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I have an insane goal whose possibilities id like to discuss.

To start with I am interested in three different electronics platform for edge computing:

  1. Edge computer: Like Raspberry pi or Intel compute stick that comes with light processors, IO devices (Minimum USB), Bluetooth & Wifi Antenna.

  2. AI Sticks: Like Movidius stick. It is AI optimized to run algorithms and make fast predictions.

  3. 5G chips: That can tap into 4G/5G networks for data communication.

Now obviously one solution is to take these cores in the form of interfaceable IO boards and connect them using cables. To put it mildly that is sad ugly.

My insane desire is to be able to merge them all into one high speed/high frequency killer electronics platform (on which light weight OS like Alpine linux runs)

One thing I have thought about is to somehow get hold of VHDLs for these platforms and burn the design onto FPGAs or likes of it. Is this feasible and what are the alternatives?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Absolutely you can put all those things on one board and chances are someone has already done it. As Michael says, you can't get the VHDL, you can only buy the chips. \$\endgroup\$
    – Criticizing Israel not allowed
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 23:58

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It is highly unlikely that you will be able to obtain the "VHDLs" for all these types of components as that is the proprietary property of the various chip manufacturers. So unless you have a huge money bucket and plans to staff up a sizeable IP design team you are going to be better off to stop thinking of replicating the whole design into some FPGAs.

You mention a RaspberryPi. The SOC type processor on one of those boards would require FPGAs that would cost more than 100 times what the RPi processor component costs -- even if you could somehow talk Broadcomm into giving you the "VHDLs" for the device. So once again as you will realize that this a killer of an approach.

You mention that cabling together a bunch of existing modules is ugly. That is fine but it is a great way to prepare a prototype proof of concept platform. Once you have that developed enough to fully understand all your components and software requirements the proper next step is to design your own board and packaging to accommodate the various needed components. Be prepared for a sizable investment of money, time, expert consultation and government agency approval processes.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks Michael - I like your answer. I did not expect a simple solution for this. But let me ask this as a follow up. Provided legal hurdles are cleared, is there a way to "solider" very high speed bus between two usb io ports of two components? That should alleviate speed problem a bit I hope. I Still Do not like contact cables! \$\endgroup\$
    – Ace
    Commented May 24, 2019 at 16:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ You can run USB on printed circuit board traces between two components, yes. \$\endgroup\$
    – pjc50
    Commented May 24, 2019 at 16:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ Of course you can interconnect two components via USB on a board without connectors. It is done all the time. You do have to consider the rules for high speed circuit trace design to maintain the proper transmission line impedance. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael Karas
    Commented May 24, 2019 at 16:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ok thanks for all your answers. At bare minimum I was hoping to make such connectors in a founder lab setup. (So definitely no access to billion dollar fabrication labs) \$\endgroup\$
    – Ace
    Commented May 24, 2019 at 16:59
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It's not impossible - but worse, it's a huge amount of work. Essentially you've described a modern smartphone, many of which have more powerful processors than the Pi. Some also have GPUs or even "AI" accelerators for the camera processing. Android phones can be made to run your own Linux.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks for the answer. I did not like re-purposing android tablets. For starters its LCD is not useful, plus the packaging is not rugged enough. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ace
    Commented May 24, 2019 at 16:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ There are board-only Android devices available (sold as "SBC"), and for a medium business amount of money it would be possible to get custom ones made. \$\endgroup\$
    – pjc50
    Commented May 24, 2019 at 17:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks! Will explore SBC. That could be the genius answer I was looking for. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ace
    Commented May 24, 2019 at 17:13

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