(Click here for a larger view of the Beagle Board)The Beagle Board was designed by a small group of Texas Instruments (TI) employees, under TI's "small dreams" program. According to the Beagle board website, "'Small dreams' is an initiative at TI where employees with good ideas that don't necessarily require a large team are given a bit of funding to pursue their idea."
The
BeagleBoard measures three inches square, and is powered by an
OMAP3530 SoC. Unlike TI's various OMAP3 reference designs, all of the Beagle Board's I/O is brought out from on-chip peripheral interfaces offered by the OMAP3530 itself (no extra silicon is integrated). The board is intended as a low-cost way to experiment with the same core processor found in many of today's most powerful mobile devices and smartphones, Beagle proponents say.
Clocked at 600MHz in the OMAP3530 used on the Beagle Board, the
Cortex-A8 core is claimed to deliver 1200 DMIPS, putting it theoretically alongside Intel's Pentium III in performance. Unlike the P-III, though, the OMAP3530 adds a powerful Imagination SGX 2D/3D graphics processor supporting dual independent displays, and a TMS320C64x DSP core clocked at 430MHz.
Until now, Beagle Board development has been strongly Linux-oriented. The new BSP from MPC Data addresses this, providing Windows CE support and making the BeagleBoard "a very powerful embedded multimedia hardware platform," according to the company.
Beagle Board, top and bottom
(Click either view to enlarge)The overall Beagle Board (pictured above) includes an SD/MMC slot, a USB host port, a DVI-D port, audio jacks, an S-Video output, and an expansion connector.
MPC Data says its BSP is compatible with
Windows CE 6.0 R2, and supports the following Beagle Board features:
- DVI-D output (tested at 1280x720p 60Hz)
- USB On-the-go as a client (e.g. for ActiveSync)
- USB On-the-go as a host (e.g. for keyboards or mice)
- Debug serial output
- GPIO driver
- Audio I/O
- Mass storage device using onboard NAND flash
According to MPC Data, the BSP also includes beta versions of Texas Instruments decoders for MP3, MPEG4, and H.264 that tap into the TMS320C64x DSP. Windows CE images can be downloaded to the Beagle Board's NAND flash via USB, or Windows CE can be booted from an SD card, the company says.
AvailabilityMPC Data said its new Windows CE BSP for the Beagle Board is "now being demonstrated," but did not provide pricing or availability information.
More information about the Beagle Board itself may be found on the Beagle Board website,
here.
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