[yocto] any rumblings about a newer YP powerpc reference board than mpc8315e-rdb?

[Stefano Babic]

Hi Robert,

On 03/03/2017 15:53, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Mar 2017, Andy Pont wrote:
> 
>> Robert wrote...
>>
>>>> I would look at one of the P10xx series QorIQ boards.  Digi-Key list
>>>> the P1021RDB-PC-ND and P1024RDB-PA-ND as being active parts which
>>>> are either single or dual e500 cores.
>>>
>>>   i would start with the machine definition files in the meta-fsl-ppc
>>> layer:
>>>
>>> http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/meta-fsl-ppc/tree/conf/machine
>>>
>>> and see what looks promising. however, IIRC, one of the properties of
>>> a YP reference board is that it shouldn't be stupid, crazy expensive,
>>> no? so anything climbing above $500 (USD) might not be an option.
>>> people used to spending $60 for a beaglebone black might have a
>>> seizure to suddenly realize they need $500 for a powerpc reference
>>> board.
>>
>> Using Digi-Key UK as my reference, they list the MPC8308-RDB-ND and
>> MPC8313E-RDBC-ND as being available for less than £250 which makes
>> them sub $300 which is probably the best price I have seen for Power
>> Architecture reference boards.
>>
>> Granted, they are still more expensive than a BBB, RPi or something
>> like that but cheap compared to >$2,000 reference boards we used to
>> have to buy in the old days!
> 
>   in canada, distributors are charging over $400 (CAD) for either of
> those, which you'd normally think would be outside the bounds for a YP
> reference board, but it may be that that's what you have to accept for
> even an inexpensive PPC dev kit.
> 
>   a better question is, what PPC platform are people working with
> these days? it seems pointless to select an older technology just
> because it's cheaper, only to have no one buy it because it's useless.
> so who out there is working with powerpc, and what PPC platform would
> have enough general interest that it would be worth making the YP
> reference board?
> 

One more question is regarding the EOL of some of these processors.
P1010/14 reaches EOL next year, P1021/23 in two years. It should be also
avoided to take a board that has a very short life time. The MPC8313
reached EOL last year :-(.

>   or, perhaps (god forbid) there's no actual point in even *having* a
> powerpc reference board?

IMHO it was always a good point for me to have a reference for e500. I
mainly had projects with P202x, QorIQ.

Best regards,
Stefano

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