Keystone Electronic Solutions, an electronics research and design company based in Pretoria, has developed an industrial motherboard based on the ARM Cortex A8 800 MHz core processor, running Guinnux, an in-house developed Linux distribution.
Designed for industrial applications, the Black Penguin motherboard offers sufficient processing power for high-end applications and runs both Linux and Android operating systems.
Willie Victor and Francois Louw, Keystone senior electronic engineers, explain: “We were looking for a board that could cater for some of the high-end applications we are planning for our clients, and decided to develop our own board which would give us all the functionality and flexibility we required.
“We researched many options and finally decided on a processor from Freescale (previously Motorola). Freescale has committed to support this processor for the next 10 years, which will ensure long-term manufacturing and software support. It also offers rich peripheral options such as compressed video,” says Victor.
According to the engineers, they received an evaluation board from Freescale and powered it up to see if the manufacture reference hardware would load the Linux and Android operating systems that Keystone uses. Once the testing had proved successful, the firm started designing its own board, removing all connectors not required, and adding its own streamlined connectors.
“The layout of the PCB was a proving ground for us,” says Victor. “We needed to use thin tracks, small holes, small spacings, high layer count PCBs, BGA technologies, high-frequency layout and DDR3 layout. It was quite an achievement for us to be able to place the BGA components in-house. We invested in a BGA rework station for this process.
“A few iterations were required, especially when testing the RAM and diagnostics interface, but we have now successfully installed the manufacturer’s reference Linux, so we have a working proof of concept.”
Victor explains that the team has expanded its development skills through this process, and can now comfortably develop with this level of technology going forward.
Apart from the ARM Cortex A8 processor with an 800 MHz clock speed, the board includes 512 MB DDR3 RAM, hardware video CODEC for multimedia capability and an HDMI interface. Industrial interfaces include USB, RS-232/485, CAN, I²C and a 10/100 Mbps network interface.
Storage options include SPI Flash, SATA storage interface and MicroSD. Power consumption under load is an economical 2 W, and the board has an extended temperature range for the industrial environment.
The next two steps in the development process are:
1. To load Guinnux, Keystone’s in-house developed Linux distribution, on which many of the existing applications run.
2. To industrialise this proof of concept by creating a processor module so that it can be plugged onto any of the customised Keystone application boards. The company will then have a full Gigabyte processor module sitting on a credit-card sized module, which should greatly reduce its development turnaround time for clients.
Says Victor: “Having this processor module running our Guinnux OS will enable us to run some higher-level software such as Java. The specifications also give it a rich set of industrial interfaces and multimedia capability, offering us flexibility when it comes to design. We plan to have the industrialised processor module completed by July this year. It will be released as a new product in the Guinnux family.”
For more information contact Ivan Popov, Keystone Electronic Solutions, +27 (0)12 460 4135, [email protected], www.kses.net
| Tel: | +27 12 460 4135 |
| Fax: | +27 12 460 8719 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.kses.net |
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