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.
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.
A13-SOM-256 and A13-SOM-512 are low cost Linux running System on Modules which are very popular but lack industrial grade operating temperature.
STM32MP1XXX series of SOC from ST is the first mass produced SOC which operates from -45 up to +125C by default, so we decided to design SOM module with STM32MP1XX SOC which to be pin to pin compatible with A13-SOM and offer same interfaces and signals so it could be drop in replacement for A13-SOM without need to re-design the complete product.
As you can see for STMP1-SOM we decided to put the SOC on opposite side of the connectors, this allow if necessary to add aluminum heatsink without interference with mainboard.
Also we add AXP209 PMU which allow lower power operating modes and LiPo battery backup and operation on battery only which is missing in the original A13-SOM.
STMP1-SOM will be offered with three SOC choices STM32MP151, STM32MP153 and STM32MP157.
The prices will start from EUR 15 for the non industrial grade memory which are similar to A13-SOM and EUR 18 for the industrial grade -45+85C memory version.
We expect first STMP1-SOMs to be available in July 2020.
We got question from customer of ours: “We are using your A20-OLinuXino in our product and I’ve heard that you are going to stop the production soon, is this true?”
Most of our customers are industrial machine producers and they need long term supply from their vendors. They do certification for their machines which cost a lot and they can’t afford to spend more money every year because the Linux module is not produced or changed. We already wrote several post on our blog that we supply our boards until there is demand for them and that we have long term supply agreement with Allwinner, but some people spread rumors and I have to write it and make it clear again: We will produce OLinuXino boards until there is demand. It’s even included in our GTC.
When back in 2014 I posted that we can supply OLinuXino forever many people were skeptical (well yes it is exaggerated 🙂 ) and wrote back – do not believe Chinese suppliers, they will let you down etc. etc.
Allwinner though is keeping their promise and we can buy all Allwinner SOCs we use without problem. Our volumes allow us to meet their MOQ.
For instance A13 SOC is very old and Allwinner discontinued it several years ago, it’s even not listed on their web as product, but we still keep buying it and producing A13 boards for our customers. We have also many customers which used our boards as template to make their own variants and now we supply them with A13 SOCs so they keep manufacturing them. You will not find A13 for sale anywhere even in China, but we are expecting next lot of 90Kpcs A13 to come from Allwinner in few weeks. Yes we have to order such quantities as Allwinner need 3 month to produce the SOCs from the order to shipment.
Many customers ask can you guarantee 10-15-20 years of supply? I doubt anyone in industry can see so long ahead. Allwinner is young company, founded September 2007, i.e. less 12 years old. Who knows what they will do after 20 years? We see that Western companies with much more history change owners every year and no one knows what the new owner will decide to do, so no one can give you 10-20 years prediction or will simply intentionally or unintentionally mislead you.
For A13 and A20 this agreement works well last 7 years. Both we at Olimex and Allwinner has no reason stop production, which brings money to both of us. We got visit from Allwinner sales manager in March this year and he said that they never though they can sell A13 and A20 for so long time. Most of other SOCs they sell target consumer market where lifetime is 1-2 years top.
Linux and Open Source Hardware works well for them and prolong their sales.
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
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:
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