[Tinkerphones] GTA04A5: good news and bad news

[H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hi Jonas,

> Am 23.02.2017 um 00:27 schrieb Jonas Smedegaard <jonas at jones.dk>:
> 
> Quoting H. Nikolaus Schaller (2017-02-22 17:55:30)
>> Am 22.02.2017 um 17:08 schrieb Paul Boddie <paul at boddie.org.uk>:
>>> Personally, I think some flexibility about the SoC would be
>>> acceptable for Neo900, but I'm not invested in Maemo at all and have
>>> backed that project because of the form factor, open hardware
>>> aspects, and Free Software support.
>> 
>> Me too. The issue is what the alternatives really are. Due to space
>> constraints it must be small chips. And PoP is the technology of first
>> choice. Not many hacker friendly ARM SoC are available as PoP.
>> 
>> Snapdragon: would be fine, but unobtainable in small quantities.
>> Mediatek: afaik the same
>> RockChip: I don't know if they have PoP mobile chips
>> Allwinner: AFAIK no PoP and not power optimized for mobile operation
>> Apple A10: unobtainable
>> Exynos: AFAIK not well supported
>> 
>> So TI did alway have the best support for the open/free soft/hardware
>> community (except the IMG PVR SGX). Hence the DM3730 would still be a
>> very good choice.
> 
> What numbers are "power optimized for mobile operation"?

The GTA04A5 seems to be able to reach <30mA in suspend to RAM which is
ca. 100mW. This gives only 40 hours of standby time which is still less
than other devices (which have up to 100 or 400 hours).

> 
> Relatively recent power reduction experiments for Allwinner H3 boards:
> https://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/1614-running-h3-boards-with-minimal-consumption/
> 
> Even if the numbers for H3 boards are way off, the methods used might
> still be interesting.

"I find it already pretty nice to be able to limit consumption down to 160mA (800mW) by disabling 3 CPU cores "

That is almost more than the GTA04 needs in full operation.

The key is a SoC that has been designed for power optimization.

BR,
Nikolaus

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