Access i.mx6 GPIO pads on Sabre SD

[roelofberg]

Hello,

Question: What's the best way to connect to an i.mx6 GPIO input (and optionally also ouput) pad on a Sabre SD ?

Ideas: Is there maybe a way to abuse pins meant for other interfaces by clever pinmuxing ? Or is there any kind of pin connected to any interrupt (it doesn't have to be an GPIO interrupt, any interrupt would do) ? I noticed VOL UP/DN buttons, maybe this could also be an option ?

Background: To support a management decision we have to evaluate the realtime behavior of i.mx6 processors by connecting a signal generator to a GPIO input (and optionally also a scope to an output) pad. Our evaluation can only be done on the Sabre SD board because we need a certain RTOS that is running a certain application which is available only for the Sabre SD by now. And as an external circumstance we have not enough time to port the solution (BSP and QT5) to another board, like the Sabre Lite.

Thank you in advance.

Best regards,

Roelof Berg

[roelofberg · Accepted solution]

Solution: We will solder a socket to the volume control buttons of the Sabre SD. As socket we take a Molex 53074-810 connector and connect KEY_VOL_UP to pin 2 and KEY_VOL_DOWN to pin 4 - the same way as it is done on the Sabre Lite. This way we can connect our peripherals easily to both devices - Sabre SD and Sabre Lite - in a plug-n-play fashion.