[christina_b]

>All of these could probably have been fixed with minimal support from broadcom (and a bit more open thinking from them during the design).

Support from Broadcom is unlikely to fix it, the BCM283x family of SoCs are just a huge mess and in my opinion are either suited for really specific applications (TV boxes) or as "toys".

The ARM core itself is integrated very poorly almost as an afterthought, since it wasn't in the original design, the BCM283x family is just BCM27xx family VideoCore4 VPU+QPU combinations with an ARM core hacked (and I really do mean hacked) on top.

[bostand]

Yes, 2837 is a 1995 soc design with a 64-bit quadcore forced into it. Their multicore support was probably thrown together in an afternoon by a junior asic designer on a hangover.

But some of the issues could have been worked around with better documentation.