There are now many low cost development boards based on Freescale i.MX6 ARM Cortex A9 processors with Wandboard, Sabre Lite, UDOO, Nitrogen6X among others, all selling for less than $200. Boundary devices, the company behind Nitrogen6X board, has made a new version called Nitrogen6 MAX that maxes out the RAM to 4GB, adds a full mPCIE slot, a dual channel LVDS connector, and 4GB on-board eMMC.
Nitrogen6 MAX specifications:
- SoC – Freescale i.MX 6Q quad core ARM Cortex A9 processor at 1GHz with Vivante GC2000 3D GPU
- System Memory – 4GB 64-bit DDR3 @ 532MHz
- Storage – 4GB eMMC, SATA connector, two micro SDHC card slots, 2MB Serial Flash
- Connectivity – 10/100/1G Ethernet, TiWi 802.11 b/g/n WiFi + Bluetooth BLE module
- Display Output – HDMI, 2x LVDS, Parallell RGB
- Audio I/O – HDMI, Analog (headphone/mic) audio and 2W amplified audio
- Camera I/F – Parallel camera port with OV5642 Interface, MIPI camera port with OV5640 Interface
- USB – 3x High speed USB ports (2xHost, 1xOTG)
- Headers
- 2 RS-232 Serial ports + 1 Selectable RS485/RS232
- 10-pin JTAG interface
- I2C/GPIO/SPI signals
- CAN port
- Expansion Slots – PCI express port
- Misc – Real Time Clock with battery
- Dimensions – 5.25″ x 3.5″ (13.33 x 8.89 cm)
Several accessories are available with the board: MIPI and Parallel Cameras, 7” 1280×800 LVDS display with PCAP multi-touch, 10.1″ 1280×800 display with PCAP multi-touch, Android Button board, etc… This is not only a development board, but it is also suitable for mass production, an industrial temperature version is available, and they can make custom versions on requests. Android 4.3 and Embedded Linux (Yocto) images, source and support are available for the board.
Nitrogen6 MAX is one of the few ARM based products available with 4GB RAM, and a usable mPCIe slot. Other boards such as Nitrogen6X and Sabre Lite also feature a PCIe slot but require a daughter board, and may not contains the full PCIE signal set, with USB signaling, allowing for 3G modems or WLAN mPCIe card.
The board is available for pre-order now for $249, with mass production scheduled for the first week of June. You can more information and/or pre-order on Boundary Devices’ Nitrogen6 MAX page.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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