SABRE Board vs element14 sabre Lite Vs Boundary devices BD-SL-i.MX6

[rohitchandel]

Dear All,

Feeling a bit confused in selecting a board for out of the three mentioned for hobby/learning purpose.

For Sabre board on one hand I get complete support and some sensors on board, price is too high for additions(sensors). Extensive documenation as well as components test sources is the other big advantage, which I can use as it is.

For SabreLite and Boundary devices, I'm not sure I can use all the extensive documentation provided by freescale as well as indivisual component test code as it is.

But these boards are around 50% of the price of the Sabre board. I can even have an LVDS display with touch in the price point of Sabre board.

Other disadvantage with these is that there's no onboard sensors, but theta I guess is not much to be worried since off the shelf sensor modules are available, and should not be of much hassle to use them.

SO my intuition and knowledge tells me to go with one of the later boards....

Do you find anything missing or disagree with my views or even think my analysis(difficult for me since i'm not an HW expert) is not upto the mark....

please comment with your views.

PS: i'm looking for quad version here, as Linux multicore is my target for learning.

[nagladhana]

Hi Rohit,

I do have a similiar question but regarding the expansion capabilities of the board.

On the schematic SPF-27516_CS I see on page 23 that CAN, Battery charging, SPI NOR, MIPI display/Camera expansion port, Audio block, EPDC port, Ambient light sensor, GPS module, xtra Bulk Capacitors,  BlueTooth Connector Isolation Resistors are not populated.

I guess we can use these pins for gpio or any other mux function by tweaking the Device tree file. But main issue which I also find difficult to figure out is that whether or not these SOC pins are brought out in some kind of expansion connector ? If not then it becomes a bit difficult if not impossible to experiment.

The board documentation is very minimal and is aimed at experienced HW engineers. Although a lot of SOC and Linux bsp doc is available.

Hope some expert from Freescale will help us here.... fingers crossed till then :-)

In the meantime you can have a look at another board from phytech if cost is only concern for you:

http://www.phytec.in/products/sbc/phyboard-subra-imx6.html

Regards

Nagla

[sinanakman]

Hi Rohit

AFAIK, that sabre lite from Element14 and Boundary Devices

SL-i.MX6 are essentially the same board.

If your concern is cost you might also consider

Wandboard Quad which seems to sell for US$ 129.

It all really depends on what you would like to do with

those boards. Do you have a "learning project" in mind ?

If you simply looking for a board to build u-boot, Linux

kernel, root fs etc on it and gain some experience in

doing so, then you can probably go with the least

expensive one.

If you are planning to do some HW development you

are probably better off with SABRESD as you will have

all the schematics and gerber files with many interfaces.

Also, if you will be doing any JTAG debugging on those

boards, keep in mind that Sabre Lite would need a 10-pin

JTAG adaptor cable and wandboard does not even have

a JTAG header on the pcb.

If you can explain a bit more in detail what your projects

are people here might be able to help you more.

Hope this helps and good luck with your iMX6 projects.

Regards

Sinan Akman

[rohitchandel]

Hi Akmal

thanks for replying....

I've been working on platform software development(few drivers i2c, spi, WDT, ADC etc) with most hardware details given by HW engineers. So am quite familiar with Linux build system, uboot build etc. My aim here is to get hands on and study hardware interfacing, specifically the ones which I have not worked on till now(display, audio, camera, android sensors).

You mentioned SABRESD... but I guess all other boards do provide schematics ? I dont need gerber specifically as such, since I'm not gonna manufacture anything :-) . Did i miss the point here ?

Ofcourse I'd need access to a few gpio pins, i2c and spi ports. Do these boards have expansion ports where these pins are made available for me to connect additional circuitry ? I did not see a expansion port for gpio/SPI/I2C(like in TI's beaglebone or samsung mini2440 boards) apart from the ones populated for onboard devices.  Do I need to solder to take out these pins out from the board ?

Also if someone could highlight any major differences between the boards. A few which I have noticed(based on my limited experience in reading schematic) are:

1. SABRESDB has onboard eMMC while Lite does not seem to have.

2. SABRESDB do not have CAN interface, while Lite has it.

3. SABRESDB does not have mipi interface(MIPI Display/Camera Expansion Ports not populated)... while Lite has it.

4. Lite does not seem to have a PMIC as compared to SABRESD... what does this IC do anyway ?

I'd like more comments from community to help me out.

Cheers

Rohit