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Wanted, help finding embedded linux board

Former Member

Looking for some help finding a small embedded linux board that meets a few basic requirements.  I've been able to find some things that are close, but nothing that really fits properly and I'm hoping for some suggestions I've not seen or considered already.

 

Current requirements are as follows.

 

Software:

Mainline linux kernel. I should be able to use git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git and be able to build a working kernel for the device including all critical hardware drivers without needing any external patches or vendor trees. All drivers for critical hardware must be fully functional.  I'll only consider relaxing this requirement if there's a good well organised community that are obviously actively working to merge the necessary code into the mainline kernel.

 

Hardware:

Arm cpu preferred, but not essential. Something roughly equivalent to a Cortex A8 or better. Would consider MIPS or other alternatives as well. Single core.

Minimum 256MB ram available for linux. If something else on the SoC is stealing ram for it's own use then an equivalent increase in physical ram is required.

Hardware assisted SPI controller. Bit-bang is not acceptable.

Hardware assisted I2C controller. Bit-bang is not acceptable.

Approx 16 interrupt capable GPIO pins. These must be in addition to the SPI/I2C, shared alternate functions with the I2C/SPI are not acceptable.

Ethernet. Need not be fast, 10Mb/s would suffice. Native ethernet preferred, usb as a last resort.

RS232 port.

Boot from micro-sd card. Native sdhci controller capable of 1.8v operation with associated speed modes.

 

All hardware interfaces need to be made available on a cheap, easy to use connector. Boards with connectors that cost a significant percentage of the base board cost are unlikely to be considered.

 

Power budget 1-2 watts.

 

It's acceptable for the hardware to have other included functions such as a gpu or sata controller or to exceed the base requirements, but not required. Non essential functions should not be a significant cost factor.

 

Budget: $50 or less. Not negotiable.

 

Available ex-stock from farnell/element14 would be very much preferred.

 

Finally, whatever the SoC, a comprehensive datasheet needs to be publicly available. This datasheet should include all information required to write device drivers for all included hardware.

 

 

For anyone who's been following discussions over in the Raspberry Pi area, you may have some insight to the way I've set the requirements.  Other devices that have been considered are things like BeagleBone, iMX53-QSB, OlinuXino, Odroid-X, all of which have advantages and disadvantages when measured against the list of requirements.

 

Thanks for any suggestions you may be able to offer.

Parents
  • 0

    I have no idea how real it is, but I just found out about the "Cubieboard" at RasPi forum: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=11423.

     

    AllWinner A10

    HDMI 1080p output

    1 GB DDR3

    10/100 ethernet connector

    2 USB Host, 2 MMC slot, 1 Infra-red

    96 extend pin including i2c, spi, lcd, sata, sensors, ..

     

    Other links:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubieboard

    http://cubieboard.org/

  • 0 in reply to johnbeetem

    John Beetem wrote:

     

    I have no idea how real it is, but I just found out about the "Cubieboard" at RasPi forum: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=11423.

     

    AllWinner A10

    HDMI 1080p output

    1 GB DDR3

    10/100 ethernet connector

    2 USB Host, 2 MMC slot, 1 Infra-red

    96 extend pin including i2c, spi, lcd, sata, sensors, ..

     

    Other links:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubieboard

    http://cubieboard.org/

    According to this brief interchange http://cubieboard.org/about/, 100 CubieBetaBoards should be available 1 September.  Not clear about whether they're assembled or just PC Boards.  They have an interesting minimalist web site.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

  • 0 in reply to fustini

    There's an Indiegogo now for the CubieBoard: http://www.indiegogo.com/cubieboard

     

    Wish I would have seen it earlier - the early bird special was quite good.    

  • 0 in reply to johnbeetem

    Hello

    I agree with John, may be the i.MX6 ARM Cortex-A9 processor family has been announced a little bit to earlier ...

    ... BUT it is official now, i.MX6 Solo, Solo Lite, Duo, Duo Lite and Quad are in production (at least in industrial qualification) since Electronica.

    For proof, you can request samples and download the datasheets on Freescale website HERE

     

    Concerning the board, Element14 is taking pre-order for the i.MX6 Sabre-Lite which is quite powerfull considering its features :

    - i.MX6 in Quad Core version @1GHz each with a video accelerator (encoding/decoding up to Full-HD 1080p), a 2D and a 3D accelerator with a composition Engine from Vivante

    - 1GB of 64-bit wide DDR3 @532MHz

    - 2x SD-Card Slots (SD and µSD)

    - 3x USB ports (2x Host and 1x OTG)

    - 1x 10/100/1Gb IEEE1588 Ethernet port

    - SATA and PCI-Express ports

    - 3x Display outputs (HDMI, LVDS and RGB)

    - Analog (headphone, microphone) and Digital Audio (HDMI)

    - Also include :

         4GB SD-card preloaded with Timesys LinuxLink Embedded Linux Image (Kernel v3.0)
    More information HERE

  • 0 in reply to FreescaleTools_and_Software

    I'm actually quite tempted to get one of those for a look, however I'd take issue with some of the specs. According to the iMX6 eratta document, there's some internal bandwidth limitation that means you can't get more than ~400Mb/s total throughput on the ethernet, so that's not quite 1G.

    I also saw mention that if you want to use USB then the clock requirement means you can't run at 1Ghz - 994MHz or something.

     

    Ok, so it supposedly has PCIe which might help, and the manual says this is available on P23, but P23 certainly isn't obvious on any of the photos.  I'm interested here as I'd like to find out what awful type of connector it's on, back in the original post I said things with horrible connectors would be unlikely to be considered..

     

    GPIO's, such as they are, seem to be splattered across multiple connectors and mixed in with other features, so potentially unuseable anyway.

     

    Then there's 'Kernel v3.0'. Sorry, that just doesn't cut it. Needs to be up at somthhing like 3.4, there's been way too much churn in the linux arm tree with things like devicetree, pinctrl etc that the 3.0 drivers are going to be much harder to forward port to a useful kernel.

    Also, in this respect, I'd like to see some evidence that there's some effort being made to get all this stuff into the mainstream linux kernel. Being stuck with 3.0 in five years time wouldn't be good - same goes for any other arm board though.

     

    Finally, back in the original post I suggested a budget of $50, this board will run to £153.63, considerably more than $50

     

    I do like the iMX6 and I think it has lots of potential, but something like the Wandboard (wandboard.org) seems to be much more in line with my original question.  Sabre-Lite seems very much aimed at some sort of android tablet

     

    That said, I see there's some in stock and I'm able to actually order a Sabre-Lite today, so maybe I will image

  • 0 in reply to FreescaleTools_and_Software

    I should also say... Quite disappointing that the element14 link to the Sable-Lite ares shows  discussions - 0 , documents - 0, and there's so obvious link to a downloadable sd-card image or anything.

     

    I realise these are still very new, hopefully the group might take off..  I suspect it'll be slow though. 150 quid vs 30 quid raspberry pi is tough competition. Regardless of anything else I do think the RPF made a good choice in sticking to a very low price point. Yes the Sabre-lite is better in so many ways, but also has lots of 'features' nobody will use and 5x the cost is much harder to justify as a throwaway whim.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    selsinork wrote:

     

    Ok, so it supposedly has PCIe which might help, and the manual says this is available on P23, but P23 certainly isn't obvious on any of the photos.  I'm interested here as I'd like to find out what awful type of connector it's on, back in the original post I said things with horrible connectors would be unlikely to be considered..

    PCIe is the white 7-pin connector near the HDMI jack J4.  It's labeled "PCIe" on the silkscreen, with "J23" in tiny letters near the Micro SDcard jack J20.  You can zoom into the photo on page 6 of the MCIMX6Q-SL user manual.

  • 0 in reply to johnbeetem

    John, I admire your dedication to hunting down stuff like this. I'd wrongly assumed the photos would be the usual sort that are so low res that there'd be no point trying to zoom in.

     

    But with that answer, the questions has to be whether element14 will be supplying breakout boards for the Sabre so that we can get useful access to any of the features on horrible connectors.  A quick search suggests there's nothing available currently.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    selsinork wrote:

     

    John, I admire your dedication to hunting down stuff like this. I'd wrongly assumed the photos would be the usual sort that are so low res that there'd be no point trying to zoom in.

     

    But with that answer, the questions has to be whether element14 will be supplying breakout boards for the Sabre so that we can get useful access to any of the features on horrible connectors.  A quick search suggests there's nothing available currently.

    Thanks, but I have a personal interest in PCIe so I was curious.  I have an FPGA design for a client that's currently 32-bit PCI but at some point we'll probably have to migrate to PCIe because it's getting harder to find SoCs that have 32-bit PCI.  So I'll need something for prototyping the design.  On the FPGA side, Xilinx Spartan-6 with the "T" option is promising except that the cheapest part (XC6SLX25T) is US$50 and has way more gates than we need.

     

    There is a standard for PCIe over a cable, but products are hideously expensive.  I think it's possible to use a SATA cable, which are very cheap.  I would hope Freescale has a high-speed cable in mind for J23.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    Thanks for showing interest on i.MX6 SABRE-LITE board, please find below useful links for documnetation on this board:

     

    User Manual for i.MX 6Q SABRE Lite click here

     

    Schematics for Development platform on i.MX 6Quad SABRE Lite click here

     

    Bill of Materials for the development kit for i.MX 6Quad - Built to Freescale SABRE Lite design click here

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    Hello Selsinork

    Don't hesitate to start a new discussion in the section www.element14.com/iMX6 if you want to ask some questions or just share some comments concerning this board useful for users of the community.

    As mentioned by Bheemarao, there is a full page with all the documentation and software for i.MX6 Sabre-Lite accessible from the Knode dedicated section www.element14.com/iMX6 by clicking on "Learn more".
    Don't hesitate to open the document "Quick Start Guide for element14 development platform SABRE Lite for Freescale i.MX 6Quad" as it includes detailed pictures from the connectors of each port.
    Board was officially launched during Electronica (November 13th) so you should see soon additional content in the document section.

  • 0 in reply to bheemarao

    bheemarao wrote:

     

    Thanks for showing interest on i.MX6 SABRE-LITE board, please find below useful links for ocumnetation on this board:

    Thanks, have had a look at those already. Somehow they seem to miss a large part of the useful/required pieces.

     

    For example, the user manual states

    "Insert the supplied MicroSD card into the board’s MicroSD card socket J20.

    Note: MicroSD Card is included if ready at the date your kit was shipped.

    For the latest version of the BSP, please visit www.element14.com/iMX6"

     

    However if you follow the link and then take the Software/BSP tab on that page it takes you to a document, not a downloadable BSP. No, there's no link to anything in the document either.

     

    So, maybe you can answer the obvious question. There's two showing in UK stock today, if I was to order one of them, do I get the MicroSD card with the BSP or not ?   Since I don't appear to be able to download the BSP from anywhere I think £153.68 for what would essentially be a paperweight is a little excessive.

Reply
  • 0 in reply to bheemarao

    bheemarao wrote:

     

    Thanks for showing interest on i.MX6 SABRE-LITE board, please find below useful links for ocumnetation on this board:

    Thanks, have had a look at those already. Somehow they seem to miss a large part of the useful/required pieces.

     

    For example, the user manual states

    "Insert the supplied MicroSD card into the board’s MicroSD card socket J20.

    Note: MicroSD Card is included if ready at the date your kit was shipped.

    For the latest version of the BSP, please visit www.element14.com/iMX6"

     

    However if you follow the link and then take the Software/BSP tab on that page it takes you to a document, not a downloadable BSP. No, there's no link to anything in the document either.

     

    So, maybe you can answer the obvious question. There's two showing in UK stock today, if I was to order one of them, do I get the MicroSD card with the BSP or not ?   Since I don't appear to be able to download the BSP from anywhere I think £153.68 for what would essentially be a paperweight is a little excessive.

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