New shield for STMP157-OLinuXino Industrial grade Open Source Hardware Linux computer

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.

ESP32-C3-DevKit-Lipo RISC-V development board with build in USB JTAG, WiFi, Bluetooth5, Lipo charger and 15 GPIOs

ESP32-C3-DevKit-Lipo is EUR 6.00 Open Source Hardware compact development board with:

• RISC-V running on 160Mhz
• 400KB RAM, 8K data RAM
• 4MB Flash
• Two headers (soldered) with power supply and GPIO signals
• ESP-PROG-C compatible rescue connector (if you mess with bootloader)
• USB-C for programming and JTAG debugging
• LiPo battery charger allowing handheld applications with single LiPo battery
• 4 mount holes

This is all you need to get started with RISC-V programming in C and Assembly.

Shteryana Shopova recently did RISC-V workshop with this board and explained how to setup your tools for programming and debugging. Here you can find her work.

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!

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

STMP157-OLinuXino-LIME2 Open Source Hardware Industrial Grade Linux computer is in mass production with 4 variants

STMP157-OLinuXino-LIME2 Open Source Hardware Linux computer running Mainline Linux is in mass production in four variants:

• Industrial grade -40+85C (STMP157-OLinuXino-LIME2-IND) version running on 650 Mhz
• Industrial grade -40+85C (STMP157-OLinuXino-LIME2H-IND) version running on 650 Mhz with HDMI output (when HDMI works operating temperature is commercial as HDMI convertor is not industrial grade)
• Extended temperature -20+85C (STMP157-OLinuXino-LIME2-EXT) version running on 800 Mhz
• Extended temperature -20+85C (STMP157-OLinuXino-LIME2H-EXT) version running on 800 Mhz with HDMI output (when HDMI works operating temperature is commercial as HDMI convertor is not industrial grade)

User Manual for the boards is available on the product web page.

Debian and Ubuntu Linux images are pre-build and ready to install and run.

The images are build with Olimex script Olimage which is available on GitHub.

Olimage user manual explains what is included in it and how you can modify uboot and kernel to include drivers for devices which are not included in Olimex official images.

New iMX8QuadPlus System on Module is ready for prototyping

iMX8Quad Max board we developed is still waiting for components to verify the first prototypes, but we decided to develop one more SOC from iMX8 Plus series which we thought is filling niche where we do not have product.

This is how iMX8MPLUS-SOM was designed:

• 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

MIMX8ML8DVNLZAB operating temperature is -40+105C which makes it perfect for both industrial and automotive applications.

Evaluation board iMX8MPlus-SOM-EVB is now designed with Dual Ethernet, Dual USB 3.0, PCIe, HDMI.

NXP is going to provide mainline Linux support for this SOC.

It’s impossible to comment any pricing at the moment, but it will be very competitive compared with similar industrial grade products.

STMP157-SOM-EXT, STMP157-SOM-IND and STMP1(A13)-SOM-EVB are in stock!

Now our first STMP1 boards can be ordered on our web:

STMP1(A13)-SOM-EVB evaluation board (requires separate SOM)

STMP157-SOM-EXT extended temperature range -20+85C running on 800Mhz

STMP157-SOM-IND industrial temperature range -40+85C running on 650Mhz

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

Allwinner plans to release Linux capable RISC-V SOC this year

Searching for more info about their new H313 SOC I found old news from August 2020, where Allwinner announce the development of AP SOC with RISC-V and praising Open Source Hardware and the open ISA of RISC-V.

They say in this announcement that they will have AP (application processor) SOC with RISC-V in 2021!

There is lot of development around RISC-V in the last years. Espressif have their ESP32-C3 which is with RISC-V SOC, but it can’t run Linux as has not enough memory and video. We still can’t see affordable silicon capable to run Linux.

There is announcement for BeagleBoneV but still not in production and at quite higher price compared to ARM boards on the market.

Allwinner is known to be able to design and produce low cost SOCs. Let’s hope the semiconductor crisis caused by Covid19 will not delay their plans.

So is the year 2021 when we will see $35 Linux running boards with RISC-V?

I’m crossing fingers!

As soon as we can get our hands to these SOC we will make OSHW OLinuXino with it!

OSHW design and affordable SOC will lead to affordable boards and boost of the software development of RISC-V too.

Source: Allwinner news.

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.