Kickstarter updates.

[hamster]

Hi Parallella team,

Just wanted to say that although I've been itching for an update and thinking they have been getting fewer and far between that it really isn't the case - I had a look back over the year's updates and there has been quite a few long gaps where there has been nothing to report,and other times when updates that were two days apart.

I've got my fingers crossed for Santa to give me something nice to play with for Christmas!

Mike

[svartalf]

With dead silence on the subject, I can only surmise that you won't have a new toy this Christmas. (Niether will I...much the shame there...)

[hamster]

Well, I can only guess that something that is unspeakable has happened, given the following observations:

- Project approaching 100% overrun in time (funding closed end of October 2012 for rewards in May 2013 = 7months duration)

- Original early access (Rev0) boards had heat/power issues (a cluster of 42 use 500W = 12W each vs "Power: At 5 Watts..." in the Oct 2012 update) - that is 140% above expected power usage

- The October update indicated that supply chain issues forcing a board re-engineering ("Despite our strong objections, a key single source part on the Parallella board was abruptly end-of-life’ed by the vendor in August")

- The GitHub project for the hardware hasn't had any since 8 August, so it looks like no updated H/W design has be published (https://github.com/parallella/parallell ... its/master)

- Strangely enough, the difference between the Gen0 and Gen1 hardware seem to be limited to removing components on the power management page, the replacement of the QUAD-SPI Flash, and the upgrade to the FPGA. All of these are quite understandable, and none of these seem to be due to parts being end-of-life. So I can only assume that they don't include the changes due to the EOLed part

Maybe the answer is obvious - Have the black tee-shirts for the $50 student pledge (due Feb 2013) have gone EOL, and no replacement can be sourced???

Like most people on the forum I have no idea what is really going on with the project, so to save my sanity I'm removing the forum from my daily bookmarks, and mentally writing my pledge off as a gift. I'm sure one day they will make good on it...

[mhonman]

(disclaimer: I'm a software guy, could easily have got this *all* wrong!)

The part in question might be the RAM chip as searches on the part number MT41K256M32SLD-125 don't bring up anywhere that has stock, and the datasheet link on the Avnet site points to a non-existent page on the Micron website.

Actually that's not so much a RAM chip as two chips in one module with a 32 bit wide data bus (16 bits per chip). A really neat device, as long as it doesn't get EOL'ed.

Whether or not it's the RAM device, you can fill in the blanks as to what might happen if there is no stock of a substitute for an EOL'ed part that has the same specifications and footprint. If there is no direct equivalent there will be at least a lot of work that goes into identifying the next best part and building and testing prototypes of the modified product. It's not hard to imagine that a revised board layout might be required, possibly additional parts costs, and in the worst case there may be a significant factory lead time on the alternative part (e.g. on the above memory device factory lead times of 13 weeks are quoted).

The delays when added up could quite easily approach the original delivery lead-time, especially if there are knock-on effects of some sort - where one change needs a ripple of supporting changes.

At the end of the day though, I'd agree with you that the Parallellas will arrive as soon as humanly possible - the Adapteva guys seems to be handling the blow very well for a company of their size.

[hamster]

[timpart]

[twmemphis]

The Micron MT41K256M32SLD-125 is EOL, but can be replaced with the pin-compatible Intelligent Memory IM8G32D3FBBG that is in full production.
Datasheet is here: