A64-OLinuXino got mainline Linux Kernel 5.0 images

Linux kernel 5.0 was just released and as we were working this week to the release of mainline Linux image for A64-OLinuXino (as till now it has the ugly android based 3.10 kernel) we decided to release latest kernel.

The images are available on our FTP.

There are two images Debian headless or Ubuntu desktop.

Known issues with these images:

• LCDs are not supported yet, HDMI output is only available, we need one more week to figure out how to automatically detect if the Ethernet or LCD are enabled (there is jumper on the board which switch between LCD or Ethernet as both share pins and can’t work together). So to make the DTS configurations  automatic at boot time.
• eMMC do not work in the fastest possible mode yet. We need some time, right now 50MB/s is the max speed to read write instead of 100-200MB/s which the installed eMMC supports, we will update the image soon with HS200/400 modes enabled.
• No CPU thermal. A64 has 3 thermal zones – CPU, GPU0 and GPU1. The driver doesn’t support monitoring them.

How to build the images is explained here.

Mainline Linux Kernel 5.0 images for A13, A20 and A33 OLinuXino and SOMs is in progress.

A20-SOM204 and SOM204-EVB preliminary info is uploaded on our web

SOM204 is SODIMM form factor System-On-Module we are working for a while (actually from so long time ago that SOM204-EVB platform is made in Eagle which we dropped to use officially from quite some time ago).

The SODIMM connector has these signals:

• Power supply: +5V, GND, LiPobattery, RTC_backup, Stepup-Output, Stepup-enable, USB+5V
• Interfaces: Gigabit Ethernet, Megabit Ethernet, CAN, SATA, PCIe, USB2.0 HOST x2, USB-OTG, USB3.0 HOST, HSIC, UARTx3, SPIx2, I2Cx2, CSI, microSD, GPIOs with interrupts,
• Display: HDMI, VGA
• Audio: SPDIF, Line-in/out, Microphone, Headphone.

You can see complete SOM204 platform signals here.

The idea behind SOM204 is to make Universal interchangeable SOM with different performance and resources.

Our first SOM204 module is with A20 processor, it’s now in production and will be available for purchase next week.

The second SOM204 module is with A64, the third is with RK3328 which we expect to be ready for production around June. Next to follow is AM335X which will be ready by end of the year together with RK3399. The goal is to have 5 different modules by the end of the year.

A20-SOM204 comes with 1GB RAM, optional SPI Flash or eMMC Flash up to 64GB, two native Ethernets (this is the only A20 board with dual native Ethernets) Gigabit and Megabit, SATA and so on. The USB3.0 interface and PICe interfaces are not wired. On top on SOM204 platform LCD and additional GPIOs are exposed on FPC connectors:

The A20-SOM204 schematic is here.

A20-SOM204-EVB is evaluatuon board with A20-SOM204

A20-SOM204 software is Armbian with mainline kernel and support for all SOM peripherials.

 

TERES I assembly workshop this Saturday!

This Saturday 21st of October we will have TERES I assembly workshop!

Customers from Bulgaria who placed orders for TERES I DIY Open Source laptop will have their laptop kits ready and are invited to come and we assembly them together!

The assembly workshop will be in OLIMEX Training Building and will start at 14.00 o’clock.

No need to have Laptop kit to participate, everyone is welcome to join us.

A64-OLinuXino Open Source Hardware board with 64-bit Cortex-A53 processor is in released

A64-OLinuXino OSHW board is now released. Current revision is Rev.C.

Features are:

• A64 Cortex-A53 64-bit SoC from Allwinner
• AXP803 PMU with Lipo charger and step-up
• 1 or 2GB or DDR3L @672 Mhz
• 0 / 4 or 16GB of industrial grade eMMC
• SPI Flash in SO8 package with hardware WP (not assembled)
• USB-OTG and USB-HOST
• HSIC connector (not assembled)
• Gigabit Ethernet
• BLE/WiFi module
• HDMI and MIPI display connectors
• microSD card
• Debug console serial connector
• Audio In and Out
• LCD display connector
• GPIO 40 pin connector (not assembled)
• UEXT connector (not assembled)
• 5V power jack
• Dimensions: 90×62.5 mm

For the moment we have three models:

• 1G0G with 1GB RAM, no Flash, no WiFi/BLE
• 1G4GW with 1GB RAM, 4GB eMMC and WiFi/BLE
• 2G16G-IND with 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC with industrial grade components -40+85C

The optional connectors and SPI Flash etc may be assembled upon request for small fee.

Final updates on A64-OLinuXino GMAC and eMMC, we are ready to launch production

We complete our test with Rev.B

Good news is that Gigabit interface works well with Micrel/Microchip PHY and result is real Gigabit bandwidth. A20 although having Gigabit interface can’t make more than 700 Mbit I guess this is related to A20 capability to handle the data from GMAC. With A64 the speed is  932Mbit i.e. very close to 1Gb:

root@A64-OLinuXino:~# iperf -s 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 
 Server listening on TCP port 5001 
 TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default) 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 
 [  4] local 10.0.0.4 port 5001 connected with 10.0.0.1 port 41144 
 [ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth 
 [  4]  0.0-10.0 sec  1.09 GBytes   932 Mbits/sec

 

For eMMC we followed the advice to make it dual voltage 3.3V and 1.8V with aim to have faster transfers and we implemented it in the hardware, but the tests show that transfer is same even at 1.8V is a bit lower. I don’t know if this is due to lame software settings we do in the eMMC drivers, or just the eMMC we use have same transfer on both voltages (we check datasheet and the eMMC we use have same speed quoted on both voltages), so this may be useless for our eMMC chip:

eMMC clock: 52 Mhz

eMMC@3.3V 
root@A64-OLinuXino:/home/olimex# dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/output conv=fdatasync bs=384k count=1k; rm -f /mnt/output 
1024+0 records in 
1024+0 records out 
402653184 bytes (403 MB, 384 MiB) copied, 33.0437 s, 12.2 MB/s 
 
eMMC@1.8V 
root@A64-OLinuXino:/home/olimex# dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/output conv=fdatasync bs=384k count=1k; rm -f /mnt/output 
1024+0 records in 
1024+0 records out 
402653184 bytes (403 MB, 384 MiB) copied, 37.9408 s, 10.6 MB/s 
 
SDMMC clock: 40MHz 
 
SDMMC@3.3V 
root@A64-OLinuXino:/home/olimex# dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output conv=fdatasync bs=384k count=1k; rm -f /tmp/output 
1024+0 records in 
1024+0 records out 
402653184 bytes (403 MB, 384 MiB) copied, 41.1578 s, 9.8 MB/s 
 

With SDMMC as we don’t know what SD card will be inserted the clock is set to default 40Mhz.

After re-checking that everything works, we make last cosmetic changes to audio part we noticed in the last moment and will run Rev.C in production.

A64-OLinuXino-eMMC rev.B OSHW 64 bit ARM development board prototypes are testing

What you see is our improved REV.B of A64-OLinuXino. What’s new:

• Gigabit PHY is now KSZ9031 from MICROCHIP/MICREL which allow board to be produced in both commercial and industrial grade!
• DDR3 is now DDR3L for lower power
• we add SPI flash footprint U12
• Audio input now is jumper selectable between LINE-IN and MIC-IN
• eMMC now can work on software selectable voltage 3.3V or 1.8V which would allow faster speeds
• status LED is attached to port PE17
• size 90×60 mm

Now we do final software tests and if everything is OK we will run production.

 

A64-OLinuXino update, the Rev.B design will be possible to produce in industrial grade -40+85C, dual voltage eMMC 3.3/1.8V

A64-OLinuXino first prototypes were made in March and lot of people wonder why we do not release for mass production this board yet 🙂 so we got lot of e-mails and I see there is need for blog post with update.

Here is the recap from the first prototypes:

• RAM memory works at amazing 667Mhz clock much more than A20 and other boards and the board works stabile under stress tests for many hours
• eMMC works fine, we didn’t test NAND Flash due to the missing Linux support probabbly this will stay just as option and we will assembly the boards with eMMC which is faster, better and in industrial temperature
• Linux Kernel is 3.10.65 and works fine, we managed to run all peripherials
• Audio In and Out is working
• HDMI is working
• USB host is working
• USB-OTG is working
• WiFi+BT is working
• MIPI interface – no display which to use to test, any ideas?
• HSIC interface – don’t know how to test, any ideas?
• LiPo charger and step up works
• LCD works
• Ethernet Gigabit interface works just in master mode

While we worked on this board we found new PHY from Microchip which can be ordered in industrial temperature, we tested it with A20 and it works fine (we already have LIME2 version with it which is on prototype), so we decided to re-design the Ethernet part of A64-OLinuXino with it, this will allow us to produce A64-OLinuXino in industrial temperature grade -40+85C.

Another major upgrade for Rev.B is around eMMC interface, we re-designed it as per your feedback to be possible to work on programmable 3.3V and 1.8V thus to allow faster transfers.

Rev.B is routed at 90% we need 1 more week to complete it and run new prototypes. If everything goes smoothly we will be ready by end of the month.