As of Dec 31, 2011, I am closing down Mediama Technologies for the time being.  I have been working at Intel for 2.5 years now, which is has been extremely busy; combine that with a growing family, and life has been far too full to continue this adventure.  Thank you for your support and all the great discussions, and I hope you enjoyed the RMT1.

If you are interested in the design files for the RMT1 or the PMT1G, please contact me at info@mediamatech.com.

Regards,

Pete

It has been a busy few weeks, especially with personal life.  But now time for an update. PMT1G has been progressing slowly but surely:

1. SAM-BA over JTAG (SAM-ICE) is working, with applets written for initializing both LP DDR SDRAM on both DDR0 and EBI.  NAND and DataFlash proven.  ES replacement boot ROM loaded on DataFlash, so now SAM-BA over USB is working.
2. AT91 Bootstrap (1.14) modified to initialize both LP DDR.  So I can now launch U-Boot...
3. Latest U-Boot (not yet released) has native support for AT91SAM9G45, so I started with that as a base.  Added PMT1G support code, and we are now booting into U-Boot!  Ethernet is working under U-Boot.
   There appears to be some stability issues, in which U-Boot prompt becomes unresponsive after ~10 minutes, unless something is actively running (e.g. memory test).  Might have to roll back to Atmel's 1.3.4 demo, just to check.
4. Starting from 2.6.30, maxim.org.za AT91 patches, and Nicolas Ferre's latest patch set, I have added PMT1G board support to linux.  Can now boot through to the linux prompt, using my own root filesystem in NAND (JFFS2).  But after several minutes, a spontaneous cache error occurs.  Still investigating.

And now for a picture of the board, loaded thus far:

DC jack on the lower left, ethernet coming in on the middle-top, and USB miniB cable on lower-right is for console support (on-board SiLabs CP2102 USB/UART).  Console is the DBGU serial interface; in linux, mapped to /dev/ttyS0.

Next up is to analyze some of the U-Boot and Linux stability issues.  And then onto verifying LCD and AC97 codec support.

Stay tuned for more news as things progress...

Received four partially-loaded (e.g. BGAs, top-side QFN packages, etc) PMT1G prototypes from my contract manufacturer.

Thus far, loaded all power supply components and all voltages measure nominal (phew!), on one prototype thus far.  Next will be all circuitry for the SAM9G45 to reach basic start-up (e.g. filtered supplies, clocks/crystals, etc) -- enough to get SAM-BA over JTAG going.

I will post a photo of the prototype soon.  Stay tuned!

Just received a fresh batch of RMT1-A v1.4.  This version has the 4-pin flex connector that matched the Sharp LQ043T1DG0x panels.  Also, used ENIG (electroless nickel, immersion gold) PCB finish -- looks much nicer and longer shelf life.  Tested about 16, and no failures thus far.  So RMT1 stock is available again!

Finally got around to getting a LQ043T1DG01 panel.  Beautiful looking output, with relatively high contrast and brightness. The touch panel appears (at least subjectively) to be more sensitive and responsive than the Hantouch panels commonly used.  Looks like it will be a popular "high-end" option.

In terms of the touch pin-out, it turned out it was not a necessity yo change the pin-out (flip Y axis) after all.  It is more an issue of perspective and use.  Oh well, at least tslib is capable of translating any axis flips, and thus compensates for this change simply by running ts_calibrate.

In terms of a new linux release and root filesystems, still waiting for everything to percolate up into mainline -- or I would even settle for just a AVR32 GIT tag when 2.6.31 is finally out.

RMT1:

PCBs and kit at the contract manufacturer.  Expect to have more RMT1 boards available within one week!

After some feedback from the AVR32 kernel list, the patches for RMT1 should get through soon, and should make it in time for 2.6.31.

PMT1x:

Should have the mobile DDR parts soon.  Lead-times are stretching out these days, as vendors are being extremely careful not to over produce.

Looking at the kernel GIT, and the SAM9G45 and -EK board setup code is (finally) next in line.  Again, should make it in time for 2.6.31.  I can soon start test kernel builds, and move onto the board setup code for PMT1G.

On the u-boot front, v2009-08-rc* looks to have the SAM9G45 support in place already.  So it looks like 2009-08 is the place to start the u-boot port for PMT1G.