Linux BSP contents

The Linux BSP that is distributed as part of the Almach - Rapid development kit for DM3730 Computer on Module - eSOM3730 is production ready. The BSP has been used by a number of customers worldwide to get their product in to production. Here are the features of the BSP:

Uboot level

S.No

Feature

Support

Remarks

1

Diagnostics for all peripherals

Diagnostics are provided for most of the peripherals like SDRAM, NAND flash, RTC, micro SD Memory, USB Host, ADC and GPIOs.

Helps during production to check the status of the peripherals.

2

Boot up Splash Screen

e-con systems logo gets displayed on LCD on booting. This is restricted to the size of the display.

The image to be displayed is converted to header file format and added in bootloader.

3

uboot prompt

uboot prompt can be supported on any of the serial ports.

Useful during development when download has to be done or during production when diagnostics has be done. All the Standard uboot commands are supported.

4

LEDS - Software controllable

Yes

The LEDS can be controlled through software and is used for debugging purpose.

5

USB support

Pendrives, keyboards and mouses are supported.

Mouses and keyboards should be connected using USB Hub.

6

Kernel boot options

Supports kernel boot via external SD card, NAND flash and USB pendrive.

User can choose the device from which kernel boots using bootargs

7

Uboot version

U-Boot-2013.01.

The BSP is updated time to time. During purchase, please check the latest u-boot version that is supported.

Kernel Support

S.No

Feature

Support

Remarks

1

Kernel Debug messages

The debug messages shall appear on the serial port.

 

2

Serial port driver

Serial port driver is provided.

Almach supports 3 UARTs for reading and writing through these serial ports. UART 1 is available on Almach board. UART 2 ** can be made available using an add on board. UART 3 is the debug UART which is available on Almach board.

3

USB Host - USB Mass storage

Support for USB flash stick up to 8GB is provided

Tested with Transcend USB flash stick up to 8 GB.

4

USB Host - Ethernet support *

Support for Ethernet over USB

The device exports a network interface and can be accessed as a network device from the PC. Useful when you have socket based applications and you don't have Ethernet communication.

5

USB device - USB serial interface

Support for USB serial interface

The USB device acts like a COM port on the PC and supports the USB serial device class.

6

USB device - Mass storage support

Support for USB mass storage. The device port when plugged in to the PC acts like a mass storage. Any storage devices like the NAND flash or the SD card can be mapped as a mass storage.

Useful for devices like digital camera or any other device where the end user has to just have access to the data storage on the device.

7

USB device - Ethernet support

Support for Ethernet when plugging the OTG port of the device to PC.

The device exports a network interface and can be accessed as a network device from the PC.

8

Cold plug support for USB OTG

Support for detecting devices connected to OTG port on booting.

The USB device can act as serial device, ethernet device and mass storage device when connected to a development PC on power on. It can also detect storage devices connected to the OTG port on power on.

9

SD card - Storage

Supports SD high capacity storage up to 8 GB.

The SD card can have multiple partitions where one partition can be used to store the OS and the other partition can be used to store the file system.

10

HDMI display

DVI display driver is provided.

DVI output is converted into HDMI output and given to HDMI interface.

11

Display - 7" LCD driver

LCD driver support is provided.

Resolution supported is 800x480

12

Touch screen driver

Touch screen driver is supported

The Almach kit supports a capacitive touch screen. Applications for calibration and testing are provided. Supports a resolution of 800x480

13

Wi-Fi

Supports WI-Fi driver

Supports Access Point** and station modes.

14

Bluetooth

Supports Bluetooth driver

Supports RFCOMM profile. Suppport for A2DP **, HIDD **, OBEX **, PPP ** and SDAP ** profiles can be added.

15

Bluetooth Low Energy Device *

Supports communication with other Bluetooth low energy devices.

The Almach board can communicate with other Bluetooth low energy Devices by connecting a Bluetooth 4.0 USB dongle to the Almach kit. This feature has been tested with the TI sensor tag. The sensor tag from TI has 6 sensors namely accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, baraometer, humidity sensor and temperature sensor. Almach kit can read the sensor values from the sensor tag.

16

Camera driver *

Supported as a add on module. Video for Linux is supported (V4L2).

Video for Linux is ported and sample application is provided.
Application can capture images, stream data and capture video. Tested with 1 MP and 5 MP camera. Also tested with USB Video Class camera modules.

17

NAND flash - Storage

The device will appear as a storage device. Supports up to 1GB in storage

NAND Flash supports UBIFS file system.

18

I2C

Yes provided.

The PMIC is connected via I2C interface. The esom3730 controls the RTC, MADC, audio interfaces presentin PMIC via I2C protocol. Camera and Touch screen are also controlled by I2C protocol.

19

MADC driver

Analog to Digital Convertor driver is provided

Tested channels 0 and 2

20

Audio

Audio driver is provided.

Tested by playing .wav files. Also supports audio Recording.

21

GPIO driver

Supports configuring GPIO direction, receiving input, toggling GPIOs, etc

22

Frequency scaling

Binaries are provided for dynamic CPU Frequency switching

Supported frequencies are 300 MHz, 600 MHz, 800 MHz and 1 GHz.

23

Kernel version

Supports linux kernel versions 3.8.0 and 3.13.0

Please check with e-con during purchase for any release updates.

File system support

S.No

Feature

Support

Remarks

1

File system in SD card

Supports ext3 and FAT file system

Root file system is present in ext3 formatted partition of sd card. The boot binaries namely MLO, u-boot.img and uImage are present in FAT formatted partition of SD card.

2

NAND flash file system ***

UBIFS file system is supported.

rootfs.ubi is the root file system in UBI format and is flashed in NAND's fifth partition

3

File system in pendrive

Supports ext3 and FAT file system

Root file system can also be mounted from pendrive by formatting a pendrive to ext3 file system. The pendrive can also be used to boot kernel image if the image (uImage) is present in pendrive with FAT format.

User interfaces and Build environment

S.No

Feature

Support

Remarks

1

Command line interface

Busybox is supported

Busybox version 1.21.1 is supported

2

Build environment

e-con's build script

The build script is a shell script that downloads source, applies patches, configures and builds the sources. It also builds a single sd card image which can be dumped to sd card.

3

Arm Linux GCC version

4.6.1

Code sourcery toolchain

4

Host PC

Ubuntu 12.04 or later

Supports both 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems

* - Available as add on solution
** - to be released on request basis
*** - NAND Flash Partitions

S.No Partition Name Binary stored
1

X-Loader

MLO

2

U-Boot

u-boot.img

3

U-Boot Env

U-boot environmental variables

4

Kernel

uImage

5

File system

UBIFS file system -> rootfs.ubi