Parallella board hits Kickstarter funding goal
October 29, 2012 | 10:27
Companies: #adapteva #arm #kickstarter #raspberry-pi
Adapteva's Parallella Kickstarter project, which sought funding to build ARM-based development platforms featuring 16- or 64-core highly-parallel Epiphany co-processors, has reached its funding goal.
The project looked to raise the funds required to build a credit-card sized development board based around an ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor running at 1GHz and Adapteva's Epiphany-architecture many-core co-processor. The idea, the company explained, was to provide the community with an affordable way to experiment with the parallel processing platform - hopefully leading to increased software support and further interest from mainstream manufacturers in adopting the system.
The project gathered a great deal of initial interest, but plateaued around $150,000 short of its $750,000 budget around forty hours before the closing date. Under Kickstarter's rules, only projects which have received pledges amounting to 100 per cent or greater of their funding goals will receive any cash.
A last-minute push saw Parallella sail past its goal, however, finishing on $898,921. As a result, production of the system - which currently exists only in prototype form, with the Epiphany co-processor connected to an off-the-shelf deveploment board through an external PCIe interface - can begin.
Those who pledged $99 or more will be receiving the first 16-core Parallella boards as they are produced, but as the company didn't hit its optimistic $3,000,000 stretch-goal the planned 64-core version won't be produced. Instead, those who pledged $199 or more will receive a pair of the 16-core versions. Those who had pledged $750 or higher, meanwhile, will receive 64-core versions based on a lower-yield process than was originally planned.
With the money now raised, it's up to Adapteva to deliver on its promises. While the company is confident about its ability to deliver the goods, we can't help but think about the issues that beset the launch of the Raspberry Pi and worry that the company has a long road ahead.
The project looked to raise the funds required to build a credit-card sized development board based around an ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor running at 1GHz and Adapteva's Epiphany-architecture many-core co-processor. The idea, the company explained, was to provide the community with an affordable way to experiment with the parallel processing platform - hopefully leading to increased software support and further interest from mainstream manufacturers in adopting the system.
The project gathered a great deal of initial interest, but plateaued around $150,000 short of its $750,000 budget around forty hours before the closing date. Under Kickstarter's rules, only projects which have received pledges amounting to 100 per cent or greater of their funding goals will receive any cash.
A last-minute push saw Parallella sail past its goal, however, finishing on $898,921. As a result, production of the system - which currently exists only in prototype form, with the Epiphany co-processor connected to an off-the-shelf deveploment board through an external PCIe interface - can begin.
Those who pledged $99 or more will be receiving the first 16-core Parallella boards as they are produced, but as the company didn't hit its optimistic $3,000,000 stretch-goal the planned 64-core version won't be produced. Instead, those who pledged $199 or more will receive a pair of the 16-core versions. Those who had pledged $750 or higher, meanwhile, will receive 64-core versions based on a lower-yield process than was originally planned.
With the money now raised, it's up to Adapteva to deliver on its promises. While the company is confident about its ability to deliver the goods, we can't help but think about the issues that beset the launch of the Raspberry Pi and worry that the company has a long road ahead.
MSI MPG Velox 100R Chassis Review
October 14 2021 | 15:04
Want to comment? Please log in.