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Help with building Android tablet

Bruno Bertucci
Note: This was originally posted on 15th July 2012 at http://forums.arm.com

Hi there!

I have a school project to do, and I am really considering constructing my own Android tablet for that project. I'm aware that there are many difficulties with this. I'm planning to build something on the high-end for tablets today. This is what I'm planning to do:

I want it to be a 10.1 inch tablet, and I'll use Corning Gorilla Glass 2. I'd probably want to use an 1280 x 800 IPS display, since IPS is the only type of screen I know that is actually good. I'd also like it to be LED-backlit.
Optimally, I'd be looking for a thin, light profile, I think it should be 9.4mm thick (like the New iPad), if not thinner, and no heavier than 650g.
I'm not really giving much importance to cameras, but I think I'd like to have a 1.2MP front camera, and an 8MP rear camera, with an LED flash.
Under the hood is where most of my doubts lie. If I'd have to license an entire SoC, I'd probably be inclined towards NVIDIA Tegra 3, just because of its quad-core capabilities. But honestly, I was wondering whether I couldn't have a custom SoC built. In that case, I'd be willing to have an SoC with a dual-core ARM Cortex A-15, running at 1.5GHz. I'd also want dual-channel LPDDR2 or DDR3L memory controllers, although I'd prefer the DDR3L. For a GPU, I'd really like to have Imagination Technologies' PowerVR SGX543MP2 or MP3. I still have no idea about ISPs (Image Signal Processors) and video encoders/decoders.

I'm very skeptical about how can I take all of the internals and put them all in a chip. I also don't know how all these components go together to function. Any help is much appreciated. All I need to know is: is it actually possible? (by the way, I only have 9 months for this project)

Thanks in advance
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  • Note: This was originally posted on 23rd July 2012 at http://forums.arm.com

    Hmm - even building a custom multi-layer PCB for an off-the shelf SoC is likely to cost around $1000 if you are only getting a few made. In terms of what is achievable, remember that companies which make tablets from scratch employ hundreds of engineers, and even they buy in components from other companies, and it still takes years to develop each device.


    I agree with Alban, for a school project I'd pick one or two interesting aspects of a tablet to develop, rather than trying the whole thing. Failing that you can start looking at some pre-assembled mother boards - they are in the $100-200 range - and it means you have something which can run code as a starting point and then can worry about integrating the peripherals.

    HTH,
    Iso
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  • Note: This was originally posted on 23rd July 2012 at http://forums.arm.com

    Hmm - even building a custom multi-layer PCB for an off-the shelf SoC is likely to cost around $1000 if you are only getting a few made. In terms of what is achievable, remember that companies which make tablets from scratch employ hundreds of engineers, and even they buy in components from other companies, and it still takes years to develop each device.


    I agree with Alban, for a school project I'd pick one or two interesting aspects of a tablet to develop, rather than trying the whole thing. Failing that you can start looking at some pre-assembled mother boards - they are in the $100-200 range - and it means you have something which can run code as a starting point and then can worry about integrating the peripherals.

    HTH,
    Iso
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