The BeagleBoard is a low-power open-source single-board computer produced by Texas Instruments in association with Digi-Key and Newark element14. The BeagleBoard was also designed with open source software development in mind, and as a way of demonstrating the Texas Instrument's OMAP3530 system-on-a-chip. The board was developed by a small team of engineers as an educational board that could be used in colleges around the world to teach open source hardware and software capabilities. It is also sold to the public under the Creative Commons share-alike license. The board was designed using Cadence OrCAD for schematics and Cadence Allegro for PCB manufacturing; no simulation software was used.
Features
The BeagleBoard measures approximately 75 by 75 mm and has all the functionality of a basic computer. The OMAP3530 includes an ARM Cortex-A8 CPU (which can run Linux, Minix, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, RISC OS, or Symbian; a number of unofficial Android ports exist), a TMS320C64x+ DSP for accelerated video and audio decoding, and an Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX530 GPU to provide accelerated 2D and 3D rendering that supports OpenGL ES 2.0. Video out is provided through separate S-Video and HDMI connections. A single SD/MMC card slot supporting SDIO, a USB On-The-Go port, an RS-232 serial connection, a JTAG connection, and two stereo 3.5 mm jacks for audio in/out are provided.
Built-in storage and memory are provided through a PoP chip that includes 256 MB of NAND flash memory and 256 MB of RAM (128 MB on earlier models).
The board uses up to 2 W of power and can be powered from the USB connector, or a separate 5 V power supply.
Rev. C4 specifications
Package on package (PoP) SoC/Memory chip. Processor TI OMAP3530 SoC – 720 MHz ARM Cortex-A8 core "HD capable" TMS320C64x+ core (520 MHz up to 720p @30 fps) Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX 2D/3D graphics processor supporting dual independent displays 256 MB LPDDR RAM 256 MB NAND Flash memory Peripheral connections DVI-D (HDMI connector chosen for size – maximum resolution is 1280 × 1024 – and it does not output digital audio) S-Video USB OTG (mini AB) 1 USB port SD/MMC card slot Stereo in and out jacks RS-232 port JTAG connector Power socket (5 V barrel connector type) Development Boot code stored in ROM Boot from NAND memory, SD/MMC, USB, or serial Alternative boot source button. Has been demonstrated using Android, Angstrom Linux, Fedora, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch Linux ARM, openSUSE for ARM and Maemo Linux distributions, VxWorks, FreeBSD, the Windows CE operating system, Symbian, QNX and a version of RISC OS 5 made available by RISC OS Open.
BeagleBoard
Features
A modified version of the BeagleBoard called the BeagleBoard-xM started shipping on August 27, 2010. The BeagleBoard-xM measures in at 82.55 by 82.55 mm and has a faster CPU core (clocked at 1 GHz compared to the 720 MHz of the BeagleBoard), more RAM (512 MB compared to 256 MB), onboard Ethernet jack, and 4 port USB hub. The BeagleBoard-xM lacks the onboard NAND and therefore requires the OS and other data to be stored on a microSD card. The addition of the Camera port to the -xM provides a simple way of importing video via Leopard Board cameras.
Specifications
Package on Package POP CPU/memory chip. Processor TI DM3730 Processor – 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 core 'HD capable' TMS320C64x+ core (800 MHz up to 720p @30 fps) Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX 2D/3D graphics processor supporting dual independent displays 512 MB LPDDR RAM 4 GB microSD card supplied with the BeagleBoard-xM and loaded with The Angstrom Distribution Peripheral connections DVI-D (HDMI connector chosen for size – maximum resolution is 1400 x 1050) S-Video USB OTG (mini AB) 4 USB ports Ethernet MicroSD/MMC card Stereo in and out jacks RS-232 port JTAG connector Power socket (5 V barrel connector type) Camera port Expansion port Development Boot code stored on the uSD card Boot from uSD/MMC only Alternative Boot source button. Has been demonstrated using Android, Angstrom Linux, Fedora, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch Linux ARM and Maemo Linux distributions, FreeBSD, the Windows CE operating system, and RISC OS.
BeagleBone
Announced in the end of October 2011, the BeagleBone is a barebone development board. It can fit inside an Altoids tin. The BeagleBone was initially priced at US$89.
The BeagleBone has a Sitara ARM Cortex-A8 processor running at 720 MHz, 256 MB of RAM, two 46-pin expansion connectors, on-chip Ethernet, a microSD slot, and a USB host port and multipurpose device port which includes low-level serial control and JTAG hardware debug connections, so no JTAG emulator is required.