Novena (computing platform)
Novena is an open-source computing hardware project designed by Andrew "bunnie" Huang and Sean "Xobs" Cross. The initial design of Novena started in 2012. It was developed by Sutajio Ko-usagi Pte. Ltd. and funded by a crowdfunding campaign which began on April 15, 2014. The first offering was a 1.2 GHz Freescale Semiconductor i.MX6 quad-core ARM architecture computer closely coupled with a Xilinx FPGA. It was offered in "desktop", "laptop", or "heirloom laptop" form, or as a standalone motherboard. The Novena platform entered end-of-life status in 2019.
On May 19, 2014, the crowdfunding campaign concluded having raised just over 280% of its target. The extra funding allowed the project to achieve the following four "stretch goals", with the three hardware stretch goals being shipped in the form of add-on boards that use the Novena's special high-speed I/O expansion header, as seen in the upper-left of the Novena board:
- Development of free and open source graphics drivers for the on-board video accelerator
- Inclusion of a general-purpose breakout board providing 16 FPGA outputs and eight FPGA inputs, six 10-bit analog inputs and two 10-bit analog outputs
- Inclusion of a "ROMulator" breakout board capable of emulating TSOP NAND flash devices
- Inclusion of a MyriadRF software-defined radio at all hardware-purchasing backing levels.
The initial crowdfunding campaign promised guaranteed availability of the Novena mainboard for 5 years, with new hardware produced based on demand. This continued until a August 2019 announcement that the mainboard would be entering end-of-life status, with remaining stock being discounted