FreeIO.org has released the complete design files for the Toast ColdFire Controller Board, under the GNU General Public License. This Toast board is based on a Motorola MCF5307 ColdFire processor, has dual onboard Ethernet NICs, and runs the uClinux version of Embedded Linux.

Besides the MCF5307 ColdFire processor, the Toast board includes two 2MB 16-bit wide flash memory devices, two 8MB 32-bit wide SDRAM sockets, two 10/100BaseT Ethernet interfaces, two serial ports, a real time clock module, and a CPLD-based programmable interface to a PC/104 bus expansion interface. Physically, the Toast board is in a 6U short Eurocard form-factor. In order to minimize costs, this board is built on a four-layer board (i.e. with 3.3 VDC power and ground plane layers) with 7 mil lines and spaces.

The Toast board is the fifth design which FreeIO.org has released under GPL. Past designs have included programmable I/O boards for both PC and PC/104 bus
interfaces. In each case the complete design files have been released, including all CAD files, programmable logic source files, manufacturing and programming files. Drivers for both GNU/Linux and other operating systems are released as they are developed.

FreeIO.org is a website dedicated to the cooperative development of free hardware designs, and drivers for them. Free hardware design is the design and public release of the designs of useful electronic building blocks, in the forms of documentation, schematics, printed wiring board layouts, programmable logic implementations, and software drivers for them, as both source code and more immediately usable forms. These designs are not freeware, but rather copyrighted and licensed in such a way that they may be improved by other volunteers and potentially incorporated into other designs, under the same rules. The term copyleft is sometimes applied to this concept, where the licensing is designed specifically to keep the original design and any descendants which flow from it available to help the common good.

 
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