The Tukhla project was completed in April 2021. However, due to the COVID-19 semiconductor madness, we were unable to assemble prototypes because of the lack of semiconductors. The development of this project is financed by Ignitial SAS, a company based in France.
Finally we got enough chips to complete the first three prototypes and we assembled them last week before the May’s Holidays.
Tukhla has these features:
MIMX8QM5AVUFFAB 8-core processor:
x2 Cortex-A72 running at 1.6Ghz
x4 Cortex-A53 running at 1.2Ghz
x2 Cortex-M4F running at 264Mhz
8 GB LPDR4 64 bit @1600Mhz
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
We now experiment with NXP Yocto build images to verify everythings is working correctly, before we run production.
RP2040 is a nice dual-core Cortex-M0 SOC packed with a lot of features and a huge community that has been built up over the last two years since its announcement.
For our new Neo6502 design, we needed to use all 30 GPIOs on the RP2040. Although the RP2040 has 30 GPIOs, only 26 of them are available for the user, as GPIO23 controls the power supply, GPIO24 detects if USB is connected, GPIO25 is connected to the status LED, and GPIO29 measures the power supply after the 3.3V voltage regulator. While all these features are nice to have, there are many situations when you need to use ALL available GPIOs.
This is why we decided to release the RP2040-PICO30, where all 30 GPIOs are available for the user. We tried to be as compatible as possible with the RP2040-PICO layout, so we kept all signals in the same places and just removed 4 GNDs (as there are plenty in the RP2040-PICO) and connected the missing 4 GPIOs there.
Here is RP2040-PICO30 pinout:
In addition, we changed the USB micro connector used in the RP2040-PICO (as it can’t supply more than 0.5A by design) to USB-C, where up to 3A can be sourced. We also replaced the voltage regulator used in the RP2040-PICO with the proven SY8089A DCDC, which can deliver up to 3A at 3.3V.
RP2040-PICO30 has two buttons: RESET and BOOT and there is also status LED but it’s not connected by default to GPIO25 and require small solder jumper to be soldered if you want to use the LED. Of course we also add UEXT connector so our UEXT modules can be used with it.
This board is currently in the prototype stage and will be available for sale in late May. The price of the RP2040-PICO30 with 2MB Flash will be EUR 4.50. If you want the headers to be soldered onto it, the price will be EUR 6.00.
There will also be a version with 16MB Flash, and the price of the RP2040-PICO30-16MB will be EUR 6.50 without soldered headers and EUR 8.00 with soldered headers on it.
The open source hardware STMP157-OLinuXino industrial grade Linux computer got new shield which adds two UEXT connectors, second micro SD card and 40 pin GPIO connector in breadboard friendly 0.1″ (2.54 mm) step format.
STMP15X-SHIELD plugs on top of OLinuXino, the overlays are already included in OLIMAGE Linux images and no need for additional setup.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
olimex 
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