BeagleBoard.org® Single Board Computers Featuring OSD335x

At Octavo Systems our goal is to make designing next generation electronic systems as easy as possible. We created our System-in-Package to abstract away tedious parts of electronic design and allow the designer to spend more time on differentiating their system. A fast path to designing your end product is through prototyping with open source single-board computers (SBC’s). Read further to see how solutions from BeagleBoard.org® can make your design better and shorten your schedule. You may even want to use one of their products as is and skip much of your own hardware and software design on your way to a successful end equipment product of your own.

BeagleBoard.org®

BeagleBoard.org® , a customer of Octavo Systems, has several SBC boards that are excellent examples of using the OSD335x SiP in a design. The BeagleBoard.org® Foundation is a 501(3)c non-profit focused on education in and collaboration around the design and use of open-source software and hardware in embedded computing. BeagleBoard.org® has developed a strong and vibrant community around their families of boards. Each of the three boards listed below, feature an OSD335x System in Package and have unique features making it more attractive to certain applications. The boards are extremely easy to use, providing a compact, low cost, open-source Linux computing platform that can be used to build a variety of applications.

Hardware

BeagleBoard.org® products are powerful SBC’s that have key differentiators from other boards available on the market. Built to be easily interfaced to, the BeagleBone® and PocketBeagle® products provide standard hardware interfaces and headers providing easy access to all the features of the powerful Texas Instruments Sitara AM335x SoC within. They are also completely open source hardware. By providing source schematics, hardware layout, a full bill of materials, comprehensive datasheets and technical documentation, BeagleBoard.org® enables a full open-source community. Any device in the bill of materials can be purchased at a standard electronics distributor.

Software

Because the BeagleBoard.org® products listed below are based on the Sitara® AM335x ARM® Cortex® A8 processor from TI, there are many Linux distributions available.  As a starting point for development, we encourage developers to look at the open source Linux image from BeagleBoard.org®.  This Linux image is based on the Debian distribution of Linux and is robust and supported by a strong community.

BeagleBoard.org® Single Board Computers Built Using OSD335x Based System in Package

PocketBeagle®

 

Pocket Beagle OSD335x-SM - AM335x based System in Package

PocketBeagle® is the smallest, lowest cost development board from BeagleBoard.org®. It features the Octavo Systems OSD335x-SM System in Package. Measuring just 35mm X 55mm it provides a tiny embedded Linux System with the performance of the larger BeagleBone® Boards. Great for IoT or Smart Sensor Applications, this ‘key-fob’ sized computer is a perfect platform for systems that are deeply embedded or concerned about size and cost. Designers that want complete control on the different peripherals that are added to the system or those that want to directly add the one-sided board to their systems will also be excited about PocketBeagle®.

  • Includes Octavo Systems OSD3358-512M-BSM System in Package
  • Features
    • $ 25
    • microSD Card Connector
    • High Speed USB 2.0 OTG (host/client)
    • 72 expansion pin headers
    • 8 Analog Inputs
    • 44 Digital GPIOs (18 enabled by default)
    • 3 UART, 3 I2C , 3 SPI , 2 CAN
    • 4 PWM outputs (2 enabled by default)
    • 2 Quadrature Encoder Inputs
    • Access to a second USB port via the headers
    • Many mikroBus TM click boards will work with the headers
  • Hardware Add-on Resources in the form of PocketBeagle® Capes https://beagleboard.org/capes
  • More information, getting started projects, code and documentation at https://beagleboard.org/pocket

BeagleBone® Black Wireless

 

OSD335x - AM335x based System in Package

The BeagleBone® Black Wireless is a general-purpose computer platform with small size and desktop performance.  It is based on the extremely successful open-source hardware design from the  BeagleBone® Black, a low cost, community supported development platform.  Developers can Boot Linux in under 10 seconds and get started on development in under 5 minutes with just a single USB cable.  Featuring Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, the BeagleBone® Black Wireless is perfect for designers looking for a general-purpose platform to prove out their wireless or IoT applications. In addition to the wireless features, the BeagleBone® Black Wireless has HDMI and USB connections. It provides 2 46-pin expansion connectors which are compatible with a large number of the BeagleBone® Black Capes to add new functionality to the board.

BeagleBone® Blue

 

BeagleBone Blue OSD335x System in Package based on AM335x

The BeagleBone® Blue 1GHz Robotics Single Board Computer has rich libraries for robotics and industrial control. The BeagleBone® Blue is drone-ready. Designed with significant community input from the ground up to have all the features that control applications require. This includes servo and DC motor outputs quadrature encoder inputs, IMU, barometer and more. The JST connectors , popular snap in pin-to-pin connectors, make it easy to connect different peripherals and sensors or communications like GPS to complement the existing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and BLE wireless communications available. Complete with a software control library, and other popular open source software compatibility, the BeagleBone® Blue is great for applications ranging from educational robotics to drones to industrial motor control systems

  • Includes Octavo Systems OSD3358-512M-BAS System in Package
  • Features
    • Wireless: 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 plus BLE
    • USB host and client
    • Motor Control
    • Battery Support
    • Charger input
    • Variety of sensors including:
    • JST connectors for expansion
    • 8 Analog Inputs
    • 44 Digital GPIOs (18 enabled by default)
    • 3 UART, 3 I2C, 3 SPI, 2 CAN
    • 4 PWM outputs (2 enabled by default)
    • 2 Quadrature Encoder Inputs
  • More information, getting started projects, code and documentation at https://beagleboard.org/blue

 

 

Additional Resources

BeagleBoard.org® Community: Products and Purchase Links: https://beagleboard.org/

Book:  Exploring BeagleBone®: Tools and Techniques for Building with Embedded Linux 2nd Edition by Derek Molloy: https://bbb.io/@2113

Tutorial Video : System-in-Package Technology: Making it Easier to Build Your Own Linux Computer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri9BXcd4kRE


Now even novices to hardware can build a Linux computer, right at the custom PCB level, enabling you to define your own peripherals, features and form-factor to meet your precise computing needs. Fit a computer into a tiny IoT container or put hundreds of computers on a single board with System-in-Package technology! SiP also eliminates huge chunks of software debug time and removes the need to customize the boot configuration or device tree to get started doing development with a working kernel. Erik Welsh will walk through how SiP integrates heterogeneous processors, memory, and power under one easy to layout package and how it lowers the HW, SW and boot complexity as well as time to production. BeagleBoard.org® co-founder, Jason Kridner will join to show how this technology brings building a Linux PC within reach of the larger community of embedded systems designers.