Quote from: li_gangyi on July 19, 2011, 11:52:27 AM

Quote from: O_Shovah on July 19, 2011, 11:30:08 AM

Quote from: li_gangyi on July 19, 2011, 10:16:24 AM

I've looked at some calculations, if we assume the 10A is spread out across all vias and traces, 0.3mm will handle 1/2 an amp safely, most of the pads have 2 traces supplying Vint. I have no idea how well Vint is spread out internally in the die.

To increase tolerances, we can goto a slightly thicker top layer, the only real way to test if we can continue to use 35um is probably to manufacture one test piece.

So will you do that test piece for the power supply or shall somebody else do this ?

The main purpose of using the LMZ modules is so that we wouldn't have to do this, I have real life experience with these modules already, and I know they work as advertised, if anyone still wants to make a test PSU, I can ship out some LMZ modules for free to cut down on costs (this are like $15 a pop), eval kits are also available if you just wanna see how well they work.

I propose we route out the rest of the board, make a test batch of PCBs and then I can populate the board with say 1 FPGA to cut down on costs, and then ship them out to software devs who can then figure out what to do with the MCU and FPGA coding. Right now I'm not too worried about the hardware design, I can see active development, but no software dev has stepped up to offer help just yet (or maybe I'm just missing their posts). I'm no good with MSP430s just yet, so I can't help here.

If you say so the power supply will certainly do its job.
Bahnfire offered his help a while ago regarding progamming MSP an FPGA and for the FPGa binary we may come back at TheSeven and others so this should be possible to solve.

Quote from: senseless on July 19, 2011, 12:03:30 PM

What do those licenses cost?

Where do I get an ISE license? From xilinx directly? Avnet?

You need the ISE suite for coding and compiling binaris for the FPGA.I remember it to be~2000$ a year so its far form being feasible for me.
They are provided both by Xilinx directly and by Avnet.

Quote from: Olaf.Mandel on July 19, 2011, 11:30:40 AM

I must say: I wasn't interested in joining or starting a company (no clue how my employer would feel about that!). For a software project, this is strictly not necessary, just define a license for what you publish and keep track of who owns copyright to what.

I see the point for a hardware development: the prototypes are expensive, and you only get good prices if you pool many orders. For my own part: I just want to get a workable design and possibly not have to sell organs to pay for a small number of boards

For the purposes of the development effort, these are two separate issues, though: we can assign a license to the designs without having to go to the hassle of incorporating ourselves. The prototypes may even be doable by enthusiasts with deeper pockets than the rest. The mass order requires a company. That needs not be founded by us, though: Seeed Studio is for this sort of thing.

As for license preferences: I would be happy with many of the OSI approved licenses, but GPLv3+ or maybe GPLv2+ would be my preferences.

So i see we are moving towards a GPL licensing, im ok with that. The founding a company was just a idea i would have assigned the most security but never mind.

I have just three questions left regarding this licensing type;

As far as i know the GPL doesn't restrict the use to noncommercial use. So there is the option of any company selling out idea for profit as long as the also forward the license including the original authors.

I know the GPL just for software products. Is it this unprobhlematic to directly transfere it to hardware ?

As you proposed we should start a file defining who has generated wich part of the project so we mai define copyright later.

I dont want to sound greedy here but as the copyright only covers hard- and software i would like to have a way to credit all participants like TheSeven, others and me who just participated in a advisory or organisational role.