As we're busy on the PCB side these days, I had a thought - should I add a scanline circuit to the VGA output?
Would make it switchable of course - does anyone think its a good idea?
(Doesn't add much cost to the board).
Beware feature creep... but yes, scanlines would be nice.
Honestly, I'm more concerned about i/o usage on the SoC than board space at the moment, as more layers == $$$$.
The VGA circuit additions dont affect layer count - the SoC usage dictates that, more-so as its BGA mount (with a high pin* count too!) rather than SMT, and all the pins are behind others.
Trying to keep it down to 4 layer. If it hits 6 layer, pricing increments, but not in a good way
This is why I need to be smart with the board layout and pin usage. If i spend the time to do it right, I get to reap the rewards (less layers = less cost).
When I finish this round of changes, its mostly done though, but then it goes to the EE (electrical engineer) to check, then make any necessary changes, then back to me to confirm, and then to board layout.
Then I need to wait a week or two while they do the gerber files for the board layout, then we make 1-5, populate and I see where it all went wrong (or right!).
Thats another 2-3 weeks or so after design is finalized, so we're about 1 1/2 - 2 months away from prototypes at the moment assuming I'm happy.
(and I'm never happy, as I'm a picky control freakazoid who needs to know everything
)
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*Yes BGA = Ball Grid Array, but if I say balls vs pins, its all
hahahaha.