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

ESP32-POE and ESP32-POE-ISO back in stock

Silicon Labs stopped selling Si3204 POE controllers which were inside our very popular ESP32-POE and ESP32-POE-ISO boards. There is no stock anywhere neither information when they will be back in stock. So back in August we start searching for alternative and we evaluated several other solutions. We liked most Texas Instruments and made some prototypes and verified that they works fine.

Then we run blank PCBs in production but unfortunately we hit two major Chinese Holidays, so instead the blank PCBs to arrive in the normal 2 weeks we had to wait 5 weeks to produce our order then another week to arrive here.

Meantime we sold out all our stock of ESP32-POE and POE-ISO and created solid backlog before we stop the sales on the web.

We are glad that this week we shipped all backlog orders and now the boards are again for sale!

The new revisions of the boards are REV.G and the PCB info will be updated on GitHub tomorrow. From user point of view nothing changes – the new revision operates exactly the same and have same functionality as the previous Silicon Labs based solution.

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

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!

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.

IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) is implemented for the industrial grade Open Source Hardware Linux computer STMP1-OLinuXino-LIME2

• 

The Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) is for real-time communication with hard, non-negotiable time boundaries for end-to-end transmission latencies.

The main use of TSN is for industrial machine controllers, robots etc.

For this purpose all devices in this network need to have a common time reference and therefore, need to synchronize their clocks among each other. Only through synchronized clocks, it is possible for all network devices to operate in unison and execute the required operation at exactly the required point in time.

The time in TSN networks is usually distributed from one central time source directly through the network itself using the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol, which utilizes Ethernet frames to distribute time synchronization information.

Linutronix helped to implement IEEE 1588 PTP on STMP1-OLinuXino-LIME2.

For Uboot changes Olimex Uboot was used as base. The Kernel patch is sent upstream and can be seen on the mailing list

https://lore.kernel.org/linux-devicetree/20210316080644.19809-1-kurt@linutronix.de/

We also apply these patches in our next STMP1 Linux images release.

The results is correctly working PTP:

# ptp4l -H -2 -i eth0 --tx_timestamp_timeout=40 -f /etc/gPTP.cfg -m
|ptp4l[1434.665]: rms    5 max   13 freq  -1069 +/-   7 delay   325 +/-   0
|ptp4l[1435.666]: rms    8 max   16 freq  -1068 +/-  11 delay   325 +/-   0
|ptp4l[1436.667]: rms   10 max   19 freq  -1060 +/-  12 delay   324 +/-   0
|ptp4l[1437.668]: rms    8 max   17 freq  -1055 +/-  10 delay   322 +/-   0
|ptp4l[1438.668]: rms    6 max    9 freq  -1057 +/-   9 delay   322 +/-   0

Open Source Hardware S3-OLinuXino update – The new board targeting industrial vision applications is now with mainline Linux support

S3-OLinuXino is board we create to may add vision to the PTH components Soldering Robot we are working on for some time.

Revision.B now is a bit different than the first prototype we made. It has these features:

• S3 SOC Cortex-A7 running at 1.2Ghz
• 1Gb DDR3 RAM inside S3 SOC up to 1333Mhz
• MIPI Raspberry Pi camera interface up to 8Mpix camera support
• Parallel CSI camera interface up to 8 Mpix
• Power Management Unit with LiPo battery charger and step-up to allow stand alone battery operation
• 100Mb Ethernet interface with POE support (external optional module)
• SPI, NAND, eMMC external optional module
• LCD connector to connect to LCD-OLinuXino displays with different sizes and resolutions
• LiPo battery connector
• USB-OTG interface
• UEXT connector with SPI, I2C, Serial and power supply
• EXT1 connector for LED PWM lighting
• audio input with microphone
• audio output
• WiFi and BT module with external antenna
• micro SD card connector

We are working to offer Mainline Linux with this board.
Bootlin got sample board and have working MIPI driver.

S3-OLinuXino can take power from USB, LiPo battery or PoE (with optional PoE module).

Different NAND Flash, SPI Flash, eMMC flash options are possible with addon module

The only thing we still didn’t complete is USB-OTG functionality.

Mass production is planned for March 2021.

Implementation of OPC UA on ESP32-EVB

OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is an open, implemented under GPL 2.0 license, machine to machine communication protocol for industrial automation developed by the OPC Foundation.

The OPC UA protocol specification consists of 14 documents for a total of 1250 pages. Due to this complexity, existing implementations are usually incomplete.

This is why we were puzzled to see on Twitter post by Selftronics that they made OPC UA server running on ESP32-EVB!

Here are the details of the implementation, the sources are at GitHub.