Introduction
MediaCow Micro is a series of projects that I came up with in July 2021. It is a challenge of designing 26 different portable media player devices with each device using a microcontroller from a different vendor.
Each design is named in alphabetical order, from MediaCow Micro A to MediaCow Micro Z. The order that these devices are designed in are arbitrary and designs using more popular microcontrollers may be developed first for some ease in development as I would be learning while I work on these projects.
Due to lack of funding and the difficulty of sourcing some chips, a project would be considered "finished" when the entire design including the PCB and case is finalized instead of having the project finished when there is a working, physical prototype.
Disclaimer
The following is preliminary and may change at any time.
Hardware
Hardware greatly varies by device; some may have external DRAM, some may have coprocessors that handle audio decode, some may have displays while some do not.
In cases where these devices use a coprocessor, the "Microcontroller" is what is considered the main processor.
If a table cell is empty, the value is to be determined.
Fields:
- Device: Device name
- Codename: Project codename
- Microcontroller: Main processor that loads media
- Architecture: CPU architecture
- MicroMemory: Support for MicroMemory modules
- SPI PSRAM: Serial PSRAM module
- SDRAM: Standard SDRAM module
- N/A: None
- Status: Project status
| Device | Codename | Microcontroller | Architecture | MicroMemory | Status | | ---------------- | --------- | --------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | -------------- | -------------- | | MediaCow Micro A | | Atmel/Microchip ATSAME7/V7 series | ARM Cortex-M7 | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro B | | | | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro C | | | | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro D | | Analog Devices ADuC series | | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro E | | Espressif ESP32-S3 series | Xtensa LX7 | SPI PSRAM | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro F | | Freescale/NXP i.MXRT series | ARM Cortex-M7 | SDRAM | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro G | | GigaDevice GD32H737ZIT6 | ARM Cortex-M7 | SDRAM | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro H | | | | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro I | | | | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro J | | | | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro K | | | | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro L | | | | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro M | | Microchip PIC32MZ series | MIPS32 | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro N | | Nordic Semiconductor nRF5340 | ARM Cortex-M33 | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro O | | | | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro P | | Parallax Propeller 2 | Propeller | SPI PSRAM | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro Q | | Infineon XMC4400 series | ARM Cortex-M4 | SDRAM | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro R | Salisbury | Raspberry Pi RP2350 | ARM Cortex-M33/RISC-V Hazard3 | SPI PSRAM | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro S | Turlock | STMicroelectronics STM32F7/H7 | ARM Cortex-M7 | SDRAM | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro T | | Texas Instruments TM4C series | ARM Cortex-M4 | SDRAM | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro U | | Generalplus/Sunplus 8051 | 8051 | N/A | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro V | | VLSI Solution VS1005(g) | ??? | N/A | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro W | | Nuvoton NUC505 series | ARM Cortex-M4F | | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro X | | Xilinx/AMD Spartan FPGA | | DDR? | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro Y | | SyncMOS 8051 | 8051 | N/A | Not Started | | MediaCow Micro Z | | Zilog Z80 series | Z80 | | Not Started |
Requirements
Requirements of each MediaCow Micro device is as follows
Hardware: - If a display is used, it must not be touchscreen. - At least one 3.5mm headphone audio output jack. - Battery-powered, can use either non-rechargeable or rechargeable batteries. - MicroMemory support is required for devices that required DRAM/PSRAM
Software: - Able to decode stereo 44.1KHz 24-bit audio. At least WAV support, additional support for compressed formats such as MP3, OGG and FLAC is preferred. - Must not run an operating system kernel; all code must be "bare-metal".