Before
Now
ok, interesting comparison and all, but just to be clear the newer boards are technologically better. a lot of those middle parts just got smaller/flatter.
I mean, obviously. This is just a joke post.
yea i got that but some people take this stuff very seriously (rightfully so) so i wanted to make it absolutely clear.
More system on module porn pls
Another SOM enjoyer?
IMO, system on module is the way to go for upgradable devices. Think about it, processor and RAM technology advances much faster than the storage, I/O, power supply, and the rest of the main board in general. And both are only forwards and backwards compatible for at best a few generations, or at worst, not at all. Data also shows that the majority of users upgrade the processor and RAM as a whole package, and often the time between upgrades will have allowed for the latest in both to no longer be backwards compatible with the existing board. Plus, you’re no longer locked into a single family of processors or RAM when you buy the board, want to switch from x68 to RISC-V, regular RAM to ECC, or even HBM? Finally, tightly integrating the processor and RAM, like Apple does with their M1 devices, can grant a significant real-world performance increase over both being discrete, letting you get more out of the hardware you paid for, but at the expense or upgradability if it’s permanently soldered to the board, like Apple does with their M1 devices.
If you had a standardised and open source form factor and connector spec powered by a high forward/backward compatible general purpose bus (like PCIe but open source, OpenCAPI or a fork of it might be a candidate), you can upgrade the SOM without having to replace the entire board, with everything else like storage and I/O communicating with the SOM over that standard bus. So the board can still be custom in order to fit into whatever device it’s in and also have special niche features for its application, without sacrificing upgradability. Imagine opening up your laptop, and swapping out the SOM, and now it performs like a brand new one and you didn’t have to replace so much as the motherboard.
Agreed. I’ve been having the image of an SOM/MXM based laptop rattling around in my head for a couple months now. Pretty much exactly how you described, a main carrier board that stays in the laptop, and an SOM socket but also an MXM socket for gpus or even additional NVMe storage. MXM gpus aren’t totally dead yet as there is still demand for it in industrial computing, but that also means they’ll need to be specially ordered and likely will not be turning up in any modern laptops.
Additionally, this could open up new architecture possibilities, especially as RISC-V becomes more mature. Everything architecture specific lives on the module and can work with the carrier as long as it follows the pinout spec.
Not to mention this could be made in a slim chassis without much issue as long as you stick to a single layer of pcbs and don’t start stacking them.
heres a rouuuuuugh idea of what I am thinking
please ignore my terrible gimping
The MNT Reform laptop today has an i.MX8MQ on an SO-DIMM module but in the future will be able to use CM4-compatible modules (such as a broadcom pi4, or pine64’s SOQuartz with a rockchip RK3566).
Oooh that’s cool. Those 18650 batteries would make it pretty heavy but love the idea of swappable battery cells.
Anyway, here are more cool SOMs.