How about something based on Nvidia Jetson modules? Those have RAM and some flash directly soldered on, but have support for standard PCIe, NVME, M2 wifi modules, MIPI, etc
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I think it would be the same as those RK3588 and similar single board computers, the ports can be quite thick, and many daughter boards required too.
Qualcomm finally announced the Snapdragon X Elite today, which is intended to rival Intel / AMD and the Apple M2 on laptops. This Ars Technica article provides some insight.
Would be awesome to have a fanless Framework 13 running on ARM!
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It only supports LPDDR5X. The Dell CAMM module need to be available to public before framework start to consider this chip, or Framework Laptop will lose upgradability.
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Samsung just announced their version of LPCAMM (different from CAMM but similar in some ways), already in development and targeted for a '24 launch. I can see an ARM FW in the next 5 years maybe.
Agreed, the SD Elite X would be a great stepping stone until hopefully Pine64 can release out a comparable and competitive RISC-V soc.
Having that more efficient architecture (and the relized AMD upgrade) with an open platform that I can upgrade into from the Framework is the vision I bought the machine to support.
Given that timescale, it might be worth “forking” the design of the Framework 13 chassis especially for ARM and other non-x86 architectures. There will be different power and cooling requirements, and this may also be an opportunity to introduce innovations from the Framework 16, especially the keyboard with custom firmware, not available when the x86 framework started. This is not to say that the x86 series should be loose support and upgrade options, that architecture will be around for a long time yet.
One possibility that excites me is the notion that with a smaller (narrower) mainboard a larger battery option unavailable on the x86 platforms could be introduced making for an even higher endurance machine.
I don’t think it would be in Framework’s interests to make more battery skus as it adds to logistical complexity. What I do see in general is increasing battery capacity within the same form factor from advances in battery chemistry or a switch to another battery technology such as solid state.
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ARM-based CPU…nothing can touch M3’s performance and power efficiency it seems. Looking forward to some real world numbers.
Now, CAMM is JEDEC certified. As soon as CAMM modules are widely available, framework could dive into the world of ARM chips.
How is camm related to arm?
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The Qualcomm X Elite mentioned above only supports LPDDR5X (I’m not sure it supports LPDDR5). CAMM will make the non-upgradeable LPDDR upgradeable. If CAMM gets widely available and cheap, then framework will not have to worry if the ARM or RISC processors in the future don’t support SODIMM.
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Good point. Though they should probably expand their bios and support team massively first XD
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