Hi,
Recently, I heard about the Halley platform based on MIPs xBurst Ingenic M150 procesor here:
http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/02/10/ingenic-halley-is-20-linux-based-iot-board-with-wi-fi-and-bluetooth-4-1-connectivity/
I think that could be a great platform for a new Olimex board, especially for its low power consumption for IOT applications.
It is a fast 1GHz MIPs chip, with 128MB of integrated RAM. It also integrates MAC, floating point processor, audio Codec, ADCs,...
Because of the integrated LPDDR2 memory it is a very low pin count package, it's very easy to route, and it has a very small footprint. I think that even allows 2 layers board routing.
It already has a linux 3.10 port in the ingenic ftp.
OpenWrt is already working on Ingenic XBurst chips (QI ben nanonote) and should be easy to implement for M150.
Just take a look to all the info (schematics included) in:
ftp.ingenic.com
And the halley platform in:
http://www.ingenic.com/en/?newton/id/7.html
They are going to sell the Halley platform on March 10th, for $20 (module) and $50 (baseboard+module)
Regards
The On-Chip-RAM looks pretty attractive for low-cost designs, though I haven't seen prices for these SoCs. Since they also include an EPD controller, I would be interested in a corresponding development board. This article also suggests, that E-Ink also sells its displays to smaller distributors, which would allow Olimex to offer the latest generation of EPDs in its shop, which would be great, since I am not aware of a place where to buy them in single quantity for development: http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/02/11/e-ink-screens-now-available-german-electronics-wholesaler/ (http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/02/11/e-ink-screens-now-available-german-electronics-wholesaler/)
+1, I'm still waiting for an Ingenic M150 based board available in EU. This chip is really interesting.
It would make a really good Olimex dev board.
BS
Alexis.