[Cryptech Tech] Alpha board strategy

[Павел Шатов]

Hello!

I want to suggest an idea regarding our Alpha Board. I came across this 
website today: http://www.imx6rex.com/

They offer two boards. The first one is a very small (7x4 cm) module 
containing i.MX6Q CPU and up to 4 GB of DDR3-1066 memory. External 
interfaces are connected to two expansion headers.

The second board is a development baseboard (carrier) for this module, 
it contains power supply and all the other components.

The design is completely open, and here is description of their license 
policy:
http://www.imx6rex.com/2013/11/the-imx6-rex-module-design-licensing/

What I like about this module, is that if we use it, we won't have to do 
DDR3-1066 memory and 0.8 mm BGA layout, which should be most difficult 
parts of our Alpha Board. Basically what we need to do is to develop 
another carrier board for this module with an FPGA (or two), which is by 
all means possible. The only problem is that this module doesn't have 
EIM interface exposed, so we will have to replace EIM arbiter with 
SPI/UART/MMC/SD/... arbiter, which is not difficult at all.

Another benefit is that they have all the necessary information on their 
website (schematics, layout, stackup, bill of materials, etc). We can 
review their design to make sure that there's nothing suspicious in it 
and order pre-assembled boards from them, or use their layout and bill 
of materials to order boards from another vendor.

We can even order their baseboard and start porting our system to it, 
while we are developing our own custom carrier.

What do you think?

--
With best regards,
Pavel Shatov