A64-OLinuXino Open Source Hardware Linux computer is back in stock

All variants of the Open Source Hardware Linux computer A64-OLinuXino now are back in stock!

GigaDevices GD32 boards replacements for the popular STM32 are now in stock

STM32 are one of the most popular Cortex ARM devices on the market as they are with aggresive pricing and nice features. The semiconductor crisis hit ST as all other semiconductor vendors and STM32 disappeared from the market. Many customers have been left for more than year without MCus.

GigaDevices is well known Flash memory manufacturer, they have range of ARM Cortex M3, M4 devices which are pin to pin compatible with STM32 MCUs.

We check GD32 assembled on our STM32 boards and they work equal the only difference we notice is that GD32 lack two wires JTAG SWD interface and only support the full JTAG, which is not big issue.

All code we test run equal on both STM32 and GD32.

Here are links for the GigaDevices based boards:

GD32-H103 header board equal to STM32-H103

GD32-P103 prototype board equal to STM32-P103

OLIMEXINO-GD32 Arduino like board equal to OLIMEXINO-STM32

OLIMEXINO-GD32F3 Arduino like board equal to OLIMEXINO-STM32F3

GD32-H405 header board equal to STM32-H405

GD32-P405 prototype board equal to STM32-P405

GD32-H407 development board equal to STM32-H407

GD32-E407 development board equal to STM32-E407

GD32-P407 development board equal to STM32-P407

New more compact design of ARM-USB-OCD-H(L) is released with USB-C connector

ARM-USB-OCD-H is very popular OpenOCD debugger supported by almost all IDEs and platforms. It’s in the Application notes of Intel and ARM processor vendors.

The ARM-USB-OCD-H initial design was made many years ago and some parts are obsolete like the USB-B to USB-A cable, big plastic shell from centronic 36/36 connectors etc.

As the centronic plastic became unavailable this year we decided that it’s good time to re-design ARM-USB-OCD-H completely.

Smaller and more compact plastic box is used. The USB connector now is USB-C, so popular USB phone cables can be used.

Our recommendation is customer to move to ARM-USB-OCD-HL it’s completely same as ARM-USB-OCD-H but supports targets with voltage levels from 0.65-5.5V

iMX8MPlus-SOM is alive and boots!

This board development started in April 2021 and finished August 2021 but the semiconductor shortages didn’t allow us to test the prototypes until recently. We assembled 4 boards and all theyare alive and boot.

The features are:

• MIMX8ML8DVNLZAB – Quad Core Arm Cortex-A53 running at 1.8Ghz with Arm Cortex-M7 co-processor running at 800Mhz and 2.3 TOPS Neural Processing Unit.
• 6GB LPDDR4 RAM
• Power management
• configuration EEPROM
• status LED
• LCD LVDS connector compatible with LCD-OLinuXino displays
• MIPI DSI connector
• 2x MIPI CSI comera connectors with Raspberry Pi compatible pinout
• 220 signals on 6 0.05″ step connectors with essential peripherials like:
  • PCIe-3.0
  • 2x CAN FD
  • HDMI 2.0a
  • SPDIF
  • SAI
  • 2x USB 3.0
  • 2x Gigabit Ethernet one of them with TSN
  • eMMC 5.1
  • SDIO 3.0 200Mhz
  • 4 UART
  • 6 I2C
  • 3 SPI
  • JTAG

Unfortunately we only managed to find 24Gb LPDDR4 for the prototypes so instead of 6GB they are with only 3GB of RAM.

Now is time to prepare Linux and Android images! NXP provide iMX8MPlus with Linux Kernel 5.10 and Android 11.

MIMX8ML8DVNLZAB is industrial grade -40+105C

May 2021 production delays and updates!

Everything is moving extra slowly this year.

On top of the Semiconductor shortages, now PCB factories also experience lack of raw materials and delay the production times more than double.

This is the reason our plans to release S3-OLinuXino, RK3328-SOM, STMP15x-OLinuXino-LIME2 and STM32MP15X-SOM to produced with delay.

At least we got the STMP15x-SOM and STMP1(A13)-EVB blank PCBs and by the end of next week they will be ready to order.

We used the time to update the product page with schematics and user manual.

Production updates for S3-OLinuXino, RK3328-SOM and STMP15x-OLinuXino-LIME2 will follow!

New Quad Core Cortex-A53 System-On-Module supports DDR3/DDR3L/DDR4 memories from 1 up to 4GB

Our RK3328-SOM prototypes are testing now.

These are with dimensions of only 55 x 41 mm.

RK3328 SOC has:

• 4x Cortex-A53 cores @1.5Ghz
• DDR3/DDR3L/DDR4 support 1/2/4GB
• GPU: ARM Mali-450MP2
• HDMI 2.0
• CSI up to 5Mpix
• Video decode H.264 H.265 4K@60Hz
• Video encode H.264 H.265 1080p@30Hz
• Audio: I2S, Codec
• Gigabit 10/100/1000 Ethernet
• Megabit 10/100 Ethernet with PHY
• USB3.0 host
• USB2.0 host
• USB-OTG 2.0
• SPI/eMMC Flash
• SD-card

RK3328-SOM-EVB is evaluation board and reference design for RK3328-SOM:

Software support:

• Android 10
• Linux Kernel 4.4 is the official SDK of Rockchip. There is just basic mainline support with no drivers for USB3 although these SOCs are on the market for quite a lot of time.

The preliminary prices are:

• RK3328-SOM-1G (1GB DDR3L) EUR 27.00
• RK3328-SOM-2G (2GB DDR3L) EUR 37.00
• RK3328-SOM-4G (4GB DDR4) EUR 57.00
• RK3328-SOM-EVB (no SOM installed) EUR 18.00

Our most complex Open Source Hardware board made with KiCad – the octa core iMX8 Quad Max – Tukhla is completely routed and now on prototype production

The PCB routing of our most complex board – IMX8QM-Tukhla is complete and ready for first prototype build.

We started this project June-July 2020. Due to the Covid19 the development took 10 months although only 6 month of active work was done, due to lock downs, ill developers and so on troubles.

Now the board is completely routed and has these features:

Main SOC MIMX8QM5AVUFFAB which is member of iMX8 Quad Max series – the most powerful iMX8 SOC line from NXP.

MIMX8QM5AVUFFAB has 8 cores:

• x2 Cortex-A72 running at 1.6Ghz
• x4 Cortex-A53 running at 1.2Ghz
• x2 Cortex-M4F running at 264Mhz

Memory:

• 64-bit LPDDR4 @1600 MHz

Connectivity:

• 1× PCIe (2-lanes)
• 1× USB 3.0 with PHY
• 1x USB 3.0 dual role with PHY
• 1× SATA 3.0
• 2× 1Gb Ethernet with AVB
• 1× CAN/CAN-FD
• 1x HDMI Rx

GPU:

• 2xGC7000 XSVX
• 16× Vec4 shaders with 64 execution units
• Dual independent 8-Vec4 shader GPUs or a combined 16-Vec4 shader GPU
• OpenGL 3.0, 2.1
• OpenGL ES 3.2, 3.1 (with AEP), 3.0, 2.0, and 1.1
• OpenCL 1.2 Full Profile and 1.1
• OpenVG 1.1
• Vulkan

VPU:

• H.265 decode (4Kp60)
• H.264 decode (4Kp30)
• WMV9/VC-1 imple decode
• MPEG 1 and 2 decode
• AVS decodeMPEG4.2 ASP,
• H.263, Sorenson Spark decode
• Divx 3.11 including GMC decode
• ON2/Google VP6/VP8 decode
• RealVideo 8/9/10 decode
• JPEG and MJPEG decode
• 2× H.264 encode (1080p30)

Display:

• Supports single UltraHD 4Kp60 display
• or up to 4 independent FullHD 1080p60 displays
• 2× MIPI-DSI with 4 lanes each
• 1× HDMI-TX/DisplayPort
• 2× LVDS Tx with 2 channels of 4 lanes each

Camera:

• 2× MIPI-CSI with 4-lanes each, MIPI DPHYSM v1.

Security:

• Advanced High Assurance Boot (AHAB) secure & encrypted boot

Operating temperature:

• Automotive AEC-Q100 Grade 3 -40+125C

To the best of our knowledge there is no Open Source Board so far which to be so complex and advanced.

Now we are running the first prototypes and crossing fingers everything to work 🙂

With the current state of the semiconductor industry production will not be possible to be run soon.

Linux support will need attention as NXP has no mainline Linux for this SOC, but only Yocto build for old kernel (4.14.98_2.3.3).

If there are people with experience and interest in this SOC we may share one of the first samples we build, so they can help on the Linux support.

The schematic of IMX8QM-TUKHLA Revision A is uploaded for review on out ftp.

S3-OLinuXino Open Source Hardware Linux dual camera board status uppdate April 2021

S3-OLinuXino is small open source hardware Linux computer with Ethernet, dual camera interface, running mainline uboot and Linux Kernel 5.12.

Our hardware went through few iterations, but last Revision.C now is in production and we will have it for sale on our web at the end of the April.

This board has small PoE plug-on top module which adds PoE functionality, so the whole setup board + cameras can be powered via Ethernet.

The camera connectors are made compatible with OV2640 2Mpix camera and Raspberry Pi Camera.

S3-OLinuXino has LCD connector where LCD-OLinuXino displays can be connected.

WiFi/BT module adds wireless functionality.

STMP157-SOM-512-IND industrial grade system on module status update April 2021

STMP157-SOM-512 is functional drop in replacement for A13-SOM-512 and have exactly the same features, but is industrial grade -40+85C.

All connectors have same signals on the both boards:

For STMP157-SOM-512 we made special STMP1(A13)-SOM-EVB:

With this board all SOM features can be explored:

• two USB High Speed Hosts
• one USB-OTG
• WiFi/BT module with PCB antenna and option for external antenna
• 100MB Ethernet
• Flash connector for attaching SPI, NAND, eMMC Flash modules
• Audio input, output
• UEXT connector
• LCD connector for LCD-OLinuXino-XX
• GPIO connector

Needless to say the EVB works with A13-SOM-512 also.

Mainline uboot and Linux Kernal 5.12 with support for all peripherals is available.

STMP157-SOM-512 and STMP1(A13)SOM-EVB boards are now in production and will be on the web for sale by the end of April.

STMP157-OLinuXino-LIME2-IND status update April 2021

The last issues with STM32MP1 mainline Linux kernel support were resolved and now we run STMP157-OLinuXino-LIME2 in production!

Revision B fixes all hardware issues in the initial prototype. STMP157-OLINUXINO-LIME2 is complete analog of A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 which is one of our best selling Allwinner board.

Mainline uboot and Linux kernel 5.12 images are available with all periperials working.

We will have STMP157-OLINUXINO-LIME2 on our web for sale by the end of April.

This is also our first board with Ethernet supporting Precise Time Protocol and Time Sensitive Networking implemented.