MEP EP#17: System-in-Package (SiP) Platforms with Greg Sheridan

Podcast Notes

• This week Stephen and Parker have a guest: Greg Sheridan of Octavo Systems.
• Greg is the Marketing and Sales Manager for Octavo Systems.
• Octavo Systems builds “System-in-Package” or SiP style chips to reduce the complexity of board layout and offset the costs of more PCB layers. Their first product is a Beagle Bone on Chip IC called the OSD3358.
• Greg can rattle off the part number no problem as he was the one that came up with the naming convention. OSD3358-512M-BAS.
• Octavo Systems takes the die of the IC they want to integrate and combine it with the DRAM, decoupling, and power regulation needed and put them on a custom substrate. The IC die is then bond wired to the substrate. See Figure 1.
• Octavo Systems gets their dies direct from the manufactures like Texas Instruments.
• The OSD3358-512M-BAS can be purchased at Digi-key in singles for almost $50.
• The BGA is a large pitch of 1.27mm. Octavo hopes it will help out the maker group. Uses normal IC packaging technology so it should be fairly robust. Thermal performance is very good.
• FCC/CE certification will be coming soon. Greg does not expect any problems given how short the traces are.
• Octavo is looking at integrating more devices for the future. They are not limited to the semiconductor process when selecting sub systems.
• The Ello 2M on CrowdSupply is a really “neat” stackable PCB portable computer for learning to program and hack hardware. Runs a PIC32MX MCU and Basic OS. All open source on github.
• Greg saw the PocketCNC at MakerFaire. They have a version made completely our of FR4 called the Machine Shield.
• Industrial enclosures for the the Raspberry Pi actually exist.
• Video explaining how the Raspberry Pi 2 reset when a Xenon Flash his the PCB.
• Nest releases an open source version of its networking protocol called OpenThread. Will make all IoT devices talk to each other.