FAQ
General Questions
What is the "Armadeus Project" intended for ?
The goal of this project is to allow everyone to easily develop embedded Open Source systems. When all the embedded systems in the world will run open source software, life will be better ;-)
What does "Armadeus" mean ?
"Armadeus" is the contraction of "ARM" and "Amadeus". Indeed we choosed ARM architecture for its symplicity and efficiency and our boards are as gifted to run embedded systems as Mozart was for composing music. Moreover, Armadeus project is born in 2006, year of the 250th Mozart's Birthday.
How do I get help ?
First take a look at the whole Wiki. If you can't find help contact us directly: Help:Contents. If you are located in France, we have members in Besançon, Montbéliard & Mulhouse who can provide you help. For Swiss members, we can provide help in Basel, Lausanne & Zürich.
Why are there http://armadeus.org and http://armadeus.com ? Is there a company backing/hiding behind the association?
<http://armadeus.com> is the webpage dedicated to Armadeus Systems. The company develops and produces the main boards which are then available at a discount price to the association members (non commercial usage only !).
Historicaly the Armadeus Project (association) was founded before Armadeus Systems (company). After one year of existence we have seen that is was quite impossible to achieve our goals without investing more time and more cash.That's why the company was founded.
The association was started for our own pleasure and also to help universities and enthousiasts developing Linux embedded systems. It is a non lucrative association and works mostly on founders free time.
The developments (hardware/firmware/software) perform inside the association are under GPL/LGPL licence. The hardware funded by the association can not be used in a commercial product.
Hardware Questions
What does an Armadeus APF9328 board contain ?
The heart of the APF9328 board is an i.MXL processor from Freescale (ex Motorola), with an ARM920T core, running at 192MHz. It has the following integrated peripherals:
- 1x LCD controller (TFT, CSTN, STN) up to 640x480 resolution and with backlight control
- 1x USB 1.1 device
- 2x SPI
- 1x I2C
- 2x asynchronous serial ports (RS232)
- 2x synchronous serial ports (SSI)
- 1x MMC/SD controller
- 1x PWM (able to reproduce low frequency sounds)
- a serial bootstrap mode (removing the need of JTAG interface to program the board)
- a lot of General Purpose Inputs/Outputs (GPIOs), depending on the configured peripherals
Around this processor, the board is equipped with:
- 16 MBytes of high speed SDRAM (32 bits bus)
- 16 MBytes of NOR Flash (16 bits bus)
- a 10/100Mbits Ethernet controller (Davicom DM9000)
- a 200K Xilinx Spartan3 FPGA
- a SPI ADC and an I2C DAC
- level converters for serial (console), USB and Ethernet port
- 2 connectors for accessing main signals
Have a look at this link for more informations: [1]
What is the DevLight board ?
APF9328 boards were designed to be as small as possible and ready to be embedded on any systems. So an APF9328 is not usable alone. You should see it much more like a module you can plug in everywhere. To develop for APF9328 boards you can either develop your own "motherboard" and plug the APF9328 into it or use the one we develop for our needs. Currently only the DevLight board is available. It contains:
- a serial connector
- an USB connector
- an Ethernet connector
- a prototype zone to test your developments
- a DC power regulator
For more informations look at here: [2]
What is the DevFull board ?
It's a more complete development board than the DevLight. This board is currently in final design stage and will contain:
- an AC97 + touchscreen chip
- a CAN bus controller
- an USB 2.0 Fullspeed Host
- a video (PAL/NTSC) output
- a MMC connector
- external SRAM for the FPGA
- a better power supply
- a 4 layers design
- a lot of connectors to access AFP9328 signals
Are the Armadeus boards RoHS compliant ?
Yes
Software Questions
Where are the sources ?
We have a project on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/armadeus/ with a SVN repository
What are the performances of your board ?
Wiki page talking about board performances
