EOMA68-A20

Rhombus Tech's first Allwinner A20 based EOMA68 CoM (Computer on Module) card is nearing completion and availability, with the schematics and first prototype completed by Wits-Tech. Actual pricing of the board in volume is available by contacting QiMod Ltd. The first sales available to individuals, available with an Engineering Board called Improv, started in December 2013 and are still open.

The card started out as an A10 design and a handful prototypes were manufactured, but the design has been updated to use A20 instead. All but five of the first developer alpha release boards are using the A20.

Rhombus Tech have said that there will come more (faster, better) EOMA-68 CPU cards from them in the future and that "this one is just the first".

=Overview= The EOMA68 CPU cards are identical in appearance and shape to the legacy PCMCIA IO cards, but this is where the similarity ends. The EOMA68 cards are electrically very different and safely incompatible with PCMCIA. The EOMA68 CPU cards have the CPU, GPU, system RAM, Flash drive, and IO controllers such as SATA, USB, Ethernet, I2C, HDMI, LCD, etc. all in a small self contained metal shelled card that is pluggable into all types of products. Just like with legacy PCMCIA, the user-facing end is available for any interfaces: in the case of the EOMA68-A20 CPU Card Micro-HDMI, Micro-USB-OTG and Micro-SD have been added.

This gives the OEM a complete ready-to-go CPU card that is often the most difficult part of the design process, and allows the OEM to focus its efforts on the simpler aspects of product design such as IO connectors, LCD, touchscreen, battery and the industrial design of the end products enclosure. The EOMA68 CPU cards are also swappable between various products with different IO boards. Pop a cpu card into your notebook and then back out and into your carPC as you head to the office. Then later swap the cpu card into your set-top-box. Download some films and music then transfer them - and the entire CPU Card - into a hand-held video player. The EOMA68 Cpu Cards may also be permanently mounted inside any product that would prefer it to be integrated.

The IO Boards form the IO and user interface electronics of products such as Notebooks, PanelPC's, Set-Top-Boxes, Tablets, CarPC's, Network Switches and Routers, Cluster Computers, Servers and Desktop PC's. Reference IO board designs will also be available for many products such as netbooks, tablets, set-top-boxes, carPC's etc.

There is also a EOMA-CF compact flash sized card version planned for the Allwinner A20. This form factor is even smaller than the EOMA-68 at only 43×36×3.3 mm (Type I). It will easily integrate itself into even smaller devices or more dense cluster applications.

A list of product design concepts is maintained on the elinux.org EOMA-68 page, including an LCD Panel-PC, Laptop/Netbook and Tablet. There is also a list of community ideas maintained at the rhombus-tech web site, and have their own news page. These include a tablet, games console, router, NAS, robotics system, laptop, Mini ITX motherboard and many more.

= Specifications of the 1st EOMA-68 CPU Card = The first EOMA-68 CPU Card is based on AllWinner A10 Cortex A8 processor, with 1GB RAM, a NAND Flash, one USB OTG port, microSD slot, HDMI, PMIC, an Ethernet PHY (at the back), an expansion header, and the EOMA-68 connector giving access to peripherals signals (SATA, Ethernet, RGB/TTL, I2C etc…). It can act as a USB-OTG-powered Linux/Android stand-alone computer or be connected to a baseboard. One of the first project will be the KDE Plasma Active Vivaldi Tablet, codenamed the "Flying Squirrel".

This computer would be an EOMA-PCMCIA CPU card powered by an Allwinner A10 ARM Cortex A8 CPU clocked at 1.5ghz. Here are the (expected) specifications of this board:


 * A 47.3mm x 78.1mm PCB in a Credit-card sized case (54mm x 86mm x 5mm)
 * An Allwinner A20, 1GHz ARM Cortex A8
 * 1GB of RAM
 * At least 1gb of NAND Flash (possibly up to 16gb)
 * Operation as a stand-alone computer (USB-OTG powered)
 * 2160p (double 1080p) Video playback
 * MALI 400MP 3D Graphics, OpenGL ES 2.0 compliant.
 * HDMI, Micro-SD, Headphones Socket,
 * EOMA-68-compliant interfaces (RGB/TTL, I2C, USB2, SATA-II, 10/100 Eth)

=References=

= See also =
 * Cubieboard
 * Hackberry

= External links =
 * http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/