"96boards vs. brothers: evaluation of Qualcomm dragonboard 410C development board
background
Since the raspberry school became popular, many manufacturers have begun to focus on the field of open-source hardware boards. However, the development boards are not updated and iterated as fast as the consumer electronics we usually contact, such as mobile phones. This is a market accumulated over time, so that the current market situation is that although there are many open-source hardware boards, the specifications are not unified, and it looks like a bright future, In fact, there is too much false fire, which not only makes manufacturers designing open-source hardware boards, such as ants on the hot pot, anxious, but also makes students and engineers who really want to learn and understand open-source hardware timid and do not know how to choose an open-source hardware board suitable for themselves. Recently, aiban.com got a special board from lemaker, which is the world's first open-source hardware board hikey based on Kirin 620 that meets the design specification of 96boards.
96what are boards
Speaking of 96boards design specification, this is the open source hardware standard formulated by arm, the most perfect leader in the global mobile processor platform ecosystem, and members of linaro organization. Among them, 96boards is divided into consumer version and enterprise version. This paper mainly discusses the consumer version.
Linaro is a non-profit open source code organization, established in March 2010 by semiconductor manufacturers such as arm, (NXP) Freescale, IBM, Samsung, St Ericsson and Texas Instruments (TI). It mainly carries out relevant software development and testing based on ARM core, and shares these development achievements for the industry for the first time.
96boards is the arm open platform specification and the first open specification to define the cortex-a development board. The name 96boards is intended to explain the board that includes "32-bit + 64 bit".
96boards consumer version specification simplifies product development based on arm cortex-a processor and open source operating system (including Linux and Android), specifies an exquisite appearance size of circuit board, standardizes and expands peripheral I / O bus, display and camera (WiFi, ble, USB, microSD, HDMI), and defines the location standard of on-board connector. The specification also defines the technical standards for high-speed and low-speed peripheral interfaces, allows the expansion of motherboard functions by adding daughter boards, allows the hardware ecosystem to develop products with a series of compatible components, which can be used on any 96boards compatible platform in its life cycle, and linaro organization will also comprehensively promote the development boards that meet the 96boards standard formulated by linaro, And the hikey we got is one of them. I believe all netizens and engineers are very curious about what the hikey development board looks like and what are its characteristics? Let's take a direct look at the true features of lemaker's hikey open source hardware board.
Hikey development board hardware overview
The hikey development board is small and exquisite in package, with information such as lemiko version and single board computer printed on the front. The hikey obtained by aiban.com is a 1GB ram version, which costs US $79 abroad. In addition, hikey also has a high configuration version of 2GB ram version, which costs US $109. Therefore, if the user does not have special needs for ram, the 1GB ram version is more affordable and cost-effective.
When you open the package of hikey, the interior is also very compact. In addition to the hikey motherboard, there is only one instruction manual and an interface conversion line with different specifications of power supply. This is very good. Often, the wrong DC jack interface seat is a headache. However, the board does not have a microusb power supply interface, Engineers who are used to microusb power supply interface will feel it is not very convenient. After all, the board does not come with a power adapter by default.
The hikey development board is a black PCB board, 85mm * 55mm, the size of the credit card in our life. The overall sense is very exquisite.
Recommended for single board computer development board:
PandaBoard A development platform of low-power and low-cost single board computer based on Texas Instruments omap4430 system on chip (SOC).
Svtronics omap5432 evaluation board is based on cortex-a15. Cortex-m4 is applicable to human-machine interface (HMI), portable data terminal (PDT), digital signs and medical monitoring terminal equipment.
Atom e3815 single board computer is based on e3815 mobile processor, which is suitable for portable medical equipment, industrial control system and on-board information and entertainment (IVI) system.
Hikey is the first open source hardware board that adopts Kirin 620 and meets the design specification of 96boards. It carries 1GB lpddr3 RAM (2G optional), 8GB EMMC flash, WiFi / BT module, microSD card holder, HDMI interface, three USB host interfaces (one of which supports OTG function), 40pin low-speed expansion interface, 60pin high-speed expansion interface, 8 ~ 18V DC power supply interface, etc, The specific resource distribution is shown in the figure below.
Overview of hikey onboard resources:
Kirin 620 SOC, 8-core arm cortex-a53 processor, maximum frequency 1.2Ghz, arm Mali t450-mp4 GPU
1GB LPDDR3@800MHz (2G ram optional), 8GB EMMC
3 x USB2.0 host (one of which supports USB OTG), microSD card holder, HDMI
WiFi / ble module, Wi Fi 802.11 B / g / N 2.4GHz, dual-mode Bluetooth
40pin low-speed expansion interface, including + 1.8V, + 5V and sys_ DCIN, GND, UART, I2C, SPI, PCM, PWM,GPIO x12
60pin high-speed expansion interface, including SDIO and Mipi_ DSI, MIPI_ CSI, I2C , USB2.1
Hikey support 8~ 18V@3A Power supply can ensure very large input power. Therefore, it is not difficult to infer that various powerful peripheral resources can be added to hikey development board. Compared with other open-source hardware boards we are familiar with, such as raspberry pie, hikey's biggest difference is that the wired Ethernet port is removed, This should take into account the increasingly prosperous wireless network environment and the size of its own exquisite and compact board. It is difficult to accommodate an Ethernet port occupying a large space. In addition, hikey board is also equipped with EMMC storage, which also saves engineers from having to use microSD card to start the system.
The first mock exam is that the first mock exam is based on WiFi/BLE, but there are few Hikey cards in WiFi/. The integrated Bluetooth is dual mode bluetooth and low power Bluetooth, WL1835MOD.
Of course, speaking of the many advantages of hikey, in my opinion, there are also many deficiencies. For example, there are only two USB host interfaces + one USB OTG interface, which is not enough for the peripherals of USB interface. USB hub needs to be expanded. In addition, although hikey board has expanded 40pin low-speed expansion interface and 60pin high-speed expansion interface, It seems that there are many interfaces, but the 60pin high-speed expansion interface belongs to the B to B expansion interface (TE pn5177983-2). Users basically can't DIY by themselves. They need to install the special peripheral expansion board formulated by arm, which virtually increases the cost of DIY for engineers.
Let's take another look at the main application processor on the board. This is quite special. Unlike our common raspberry school, which adopts the exclusive application processor of Broadcom, the main application processor scheme of domestic open-source hardware board is nothing more than the products of semiconductor manufacturers such as Ruixin micro and Quanzhi. Hikey adopts the Kirin 620 of Huawei Hisilicon. If it's right, This should be the first time that Kirin chip appears on the open source hardware board, which is quite shocking. What about this SOC? In fact, there is already a vivid example in our life. The glory 5A released by Huawei glory is the SOC of the Kirin 620. Although it is an entry-level Android machine, it can be applied to the current smart phone. The Kirin 620 on the hikey development board should not be too bad.
Of course, the Kirin 620 is just the general name of this SOC. The specific specification and model is hi6220. It adopts TSMC's 28nm low-power process. The BGA package is 653pin, about 12.2mm * 12.2mm in size. From the above figure, under the hi6220 SOC is the supporting Hisilicon hi6553 power management chip. As an SOC that has been applied to mobile phones, hi6220 has a very high degree of integration, such as an 8-core 64 bit arm cortex-a53 processor and an independent hifi2 audio processor. For specific resources, please refer to the datasheet of hi6220 or the following hardware system block diagram, which will not be described one by one in the article.
Recommended for single board computer development board:
PandaBoard A development platform of low-power and low-cost single board computer based on Texas Instruments omap4430 system on chip (SOC).
Svtronics omap5432 evaluation board is based on cortex-a15. Cortex-m4 is applicable to human-machine interface (HMI), portable data terminal (PDT), digital signs and medical monitoring terminal equipment.
Atom e3815 single board computer is based on e3815 mobile processor, which is suitable for portable medical equipment, industrial control system and on-board information and entertainment (IVI) system.
Power on start
Because hikey board carries EMMC storage, correspondingly, a Debian system based on Linux is built in the factory board. We can check the system startup in several ways, such as serial port, HDMI, SSH, etc. When the board is started, you should also pay attention to some jump cap settings, as shown in the figure below
If the auto power jumper is closed, the system will start automatically when it is powered on. If it is disconnected, we also need to start the system by pressing the power button after power on (closed by default); In addition, different startup modes can be realized through boot setting jumper settings. Refer to setting for specific instructions_ Jumper description. Next, we will start the system directly according to the default startup method.
Check the system startup through the serial port cable
First, prepare a USB to serial port cable and connect the computer to obtain the COM port.
Correctly connect GND, RX and TX of hikey board.
Connect the serial port correctly and power on, so that you can see the system startup information printed by the serial port.
After the configuration is completed, we can surf the Internet and update the system.
Viewing system startup via HDMI
This method is simple and intuitive, but it is also the most expensive. Connect the peripherals connected and start them directly.
The startup time is about 30 seconds, and the desktop background is the rendered image of 96boards chip.
WiFi / Bluetooth connection can be set in the lower right corner of the desktop. Graphical operation is very convenient.
After setting up, you can surf the Internet without pressure. The performance effect is better than when you experienced raspberry Pie 3.
You can also use Bluetooth to communicate with other Bluetooth devices, such as mobile phones we usually use.
Recommended for single board computer development board:
PandaBoard A development platform of low-power and low-cost single board computer based on Texas Instruments omap4430 system on chip (SOC).
Svtronics omap5432 evaluation board is based on cortex-a15. Cortex-m4 is applicable to human-machine interface (HMI), portable data terminal (PDT), digital signs and medical monitoring terminal equipment.
Atom e3815 single board computer is based on e3815 mobile processor, which is suitable for portable medical equipment, industrial control system and on-board information and entertainment (IVI) system.
View system startup through SSH
If you connect through SSH, this method must be established only when you know the IP address of hikey. Therefore, before this step, you should start configuring the wireless network through serial port or HDMI and remember the IP address.
Through SSH access, the user name and password are linaro, linaro
Kirin 620 CPU performance test
In addition to the differences between hikey and other open source hardware boards in compliance with the 96boards design specification, what people expect most is the debut of the Kirin 620 on the board on the open source hardware board. After power on and startup, we will actually experience the Kirin 620 SOC according to the test practice?
Check the CPU information through the command. It is the 64 bit instruction set aarch64, 8 core, and the main frequency of the CPU is 208mhz ~ 1.2Ghz
Judging from this parameter, the Kirin 620 seems to be quite ordinary. There is nothing special. It is still the old method. The CPU performance is tested by using the open-source multithreading performance test tool sysbench, and the extreme performance of the CPU is tested to the greatest extent by calculating the time spent on the largest prime number from 0 to 20000. Of course, some other open source hardware needs to be introduced for testing and comparison. The boards to be compared include raspberry Pie 3, banana pie 3 and hikey in this evaluation.
Let's talk about the results first. It's very surprising. The test result is that hikey is significantly ahead, but according to the surface parameters, the Kirin 620 is not so strong. The author is also looking for the reason.
Hikey single core test results
Banana Pie 3 mononuclear test results
Raspberry Pie 3 mononuclear test results
Recommended for single board computer development board:
PandaBoard A development platform of low-power and low-cost single board computer based on Texas Instruments omap4430 system on chip (SOC).
Svtronics omap5432 evaluation board is based on cortex-a15. Cortex-m4 is applicable to human machine interface (HMI), portable data terminal (PDT), digital signage and medical treatment
Our other product:
