
You can now buy bare Snapdragon SoCs with 410E and 600E - protomyth
http://semiaccurate.com/2016/09/28/can-now-buy-bare-snapdragon-socs-410e-600e/
======
oneplane
That is a very interesting development. I know it's not getting anywhere close
to x86 (_64) open specs or some other ARM-powered SoCs, but QualComm
constantly shooting themselves in the foot by closing it off and not even
selling the SoCs hasn't been very productive in the low-power computing
community (and industry). I get that the first instinct of NDA-driven
businesses is to ignore makers or community-based hardware designs (and
sales), but with the Pi selling about 10 million, it should be getting harder
to ignore what used to be 'the little guys'. With innovations basically taking
place at hacker's homes, not being available basically makes you useless in
the sector where your chips could be great.

For Broadcom, the Pi might not have been such a big deal, a single home use
router with a Broadcom SoC might easily sell 50 million units, and there are
plenty of home use routers for sale with Broadcom SoCs in them (let's say, we
have 100 brands/versions, that's at least 5000 million chips sold over ~10
years), but the brand name and support from the community (which is bigger in
numbers as well as diversity than any of the big tech companies) is pretty
much priceless when you hit that millions number and up.

I hope QualComm and their Snapdragon isn't the last one to nudge closer to
availability, there are plenty of others that would be welcome to join. While
being able to buy the chips themselves isn't the biggest improvement, the fact
that they are actually interested in helping with some open drivers is a major
improvement!

~~~
sevensor
As the x86_64 world continues to get more locked down, it's going to be
interesting to see whether a market niche opens up for a less-constrained
platform.

~~~
witty_username
Can you elaborate on how the x86_64 world has gotten more locked down?

~~~
oneplane
There as so many blobs and secret controllers in the x86 platform it's not
even funny. Since Core 2 Duo there is basically no way to run a CPU+PCH (or
'chipset') with free software. An average x86 PC has 10 'hidden' controllers
doing all sorts of magic, and you can't touch it. The Intel Management Engine
and Boot Guard make it extremely hard to use the chips without Intel's
approval, NDA and a truckload of money.

Here are some pages with details:

[https://www.coreboot.org/Binary_situation](https://www.coreboot.org/Binary_situation)
[https://www.coreboot.org/Intel_Management_Engine](https://www.coreboot.org/Intel_Management_Engine)
[https://www.coreboot.org/Blob_Matrix](https://www.coreboot.org/Blob_Matrix)

Intel also made it so that a PC has a timer that turns it off after 30 minutes
if you don't run their signed firmware.

------
q3k
The lack of public datasheets makes this useless for individuals and people
who want truly open hardware (like the Novena).

Looks like the Freescale i.MX6 from 2011 are still the most powerful ARM SoCs
you can buy if you don't want to sign NDAs.

~~~
coderjames
Hopefully that will change in 1Q2017 when Xilinx finally releases to
production their new Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC[1]. It has a quad-A53 cluster and
a dual-R5 cluster. It is still in early-access so I can't say much more beyond
that (we're designing it into a system so I'm constrained by the early-access
NDA).

[1] [http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/soc/zynq-
ultr...](http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/soc/zynq-ultrascale-
mpsoc.html)

~~~
dougmany
That looks nice. CAN, SATA 3.1, GigE, Usb 3.0 on top of what you mentioned. I
wonder what the power draw is on this.

------
MrBuddyCasino
The Snapdragon 600E has SATA3? You got my attention. Someone could make a NAS
board that

a) is fast

b) has low power consumption

c) is cheap

The Odroid is nearly perfect with its USB3 port but native Sata would be
sweet!

~~~
dragontamer
C) were always available with the Intel Atom boards or AMD's AM1 platform.

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157489&cm_re=AMD_AM1-_-13-157-489-_-Product)

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1N83U907...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1N83U90745)

\-----------

While not fast by PC standards, this chip will still run circles around
Snapdragon 600E. I'd think that AM1-based computers are the ideal cheap NAS
setup.

I'd spend a bit more money though to get older, better supported hardware
(AM3+ / FX-6300). I'm sinking ~$400 into hard drives anyway so what's another
$50 for more performance and better hardware support? (AM3+ is supported by
FreeBSD and therefore FreeNAS / Nas4Free).

But if you're going for a Linux build which generally has good support for
these things, AMD's AM1 is a strong contender.

\---------

Intel's Atom is a contender as well, so it deserves a mention:
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157417)

But I've found that AM1 mobos + AM1 CPU is actually cheaper than the Intel
Atom all-in-one boards.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Looks like a nice build!

I'm currently running a Synology 2013j which has 512MB of RAM and a 1.2GHz
Marvell Armada 370, and the only thing I'd like to speed up is PAR2, otherwise
it does the job of feeding AppleTV just fine. The quad-core 1,5Ghz cores
should definitely help here.

AM1 looks like a 25W CPU plus what the chipset consumes, which I don't
consider to be very energy efficient anymore.

The price for the whole system (RAM, PSU, case) will probably be quite a bit
higher as well.

But it looks like good option if you need a standard platform with
comparatively high single thread performance.

~~~
dragontamer
Its certainly not energy efficient. Which is why I said it only satisfies "C"
:-)

But 25W is still more energy efficient than a full-blown computer.

> The price for the whole system (RAM, PSU, case) will probably be quite a bit
> higher as well.

$20 for 4GB of RAM + $40 case. You really can build the core components for
less than $150.

Don't forget the $10 USB boot drive. USB-boot seems like a superior option
over hard-drive boot. That way, your entire hard drives can be used for data-
storage. USB-boot can be easily backed up separately and kept independent of
your data.

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231423)

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA07232B10...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA07232B1026)

Or spend a bit more on a bigger case + PCI SATA3 port extensions to grow to 6+
Hard Drives.

\----------

Of course, the hard drives you put in will raise the costs by several hundred
dollars. (Four 5TB Drives will cost $600 for example).

> But it looks like good option if you need a standard platform with
> comparatively high single thread performance.

I've contemplated a Windows-based NAS before, but the $100 Windows tax is just
too much.

But I do want to play with Storage Spaces. It seems like Storage Spaces + ReFS
is Microsoft's answer to BTFS / ZFS. And I do mean the two features combined.
ReFS only does bitrot checking so it isn't quite a ZFS replacement. But
combined with Storage Spaces the Windows solution has distinct advantages.

\--------------------------

I've ordered a Synology for work, and it works good too. Its simple and solid,
works with everything I expected out of the box. At home, I can afford a
little bit of time to baby these machines (ie: build custom). Plus, you can
build 4-bay systems for very cheap.

Lots of good configurations out there. I think people forget about standard
PCs because they think they're expensive... but for the costs of ~$100 (like a
Dragonboard), the standard PC / AM1 platform is indeed competitive. Although
it does use more power.

------
dharma1
Pricing? Will either of these have the hardware to use the Snapdragon machine
learning SDK?

[https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2016/05/02/qualcomm-h...](https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2016/05/02/qualcomm-
helps-make-your-mobile-devices-smarter-new-snapdragon-machine)

~~~
jjn2009
Arrow electronics, which is listed in the article, has them for $75

------
lorenzhs
Qualcomm's announcement at
[https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2016/09/28/qualcomm-s...](https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2016/09/28/qualcomm-
snapdragon-600e-and-410e-designed-embedded-computing-internet) might be the
better link.

~~~
wyldfire
IMO the article is clearer and more explicit than the press release. It also
summarizes data sheet features which are only referred to in the press
release.

------
coredog64
> Officially both SoCs support Android and Linux but for some reason the 410E
> also supports Windows 10. We will ignore that option almost as thoroughly as
> Microsoft ignores ARM users and focus on the Linux side.

That is some world-class throwing of shade.

~~~
dragontamer
Charlie has always been anti-Microsoft.

Still, he reports real news events despite his clear bias. So I find that
reading his page every now and then is worthwhile (like today's article). He
is prone to hyperventilating however.

------
throw2016
Unless you want to run Android the Pi remains the best bet for Linux support.
I have an Odroid and have dabbled a bit. However its become clear that because
of ARM, Google and their partners complete closed nature its always going to
be an uphill struggle to get Linux working properly on their platform.

You get old kernels, missing or poorly functioning drivers, and blobs so even
experts cannot verify anything. The recent Amlogic scandal with fradulent CPU
speeds discovered only recently is case in point.

A whole army of open source enthusiasts and developers have been trying
diligently to work with ARM but they only end up being bounced back and forth
between ARM and its partners some for years on end, with both feigning lack of
authority to make things work.

There are plenty of binary blobs, closed drivers and security blobs that will
not go away unless ARM supports Linux with action beyond lip service and
announcements. Given some of the issues like GPU drivers are pending for more
than 3 years Linux is clearly not a focus for ARM.

Like some others suggested I would look more closely at the 25W AMD Athlon
5350 or Celeron 1037/1900 for Linux support for things like HTPC, NAS and
homebrew routers. You can get CPU and motherboard for $50-60.

~~~
naveen99
Making your own video driver with fpga:
[http://www.fpga4fun.com/PongGame.html](http://www.fpga4fun.com/PongGame.html)

------
microcolonel
Big news here is that they are officially supporting Freedreno. Far as I'm
aware they're the first embedded vendor with a modern graphics offering to
support an existing quality free driver. The motivating factor I've heard for
people developing these drivers has always been long term support and
flexibility in embedded products, and this is an excellent answer to those
questions.

