMC flash memory is an SD card soldered onto a board, so
if anything that problem could be _worse_ without the advantage of a removable
card

~~~
rcxdude
It's very similar but often faster. The Odroid U2 uses removable EMMC storage
which has an SD card adaptor, which I feel is a very good middle ground (most
of the advantages of both with the disadvantage that the connector on the
board is non-standard).

~~~
tomswartz07
SD cards have different classes- without seeing specs, I'd be willing to bet
that a Class 10 SDhc card is on par with this EMMC storage.

~~~
bronson
Correct, plus the cheap SD connectors are a source of a lot of noise and
unreliability. Just doing away with them will be a huge benefit.

------
cpwright
I wonder how much an RPi compute + the dev board, will be compared to an RPi
Gertboard to get at all the interesting bits of the processor.

------
Maxious
Kind of like a modern swyft card, eh? [http://hackaday.com/2014/04/06/vcf-
east-the-swyft-card/](http://hackaday.com/2014/04/06/vcf-east-the-swyft-card/)

~~~
fhars
No, not at all. The swyft card war more or less just a ROM cartridge for the
Apple II

------
kelmop
is this now viable for cluster? I mean simple backbone for 20+ for these with
combined network and power unit? is there still any point at all?

~~~
papaf
It would make a nice cross between a dedicated server and a virtual server.
You could rent out 20+ "nodes" where each node is a dedicated computer with
low performance.

------
deserted
Any ideas for a cheap source of SODIMM sockets?

~~~
Alphasite_
RS/Farnell i guess?

------
KerrickStaley
Can this be plugged into a DDR2 DIMM and allow host<->Pi communication (with
an appropriate kernel driver)?

~~~
csense
The article says:

> But don’t go plugging the Compute Module into your laptop – the pins
> assignments aren’t even remotely the same!

So the answer is "no."

~~~
astrodust
Sounds like doing this will let out the magic smoke in a hurry.

Do you think they've fused it so it doesn't short out and trash any board you
put it into by mistake?

~~~
bronson
Seems unlikely. Fuses, MOVs, and clamp diodes cause signal integrity issues
(especially at 3.3V and under). And, for 200 lines, the cost might be
impressive.

That said, if the Pi foundation can arrange for all the I/O to come out of
reset in a hi-Z state, then there's a chance they could arrange the rest of
the pins to avoid damage.

But would it be worth the effort? Given how hard it is to access most sodimm
sockets, mistakes seem rather unlikely.

~~~
astrodust
It's like how people used to mistakenly plug their modem phone cord into a PBX
jack and fry their modem because the voltages were way higher.

Having it show up as an unrecognized DIMM would be clever, but perhaps not
worth the trouble.

