The A20 driver for HDMI audio is almost done!

UPDATE 20-01-2020: Now the A20 HDMI Audio driver patches are submitted  and KODI images with working HDMI Audio are on our ftp

We blogged few weeks ago about the KODI image done for A20 and A64 by our friends Dimitar Gamishev and Stefan Saraev.

A64 had everything working fine, but the A20 image had no HDMI audio, as there is no such driver in the mainline kernel. This of course made A20 not useful for media center.

We decided to try to solve this problem by ourselves by writing this missing driver and today we have success!

The audio driver for HDMI is working, but is still far from complete as we have to add channel management etc, but with our driver we can hear audio via the HDMI with A20!

We will complete and send the patches to mainline after our Christmas-New Year vacation, so somewhere in January the KODI image (and of course all Olimex official images) for A20 will be updated and will have HDMI audio too!

 

FOSDEM 2020 – the must see EU biggest Open Source Technology event is approaching

If you work with Free Open Source Software and Hardware and you never have been on FOSDEM you don’t know what you are missing!

This is huge and every year becomes bigger. Join 8000+ hackers all around the world and watch your favorite talks – you can always find something interesting among the 480+ talks which will run during FOSDEM weekend 1-2 of February.

There you can meet lot of leading Linux and FOSS developers face to face.

I have two talks there:

• Saturday in Open Source Computer Aided Modeling and Design devroom
• Sunday in Hardware Enablement devroom

We are also promised dedicated Open Source Hardware room UB4.228 yay!

We are preparing special PCB and will run Soldering Workshop there

It’s music box, programmable with Arduino IDE, specially designed to be easy to solder by beginners.

As always the soldering workshop will be completely free (as in beer) to participate 🙂

In this room will be plenty of space and everyone who have interested in Open Source Hardware and want to come to show off something or just to chat is welcome.

So clear your agenda for February 1st and 2nd and book your flight to Bruxelles!

Looking forward to meet you there!

Tsvetan

Say Hello to Es-Ti-Em-Pai STMP1-OLinuXino the Open Source Hardware with mainline Linux support and -40+125C operating temperature

ST32MP1XX SOCs from ST Microelectronics has one unique feature: They operate from -40 up to +125 by default there is no other commercial or industrial or etc temperature range. What does this means – very well done production! It’s not secret that all SOC vendors produce their chips then test them and which pass -40+125 are classified automotive grade, which fail but pass -40+85C are classified industrial and it there are SOC which fail both automotive and industrial grade on tests are sold as commercial grade.

This chip has no other than automotive grade, so ST is confident in their process quality.

For this SOC ST Microelectronics guarantee 10 years rolling availability.

The peripherals ST32MP1XX has are also industrial and real time oriented:

• Cortex-M4 co processor, we know Cortex-A series when run RTOS has latency which do not allow fast processed like motor control etc. This is where this co-processor release the main OS processor of such demanding tasks
• FD-CAN ST32MP1 has two cans both support FD which offer less latency and faster speed, one of them has also time triggered CAN (TTCAN)
• 2 × ADCs with 16-bit max. resolution (12 bits up to 4.5 Msps, 14 bits up to 4 Msps, 16 bits up to 3.6 Msps)
• 2 × 12-bit D/A converters (1 MHz)
• 8- to 14-bit camera interface up to 140 Mbyte/s
• Gigabit Ethernet
• 6 × SPI (50 Mbit/s)
• 6 × I2C FM+ (1 Mbit/s, SMBus/PMBus)
• Documented Trust Zone and Secure Boot (may be subject to some export restrictions)

We designed our STMP1-OLinuXino to be with same layout as A20-OLinuXino-LIME2, with all connectors on same positions, so people who used LIME2 to may migrate to STMP1 if necessary.

We put the SOC on bottom this time to may attach easier bigger heat sinks or even connect it to the BOX-LIME-BLACK metal and remove the need for aluminum heatsink.

Note that schematic is not verified yet and the PCB is not routed, we just placed the components on their approximate locations.

All preliminary files are put on GitHub so people who are interested how we wired the GPIOs to match LIME2 functionality and existing customers find potential conflicts with their current design may signal while still routing is not complete 🙂

Looking forward for your comments.

KODI pre-build images are now on on our ftp, A20 HDMI audio patches will be ready soon

Few days ago I blogged about the KODI build scripts for A20 and A64 OLinuXino ad promised pre-build images on our server. This is now done and the images can be downloaded from our ftp for A64 and A20.

A20 HDMI audio currently do not work, but Dimitar and Stefan work on this and they say this will be fixed soon. So crossing fingers we may have good news for Christmas!

A64-OLinuXino got new metal box design

After the blog for KODI image lot of people sent emails asking if we will release metal box for A64-OLinuXino, as it actually works very well as media player and can play 4K video @30fps according to Jernej:

Some remarks about blog post content:
"Both A20 and A64 decode up to 4K movies but of course can’t 
display  such resolutions." - A64 is actually capable displaying 
such resolutions. It supports up to 4K@30Hz. Kodi will render 
hardware decoded 4K videos without downsizing when connected 
to 4K TV/monitor.

 

So we start working on this and here is the result:

Now we have to laser-cut and bend some boxes and see if it’s done right 🙂

S3-OLinuXino OSHW IP Camera update: board routing complete, next to-do prototype.

S3-OLinuXino is now completely routed and we make prototypes to verify everything is well designed. If the prototypes are OK production will follow in Q1 2020.

A20 and A64 OLinuXino now with Libre Elec and Kodi support!

LibreELEC is small OS which has everything to run KODI on top of it. Thanks to Dimitar Gamishev and Stefan Saraev now A20 and A64 OLinuXino has support for it.

A20 has one annoying problem there is no HDMI audio as listed in Linux-Sunxi mainlining efforts.

If someone is capable to do this and have time to spend would be great, as it seems nobody cares to use A20 as media player 🙂

On A64 everything works and HDMI has audio as well.

so KODI is running full featured:

Both A20 and A64 decode up to 4K movies but of course can’t display  such resolutions.

Build scripts are on GitHub. Images will be add to our FTP.