topic Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs in i.MX Processors

Freescale ARM9 MCUs

hityou123 — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:46:47 GMT

I am exploring Freescale MCUs that can run embedded Linux, but cost less and MCUs that can RTOS like eCOS.

What is the Freescale ARM9 controller family?
Is it i.MX series.

Any equivalent or similar part to the ATmel ARM9 MCU - AT91SAM9G15,25 ?

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

4guin4g4 — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:56:45 GMT

i.MX6 is our ARM-A9, featuring a Single, Dual and Quad cored SoC's, Running Linux or Android.

www.Freescale.com/imx6

There is a very wide portfolio of ARM based MCU's, running RTOS, such as MQX:

www.Freescale.com/Kinetis

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

hityou123 — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:07:56 GMT

Carlos, the iMX6 is really good, but very expensive.

The iMX25 is also ARM9, correct?

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

bfac — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:34:52 GMT

Hello hityou123.

As for ARM9 MPUs, our family of iMX2x is one of the lowest cost solutions in the market.

You should check these 3 devices:

iMX233: Lowest cost, integrated PMIC.

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/taxonomy.jsp?code=IMX23_FAMILY

iMX28: Very low cost, integrated PMIC, dual ETH, dua USB, dual CAN.

i.MX28 Processors</TITLE> <meta name="Keywords" content="power management, ethernet, usb, i.mx28…

iMX25: Many integrated security peripherals.

i.MX25 Multimedia Applications Processors</TITLE> <meta name="Keywords" content="i.mx25 family, …

If you can pay a couple of dollars more, I would recommend you to look at iMX6SL:

i.MX6SL Product Summary Page

If you need you need a low-cost full-featured solution, go for iMX28.

As for the MCU part for your question, I would also be glad to help, could you provide more information on the required features? USB, ETH, DDR, NAND, Segment LCD, Graphical LCD, Minimum internal flash and RAM, and any others...

BR,

Bruno

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

hityou123 — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:47:46 GMT

I checked the iMX280. This comes really close to our existing MCU.

The features I need are-

I2C 2x

SPI 4x

UART 4x

MicroSD interface

Ethernet

DDR2 (must support more than 4 banks)

NAND

MCU speed 400MHz or greater

Capable of running embedded Linux

Question about imx28 - Does it need only 5V supply, the 3.3V, 1.8V, 1V is derived inside the MCU?

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

bfac — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:38:22 GMT

Great,

It seems iMX28 is a good fit for you. I highly recommend it.

As for the supply question, you are right, you just need the 5V input, additionally you could use a high-capacity battery input and/or a coin battery input for the RTC.

As for Kinetis MCUs, they cannot run Linux as they don't have a MMU, they can run uC Linux though and many RTOS available in the market, in case you want to explore that more, per your features requirements, I would recommend K60 in 2 different versions:

K60 100MHz - will give you everything but the 400MHz, DDR and NAND controller.

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=K60_100&nodeId=01624698C9DE2DDDAF

K60 120MHz - gives everything you require but the 400MHz.

K60_120 Product Summary Page

As for RTOS, as Carlos already mentioned, Kinetis comes with a +15 year old commercial, free of charge RTOS, called MQX, that also includes Ethernet, USB, File System and IO drivers on the same package, the full-featured basic package is free for use with Kinetis MCUs.

Freescale MQX&#8482; Software Solutions Product Summary Page

There are specific forums for those solutions, you may want to take a look:

MQX: MQX Software Solutions

Kinetis: Kinetis Microcontrollers

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

hityou123 — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:59:26 GMT

Great. With 5V input, I can get 3.3V, 1.8V and 1.5V?

The datasheet also recommended using the Vout from imx to power NAND and DDR?

But can the MCU supply enough current for these devices(assuming worst case consumption.

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

Yuri — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:30:56 GMT

AN4199 explains and provides recommendations about power supply features of the i.MX28.

http://cache.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/app_note/AN4199.pdf?fsrch=1&sr=1

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

hityou123 — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:17:29 GMT

A few more questions -

Can the iMX280 run embedded linux 3.2.6 and 3.4.x

After using up all the peripherals mentioned below, how many GPIOs will be left?

I2C 2x

SPI 4x

UART 4x

MicroSD interface

Ethernet

DDR2 (must support more than 4 banks)

NAND

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

fabio_estevam — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:35:15 GMT

mx28 is supported in the mainline kernel (as of today the latest kernel is 3.9) and all the peripherals you mentioned are already supported.

You need to review the IOMUX of this processor to understand the pin conflicts and which interfaces can run at the same time.

Regards,

Fabio Estevam

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

bfac — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:35:59 GMT

Hello hityou123,

On the GPIOs questions, please take a look at the IOMUX tool, it will help you defining the best IO configuration for your application:https://www.freescale.com/webapp/Download?colCode=IO_MUX_TOOL&appType=license&location=null&fpsp=1&WT_TYPE=Snippets,%20B…

All the available software and hardware tools for iMX28 are available on the website:

i.MX28 Software and Development Tool Resources Product Summary Page

Att,

Bruno

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

hityou123 — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:39:10 GMT

Fabio, what is mainline kernel ?

When you say it supports mainline kernel, does it mean all the kernels up to the latest are supported.

I am a hardware engineer. My knowledge of linux is limited.

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

fabio_estevam — Fri, 03 May 2013 19:01:00 GMT

By mainline kernel I mean the official Linux kernel source code available at: The Linux Kernel Archives

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

hityou123 — Fri, 03 May 2013 19:09:14 GMT

Great! So it can support all the releases like 3.2.44 and 3.6.1 ?

Re: Freescale ARM9 MCUs

fabio_estevam — Fri, 03 May 2013 19:17:42 GMT

3.2 and 3.6 kernels have mx28 support, but I would recommend going to the latest version instead.