Gumstix, Texas Instruments Intro Tiny Open Source Motherboard

Say it’s produced the smallest, cheapest Linux computer on the market, a Portola Valley, California-based company has unveiled a motherboard solution for open source professionals.

 

Officials at Gumstix, Inc. say their Overo Earth motherboard, which measures 17-by-58-by-4.2 millimeters, is based on the Texas Instruments OMAP3503 applications processor and is ideal for 1,000 to 50,000 EAU products.

 

TI’s applications processor product line manager, Gerard Andrews, said that the company’s customers now have access to the widest range of performance and expandability in a small, reusable reference design with the Overo motherboards.

 

“We look forward to seeing the design ideas and innovations that spur from the open source community as product engineers from around the world harness the small size, high performance and low power of Gumstix’ tiny Overo computer,” Andrews said.

 

Pictured right, the Overo Earth features computational power, handheld power levels, expandability and open source software that reduce design time and cost, company officials say. The product costs $150, Gumstix says.

 

Officials with one U.K.-based technical consultancy say their customers are always looking for smaller, more powerful handset devices that are developed in faster timescales.

 

According to Ben Toner, an engineer and business consultant for mobile terminals at Roke Manor Research Limited, the additional functionality offered by Overo – built on TI’s OMAP family – can facilitate even faster handset design.

 

“This increases our competitive advantage in this marketplace which is good for us, and more importantly good for our customers,” Toner said.

 

The Overo Earth motherboard runs Linux kernel 2.6.27 or higher and it’s nearly 40 percent smaller than existing Gumstix motherboards, company officials say. Linux developers are expected to take advantage of the 256 MB low power DDR RAM, 256 MB NAND flash, on-board microSD adapter, 24-pin flex ribbon connector for camera control signals and 2-by-70-pin AVX (News - Alert) 5602-14 connectors for a wide range of functional options in expansion board design. The power consumption of the Overo Earth motherboard is typically less than 1W.