Maxim Polyakov has posted comments on this change. ( https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/42609 )
Change subject: Makefile.inc: Add CARRIER_DIR to component discovery ......................................................................
Patch Set 11:
Thanks for the detailed explanation.
And thank you for the review!
One thing I'm wondering: You mention 2 modules that can use these carrier boards, that are variants of one another. Are these carrier boards (in principle) usable for _very_ different modules?
Excuse me, but what do you mean by _very_?
COMe modules and carriers depend on the form factor type [1,2] only. We cannot use COMe mal10 module (with type10 standard) together with boxer26 with connector for type6 form factor. This can only be used for carrier board with connector for type10 (Mini) [2].
Usually, even if the mal10 board had Sky[3]/Coffee/Cannon/... Lake (not sure, but I think AMD, VIA, and others too) instead of Apollo Lake, this can also be used for any carrier boards with type10 connector (for example i-t10-tni).
However, we should carefully read the notice (*) in the manufacturer's datasheet. For example, some interfaces may not be used in a connector. Or the carrier board has power limitations for the module and we should limit this during initialization. But this is the problem of people who will be adding the code for these boards :) They need to take these specifics into account when initializing the board.
The interfaces in the connectors (A, B, C, D) are standardized and depend on the type(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10) of module (See Types in [1]).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COM_Express [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COM_Express#/media/File:COM_Express_form_facto... [3] http://linuxgizmos.com/com-express-type-10-mini-module-runs-linux-on-skylake...
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And some interesting things: Recently, Kontron announced Computer-On-Module standard COM HPC. https://www.arcweb.com/blog/kontron-announced-computer-module-standard-com-h... https://www.kontron.com/landingpages/com-hpc