In late 2009, Texas Instruments introduced its Sitara family of ARM Cortex-A8 processors that use the ARMv7 processor-core architecture. In early June (2010) the company announced two new Sitara processors in the Cortex-A8 family, the AM3703 and the AM3715.

According to Texas Instruments, these MPUs are appropriate for portable data terminals, portable medical equipment, home and building automation, navigation systems, smart displays and human machine interfaces (HMIs) in industrial equipment. The AM3715 provides a 2-fold increase in graphics performance over previous Sitara devices, while the AM3703 would find use in non-graphic-intense designs. For more information, visit: tinyurl.com/2cpfzko.

TI provides a Linux kernel (2.6.32) board-support package, a Windows Embedded CE (6.0) board-support package, and a basic port for the Android operating system. Other software includes a full peripheral-driver library, example applications, development environment, and system utilities. According to TI's news announcement, these software packages give designers and developers an easy software migration path for product enhancements through the Sitara ARM MPUs and DaVinci video processors.

Engineers and product designers can order two types of evaluation modules, the AN37x and the AM/DM37x. Both cost $US 1495 each.

The AM37x module provides a 1 GHz AM3715 Cortex-A8 processor, 256Mbytes of RAM and 512Mbytes of flash memory, a WLAN/Bluetooth Daughter Card, 3.7-inch" LCD Touchscreen, keypad and many types of I/O ports.

The AM/DM37x module includes all the capabilities of the AM37x module and adds video-codecs and demonstrations and Windows Embedded CE.

If you want to start with a lower-cost board, consider the BeagleBoard-Xm, a small (3.25 by 3.25 inches) computer board that includes an ARM Cortex-A8 processor, although the information at beagleboard.org did not specify which Sitari-family microprocessor the board uses. The xM version of the BeagleBoard let developers run a full Linux operating system that can manage OpenOffice and the Firefox Web browser. Cost for the BeagleBoard-Xm: $US 179.  For more information, visit: beagleboard.org/hardware-xM. The BeagleBoard "project" involves many engineers and programmers--and some hobbyists--who port software, create libraries, contribute add-ons, and provide other types of project support. 

For information about the Cortex-A8 processor, visit: www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a8.php.

Are you a BeagleBoard user?  How does it stack up against other low-cost boards? What do you like most or least about it? --Jon Titus