[Balloon] Balloon Board Status

Chris Jones and I have just returned from the board assembly factory after
testing the first batch of version 3v32 Balloon boards, both FPGA and CPLD.
A small pre-batch of 20 FPGA and 30 CPLD have been built to test the final
Balloon 3 design.
3v32 makes a few changes to the design (PDF docs will appear soon on the web
site so you can see details) but the most important changes have been made
to achieve RoSH compliance and improve manufacturability.

Build quality looks excellent and the expected DFM improvements appear to
have paid off.
I'll post photo's in the next day or so to Balloonbaord.org.

We are happy to report that preliminary tests were successful (although
there is still much un tested).
Both board types passed XJTAG tests OK and we managed to get Bootloader
running.

Still some work to do and test kit to install at EOL but a good days work.

This means we should be in a position to start shipping Balloon boards in
November.
By this time iEndian's new web site should be up and running.

Watch this space....


David Bisset
iEndian Ltd.