[Gta04-owner] Collaboration with "Raspberry Pi"-Project possible?

[Christoph Mair]

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 3:04 PM, David Lanzendörfer
<david.lanzendoerfer at o2s.ch> wrote:
> Hi
>
> Maybe you've already heared of Raspberry Pi [1],
> a project which produces 25$ computers.

25$ for the basic version with 128MB RAM, no ethernet.. 35$ for 256MB
RAM and ethernet but still no
flash/WiFi/BT/FM/GPS/HSPA/Battery/whatever
Then add approx. 5$ for sales tax (in germany).

> Maybe we could collaborate with them in some way in order of making drop our
> production costs as well?

The board is heavily subsidized by Broadcom, just like TI does for
every Beagleboard and Pandaboard they sell.
IMHO reducing production cost can be done by ordering bigger batches
of PCBs or starting a group-buy-tour for components.
Since both boards probably do not share a single component (except
some 100nF caps and a few resistors) because the companies behind them
are competing in the embedded market, the group-buy-tour approach
won't work.

Teaming up when ordering PCBs could be an option, but:
- they probably do not have 8 layers because the SOC is larger and an
(expensive) HDI board isn't necessary.
- even if they use the same technology, ordering two different layouts
together does not cut the costs very much.

> Does someone know people working on that project?
Unfortunately no. I'd like to buy a bunch of other chips from
Broadcom, but they won't sell them to small companies.

Regards,
  Christoph