early experince Freerunners w/ ASU load, vs. thousnads of Freeruners

[steve]

 Yes mass pro will start soon. There is another batch of a few hundred or so
phones being built tomorrow.

 

 These phones are then put through  production test software and if  xx%
pass, then the factory says

 " you are clear to build thousands  per week"  and if your test software
takes too long ( say 2 minutes as opposed

to 1 minute) the factory says. " your hardware is fine, your software is
fine, your yield is fine, but your cycle time

needs work."  So this  "PRE MP" period is very stressful for everyone. Not
many users get to see it in the detail you

have. 

 

So.   Hardware is Solid. No PCB changes coming that I know of. manufacturing
Processing is Solid. No fabrication issues

I know of. Production process is solid. no production issues I know of.

 

Test software is the sticking point. So, the factory will build a couple
hundred phones. Then they will run

them through the test software. measure yield, and come back to us and say.
FLIP THE SWITCH and build it, or they will say

can we please have you look at one more thing. and then they will schedule
us for another run of few hundred next week. 

It's a painful process. basically you are on a week for week slip.

 

ASU and developers. The phone will ship with the current software for a
while until the new suite  is ready for prime time.

ASU is available to anybody who has an advanced released Freerunner. It's
very Pre Alpha, but I thought It was time

to start showing people the direction we were headed in. 

 

ASU software will NOT slow down the shipment of freerunner.  The basic apps
of dialer, sms, cand contacts, running on GTK were

frozen a while ago. they constitute the launch titles. 

 

"If it was me, I would only have built a few hundred so far, but they may 
well have bigger balls than I do. "

 

 

A typical Pre MP  would run 1000 units overall in several batches. remember
you are trying to test the yield and if you want a 99% yield, then

you have to do a lot of Pre MP. The probability of finding a 1% defect in a
run of 100 is not very good, for example.

So, it's not so much having giant titanium nuggets  as it is mundane process
control statistics.  I think we are pretty close

to the typical 1000 units you have build before going full MP. I'll  Know
more after tomorrows build. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  _____  

From: community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org
[mailto:community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org] On Behalf Of Ron K. Jeffries
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2008 5:48 PM
To: OpenMoko
Subject: early experince Freerunners w/ ASU load, vs. thousnads of
Freeruners

 

Sebastian,

I am well aware that we are MANY months away from Freerunner
being appropriate choice for an average "just a user."

But Steve has talked about "mass production" (starting soon...)
which I'd assume implies OpenMoko building a few thousands of Freerunners.

I am not asking about the relatively few "early experience" Freerunners that
Steve and Michael have evidently seeded out to a few trusted folks.

I may be misguided, but the quality of ASU load does not sound like 
it's ready to flow out to a few thousand developers, 
never mind how eager they are.

My guess:  OpenMoko is gathering feedback from the n=100 (???) early 
experience Freerunner units, then they knocks down the nastiest bugs, 
and THEN and only then open the spigot at the factory.

If it was me, I would only have built a few hundred so far, but they may 
well have bigger balls than I do. ;)

-rj
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From: Sebastian Reichel <elektranox at gmail.com>
To: List for Openmoko community discussion <community at lists.openmoko.org>
Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 22:26:53 +0200
Subject: Re: software load for first mfg run of Freerunner? Is ASU what
ships?

hi,

it was said some days ago in the mailing list, that ASU is not the
software which is shipped with the phone. But the first Freerunners,
which are shipped are still not for the average user - they are for
developers, which are able to update their phones.

Am Sonntag, den 25.05.2008, 12:35 -0700 schrieb Ron K. Jeffries:
> I am NOT asking if mass production has started.
>
> I am asking if OpenMoko has frozen a release to
> load into the microSD cards. It seems to me that the unit can come off
> the line, and that one of the final steps before packing would be to
> load the
> software.
>
> Is ASU "the* ship[ping s/w load?
>
> yes I know people can and will download new s/w.
> but you'd hope that the Freerunner as shipped would not
> require an immediate s/w reload.
>
> Or maybe I'm being too "old skool" ???
> --
> Ron K. Jeffries 

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