A minimal single board computer using Allwinner A10 SOC

Update on 6-Jun-2013:
Kicad drawings for a prototyping board having A10,  PMU, 1GB RAM, HDMI, TF card and all the ports connected to FPC sockets have been  done. schematic is HERE.

Update on 31-May-2013:
          The schematic and layout has been completed using Kicad. The initial plan was to do the PCB using  PADS but later on decided to use the Kicad output. The DDR delay matching is done manually. The latest Kicad files, with corrections and inputs from Joe Michael, is HERE. Most probably it will be send for fabrication next week. The layout without ground planes is shown below.

A more compact layout:  A version with DDR data lines swapped for better layout also has been made.



First posting on 27-Mar-2013
Objective:
Make a minimalist SBC and make all the details including schematic, PCB and Gerber files open without any restrictions, so that  it can be used as starting point for  special  purpose  modules.

Work Done:
The schematic and layout files have been made using Kicad, thanks to the inputs from Luke Leighton and Joe Michael. At the moment, Kicad does not support the length matched tracks, required for DDR3. But keeping the schematics in Kicad making sharing easy. One can also make a case to the Kicad developers to add this feature. At present, the PCB will be done using PADS software.

Work Ahead:
       The schematic need to be cross checked, the A10 databook has many mistakes and I have relied on resources from the web. I have never done DDR3 designs in the past, there could be errors in the schematic. I hope those who know better would help in making corrections, to reach working design. Once the schematic is corrected, the whole thing will be redone in PADS to make prototype boards.

The board has SOC, DDR3 RAM, MicroSD, HDMI, 3 USBs and some headers. The plan is to get Linux booted from SD card. No NAND flash, USB-OTG or battery. Only a 5V input  via a micro USB connector.

If this works there may be a stand-alone version of expEYES.

Joe Michael got the boards fabricated. There were some errors in the layout. In any case, we could not get it working.