schematics News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 30, 2019April 30, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Rockchip RK1808 Datasheet, TRM, Schematics and Linux SDK Released

Rockchip RK1808 is the first chip from the company fully dedicated to artificial intelligence applications. The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) features an accelerator delivering up to 3.0 TOPS and is coupled with two low power Arm Cortex-A35 cores allowing it to run Linux. We’ve had the specifications for RK1808 for a while, but the company has recently posted hardware and software resources on their open source website. On the hardware side we’ve got: RK1808 Technical Reference Manual (TRM) RK1808 datasheet PDF Schematics for the company’s official RK1808-EVB On the software side we can get the Linux SDK from Github as explained in the Wiki:

git clone https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo
mkdir linux
cd linux
../repo/repo init --repo-url=https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo -u https://github.com/rockchip-linux/manifests -b master -m rk1808_linux_release.xml
../repo/repo sync

git clone https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo

mkdir linux

cd linux

../repo/repo init --repo-url=https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo -u https://github.com/rockchip-linux/manifests -b master -m rk1808_linux_release.xml

../repo/repo sync

Finally configure the build and start the build process:

sudo apt install liblz4-tool build-essential
source envsetup.sh rockchip_rk1808
./build.sh

sudo apt install liblz4-tool build-essential

source envsetup.sh rockchip_rk1808

./build.sh

After a while, or more accurately close to two hours on a Laptop with Ryzen 7 2700U processor, 8GB RAM, and hard drive, we’ll get U-boot, Linux, buildroot based rootfs, and firmware files and in […]

July 25, 2017July 25, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Cubieboard7 Board Powered by Actions Semi S700 Processor Becomes a Full-Featured Devkit with DVK522 Expansion Board

Cubieboard6 was announced earlier this year with the same form factor as Cubieboard2 – which was popular a few years ago – by replacing Allwinner A20 with Actions Semi S500 quad core ARM Cortex A9 processor. CubieTech is about to launch Cubieboard7 based on the same design, except for the processor upgrade to the pin-to-pin compatible Actions Semi S700 quad core ARM Cortex A53 processor. I’ve also found out Cubieboard2/6/7 can be connected to DVK522 expansion board to provide easier access more I/Os like LVDS, RGB LCD, VGA, and so on. Let’s start with the Cubieboard7 (CB7) preliminary specifications: SoC – Actions Semi S700 quad core ARM Cortex-A53 processor with Mali-450MP4 GPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 Storage 8GB eMMC flash SATA 3.0 port for 2.5″ HDD/SSD implemented via USB 3.0 switch and JMicron JMS578 USB 3.0 to SATA controller. micro SD card slot up to 32GB Video Output – […]

June 28, 2017June 28, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 39 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-R2’s U-boot & Linux 4.4 Source Code & MediaTek MT7623N Datasheet Released

Banana Pi BPI-R2 is a multimedia router board powered by MediaTek MT7623N quad core processor with 2GB RAM, 5 Gigabit Ethernet ports, up to two SATA ports, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI output, and I/O headers. The board is not for sale yet, but the company has recently released the source code with U-boot and Linux 4.4.70, as well as a datasheet for MediaTek MT7623N processor. The source code can be found on Github, so let’s see if we can build it:

git clone https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-R2-bsp
cd BPI-R2-bsp/
sudo apt install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf
./build.sh

./build.sh NOTICE:
new build.sh default select BPI-R2-720P and pack all boards
supported boards:
BPI-R2-720P

BPI-R2-720P configured. Now run `make`
This tool support following building mode(s):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1. Build all, uboot and kernel and pack to download images.
 2. Build uboot only.
 3. Build kernel only.
 4. kernel configure.
 5. Pack the builds to target download image, this step must execute after u-boot,
 kernel and rootfs build out
 6. update files for SD
 7. Clean all build.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please choose a mode(1-7): 1

git clone https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-R2-bsp

cd BPI-R2-bsp/

sudo apt install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf

./build.sh

./build.sh NOTICE:

new build.sh default select BPI-R2-720P and pack all boards

supported boards:

BPI-R2-720P

BPI-R2-720P configured. Now run `make`

This tool support following building mode(s):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Build all, uboot and kernel and pack to download images.

2. Build uboot only.

3. Build kernel only.

4. kernel configure.

5. Pack the builds to target download image, this step must execute after u-boot,

kernel and rootfs build out

6. update files for SD

7. Clean all build.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please choose a mode(1-7): 1

After a couple of minutes, the build would end with:

usr/lib/u-boot/bananapi/
usr/lib/u-boot/bananapi/bpi-r2/
usr/lib/u-boot/bananapi/bpi-r2/BPI-R2-720P-2k.img.gz

Build success!

usr/lib/u-boot/bananapi/

usr/lib/u-boot/bananapi/bpi-r2/

usr/lib/u-boot/bananapi/bpi-r2/BPI-R2-720P-2k.img.gz

Build success!

For the very last step, it asks you to login as root / sudoer, which it should not do… But we end up with the images, so at least it builds:

ls -lh ./SD/
total 27M
drwxrwxr-x 2 jaufranc jaufranc 4.0K Jun 28 10:46 100MB
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jaufranc jaufranc 22M Jun 28 10:46 4.4.70-BPI-R2-Kernel.tgz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jaufranc jaufranc 151K Jun 28 10:46 BOOTLOADER-bpi-r2.tgz
drwxrwxr-x 3 jaufranc jaufranc 4.0K Jun 28 10:46 BPI-BOOT
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jaufranc jaufranc 4.8M Jun 28 10:46 BPI-BOOT-bpi-r2.tgz
drwxrwxr-x 4 jaufranc jaufranc 4.0K Jun 28 10:46 BPI-ROOT

ls -lh ./SD/

total 27M

drwxrwxr-x 2 jaufranc jaufranc 4.0K Jun 28 10:46 100MB

-rw-rw-r-- 1 jaufranc jaufranc 22M Jun 28 10:46 4.4.70-BPI-R2-Kernel.tgz

-rw-rw-r-- 1 jaufranc jaufranc 151K Jun 28 10:46 BOOTLOADER-bpi-r2.tgz

drwxrwxr-x 3 jaufranc jaufranc 4.0K Jun 28 10:46 BPI-BOOT

-rw-rw-r-- 1 jaufranc jaufranc 4.8M Jun 28 10:46 BPI-BOOT-bpi-r2.tgz

drwxrwxr-x 4 jaufranc jaufranc 4.0K Jun 28 10:46 BPI-ROOT

MediaTek has also been active by committing patchsets for MT7623 to the Linux Kernel Mailing List, so mainline Linux is an eventual possibility for […]

January 24, 2017January 27, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 44 Comments

ASUS Tinker Board’s Debian & Kodi Linux Images, Schematics and Documentation

We discovered ASUS Tinker Board powered by Rockchip RK3288 processor earlier this year via some slides hidden in a dark corner of the Internet… ASUS has been incredibly quiet about it, but as the board has finally started to sell in Europe on sites like CPC Farnell UK, Proshop (Denmark), or Jimm’s (Finland) for the equivalent of $57.5 without VAT or $69 including VAT, and more technology sites have started to write about it. So people have been buying the board, and one even uploaded an unboxing video. One interesting part is the the top comment from the uploader in that video: Currently, a £55 paperweight as I can’t seem to find a link to the OS image anywhere. And indeed, ASUS appears to have launched a board without any support website, firmware image and documentation. Maybe that’s why they are quiet about it. But after using some of my […]

December 13, 2016May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-M64 & BPI-M2 Ultra Boards PDF Schematics Published

SinoVoip has recently released PDF schematics for both of their Banana Pi boards, namely BPI-M64 board powered by Allwinner A64 processor, and BPI-M2 Ultra board based on the latest Allwinner R40 SoC with an on-chip SATA interface. For most boards on the market, this should not be news, but SinoVoip does not always release schematics in a timely manner, so you may want to be noticed when it happens: BPI-M64 schematics – https://bananapi.gitbooks.io/bpi-m64/content/en/bpi-m64schematicdiagram.html BPI-M2 Ultra schematics – https://bananapi.gitbooks.io/bpi-m2-ultra-open-source-single-board-computer/content/bpi-m2ultraschematicdiagram.html The clear benefit of BPI-M2 Ultra is the presence of a SATA connector NOT implemented via a slow USB 2.0 to SATA bridge, but instead directly through the SATA interface of the R40 quad core processor. As for BPI-M64 ($46), it can be compared to Pine64+ with 2GB RAM and a WiFi module ($39), and despite the higher price it does come with some benefits like adb over OTG working, it is […]

April 27, 2016April 27, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Getting Started with MPLAB Xpress Board and Online IDE

Microchip launched MPLAB Xpress online IDE and board earlier this year, and as part of the launch they offered 2,000 free boards. I joined the program and received my board. The keyword for the board is “Xpress”, as you should be able to get started in mere minutes thanks to the operating system agnostic online IDE that works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. That also means you don’t need to install any other tool. All you need is a web browser. MPLAB Xpress Board Let’s start by quickly checking out the package, board, and offline documentation. Once you open the package, you’ll get the board, a folded sheet of paper for the schematics, and some information on the package itself with the pinout diagram, and a quick start guide explaining that the board acts as a mass storage device, and all you need is a web browser for […]

December 10, 2015May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Allwinner A64 Android 5.1 SDK and Linux Source Code

Allwinner A64 is likely to become quite popular as it will be used in PINE A64 board, Olimex open source hardware laptop featuring A64-OLinuXino board, and some low cost tablets. We’ve already got some documentation such as Allwinner A64 datasheet and user’s manual, but AFAIK, there was no source code released for the board. The good news is that you can now download Android 5.1 SDK and Linux source code on Baidu with four files available: lichee_A64_A5.1_V1.0.tar.gz – Linux source code android_A64_A5.1_V1.0.tar.gz– Android 5.1 SDK android_prebuilts_A64_A5.1_V1.0.tar.gz – Some pre-built binaries for Android A64硬件资料.zip – Documentation including the datasheet, product brief, and user’s manual which we’ve already got, but also some hardware with reference schematics, PCB layout files, and BoM for an Allwinner A64 tablet. That’s about 7.4GB to download, and apart from the documentation, the download is not quite complete yet, so I could not look into the details of […]

November 26, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

ESP32 Module Schematics and Board Files

Espressif teased about their ESP32 WiSoC with WiFi and Bluetooth LE a few weeks ago in a letter addressed to developers, but did not release that much information. The company has now released some documents in the forums (registration required) concerning ESP32 module including PCB processing requirement, schematics and PCB layout, and bill of materials. The very first modules will actually be based on ESP31 processor, which only slightly differs from ESP32 with some swapped pins. The BoM is pretty small with several capacitors and resistors, one inductance, a 26 MHz crystal, ESP31, and a Gigadevice flash. The schematics have been designed with Orcad 16.6, so if you don’t have the program, you can read the schematics with Orcad 16.6 Lite, which is free to download. I’ve also printed the schematics to a PDF file. I’m not sure how to open the .pcb file which should be the module’s PCB […]