This is super cool. I'm going to have to "make my own Linux SBC" at some point, just to be able to say I did it. It was something I always wanted to do as kid after hearing my dad's stories of designing and building computers with his uncles in the 70's and 80's from parts catalogs.
Admittedly, having the whole system on a single package for the most part makes this decidedly simpler. Up until this point the hardest thing for me was doing the SoC <-> DDR3 traces in KiCad. They're remarkably less forgiving than PCIe, but I guess that is the curse of modern RAM chips not using differential IO. That and figuring how how to solder BGA. Making my first attempt with some cheaper FPGAs and a hotplate pretty soon.
Admittedly, having the whole system on a single package for the most part makes this decidedly simpler. Up until this point the hardest thing for me was doing the SoC <-> DDR3 traces in KiCad. They're remarkably less forgiving than PCIe, but I guess that is the curse of modern RAM chips not using differential IO. That and figuring how how to solder BGA. Making my first attempt with some cheaper FPGAs and a hotplate pretty soon.