TS-7180

From embeddedTS Manuals
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TS-7180
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Freescale i.MX6ul 696MHz
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Overview

The TS-7180 is an SBC designed for low power systems and is ideal for remote deployment and fleet tracking.

Getting Started

A Linux PC is recommended for development, and will be assumed for this documentation. For users in Windows or OSX we recommend virtualizing a Linux PC. Most of our platforms run Debian and if there is no personal distribution preference this is what we recommend for ease of use.

Virtualization

Suggested Linux Distributions

It may be possible to develop using a Windows or OSX system, but this is not supported. Development will include accessing drives formatted for Linux and often Linux based tools.

Getting Console and Powering up

WARNING: Be sure to take appropriate Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) precautions. Disconnect the power source before moving, cabling, or performing any set up procedures. Inappropriate handling may cause damage to the device.

Get console input by plugging a USB type B cable into P4. Connect the host side to a workstation for development. Console can be viewed before or after power is applied. Boot messages will only be printed once the device is powered on.


The cp210x (USB Serial) driver is included in most popular distributions. This will show up as /dev/ttyUSB0. For other operating systems:

The serial console is provided through this port at 115200 baud, 8n1, with no flow control. Picocom is the recommended linux client to use which can be run with the following command:

sudo picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0

This will output some serial setting information and then "Terminal ready". Any messages after this point will be from the device via the serial output. The terminal is now ready and power can be applied in order to boot up the device. Power is applied through the power connector, CN7. This accepts an 8-28 VDC input.

Once power is applied, the device will output information via the console. The first output is from U-Boot:

U-Boot 2016.03-14506-gfee2f5b (Jan 13 2017 - 12:29:29 -0700)                    
                                                                                
CPU:   Freescale i.MX6UL rev1.1 at 396 MHz                                      
Reset cause: POR                                                                
Board: Technologic Systems TS-7180                                              
FPGA:  Rev 0                                                                    
I2C:   ready                                                                    
DRAM:  512 MiB                                                                  
MMC:   FSL_SDHC: 0, FSL_SDHC: 1                                                 
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment                                
                                                                                
Net:   FEC0 [PRIME]
Press Ctrl+C to abort autoboot in 1 second(s) 

You may break into U-Boot at this point, by pressing Control+C at your terminal; otherwise, what U-Boot does next depends on the "U-Boot" jumper. If installed, U-Boot will check for USB updates, and then drop to the U-Boot prompt. If the U-Boot jumper is not installed, then the "SD Boot" jumper will be examined: when installed, it will cause U-Boot to boot to SD; otherwise, U-Boot will boot to eMMC.

20170224 140329.jpg

Note: The "*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment" can be safely ignored. This indicates that u-boot scripts are not being customized. Typing "env save" will hide these messages, but this is not essential.


Console from Windows

Putty is a small simple client available for download here. Open up Device Manager to determine your console port. See the putty configuration image for more details.

On boards using the Silabs CP210x driver:

Device Manager Putty Configuration

On boards using the Renesas USB CDC-ACM driver:

Device Manager 2 Putty Configuration 2

U-Boot

U-Boot Environment

The U-Boot environment on the TS-7180 is stored in the on-board eMMC flash.

# Print all environment variables
env print -a

# Sets the variable bootdelay to 5 seconds
env set bootdelay 5;

# Variables can also contain commands
env set hellocmd 'led red on; echo Hello world; led green on;'

# Execute commands saved in a variable
env run hellocmd;

# Commit env changes to the spi flash
# Otherwise changes are lost
env save

# Restore env to default
env default -a

# Remove a variable
env delete emmcboot

Accessing the U-Boot Environment from Linux

Recent Debian releases from embeddedTS include the u-boot-tools package, which provides the fw_printenv and fw_setenv commands. They are analogous to the env print and env set commands in U-Boot.

One important difference is that to alter the U-Boot Environment, the boot partition must first be made writable. For an environment in the on-board eMMC, this is how to do so:

DEV_NAME=$(basename $(awk '/^\// {print $1;exit;}' /etc/fw_env.config))
echo 0 > /sys/block/${DEV_NAME}/force_ro

From that point up until when a 1 is written in the above example instead of 0 (or until after a reboot), all uses of fw_setenv will immediately update the environment. There is no need for (nor equivalent to) env save command.

Note that the /etc/fw_env.config provided with our Debian releases expects to find the environment in the boot partition of our boards' eMMC flash. That is expected to match where U-Boot keeps its environment.

U-Boot Commands

# The most important command is 
help
# This can also be used to see more information on a specific command
help i2c

# Boots into the binary at $loadaddr.  This file needs to have
# the uboot header from mkimage.  A uImage already contains this.
bootm
# Boots into the binary at $loadaddr, skips the initrd, specifies
# the fdtaddr so Linux knows where to find the board support
bootm ${loadaddr} - ${fdtaddr}

# Get a DHCP address
dhcp
# This sets ${ipaddr}, ${dnsip}, ${gatewayip}, ${netmask}
# and ${ip_dyn} which can be used to check if the dhcp was successful

# These commands are used for scripting:
false # do nothing, unsuccessfully
true # do nothing, successfully

# This command lets you set fuses in the processor
# Setting fuses can brick your board, will void your warranty,
# and should not be done in most cases
fuse

# Control LEDs
led red on
led green on
led all off
led red toggle

# This command is used to copy a file from most devices
# Load kernel from SD
load mmc 0:1 ${loadaddr} /boot/uImage
# Load Kernel from eMMC
load mmc 1:1 ${loadaddr} /boot/uImage


# You can view the fdt from u-boot with fdt
load mmc 0:1 ${fdtaddr} /boot/imx6ul-ts7180.dtb
fdt addr ${fdtaddr}
fdt print

# You can blindly jump into any memory
# This is similar to bootm, but it does not use the 
# u-boot header
load mmc 0:1 ${loadaddr} /boot/custombinary
go ${loadaddr}

# Browse fat,ext2,ext3,or ext4 filesystems:
ls mmc 0:1 /

# Access memory like devmem in Linux, you can read/write arbitrary memory
# using mw and md
# write
mw 0x10000000 0xc0ffee00 1
# read
md 0x10000000 1

# Test memory.
mtest

# Check for new SD card
mmc rescan
# Read SD card size
mmc dev 0
mmcinfo
# Read eMMC Size
mmc dev 1
mmcinfo

# The NFS command is like 'load', but used over the network
dhcp
env set serverip 192.168.0.11
nfs ${loadaddr} 192.168.0.11:/path/to/somefile

# Test ICMP
dhcp
ping 192.168.0.11

# Reboot
reset

# Delay in seconds
sleep 10

# You can load HUSH scripts that have been created with mkimage
load mmc 0:1 ${loadaddr} /boot/ubootscript
source ${loadaddr}

# Most commands have return values that can be used to test
# success, and HUSH scripting supports comparisons like
# test in Bash, but much more minimal
if load mmc 1:1 ${fdtaddr} /boot/uImage;
	then echo Loaded Kernel
else
	echo Could not find kernel
fi

# Commands can be timed with "time"
time bdinfo

# Print U-boot version/build information
version

Debian

Debian is a community run Linux distribution. Debian provides tens of thousands of precompiled applications and services. This distribution is known for stability and large community providing support and documentation.

Getting Started with Debian

Once installed the default user is "root" with no password.


To prepare an SD card, use partitioning tools such as 'fdisk' 'cfdisk' or 'gparted' in linux to create a single linux partition on the SD card. See the guide here for more information. Note the partition table must be "MBR" or "msdos", and the "GPT" partition table format is NOT supported by U-Boot. Once it is formatted, extract the above tarball with:

# Assuming your SD card is /dev/sdc with one partition
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdc1
mkdir /mnt/sd/
sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/sd/
sudo tar xjf debian-armhf-jessie-latest.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/sd
sudo umount /mnt/sd
sync
Note: The ext4 filesystem can be used instead of ext3, but it may require additional options. U-Boot does not support the 64bit addressing added as the default behavior in recent revisions of mkfs.ext4. If using e2fsprogs 1.43 or newer, the options "-O ^64bit,^metadata_csum" must be used with ext4 for proper compatibility. Older versions of e2fsprogs do not need these options passed nor are they needed for ext3.

To rewrite the eMMC the unit must be booted to SD or any other media that is not eMMC. Once booted, run the following commands.:

mkfs.ext3 /dev/mmcblk2p1
mkdir /mnt/emmc
mount /dev/mmcblk2p1 /mnt/emmc
wget -qO- https://files.embeddedTS.com/ts-arm-sbc/ts-7180-linux/distributions/debian/debian-armhf-jessie-latest.tar.bz2 | tar xj -C /mnt/emmc/
umount /mnt/emmc
sync


The same commands can be used to write a SATA drive by substituting /dev/mmcblk2p1 with /dev/sda1.

Debian Networking

From almost any Linux system you can use 'ip' command or the 'ifconfig' and 'route' commands to initially set up the network.

# Bring up the CPU network interface
ifconfig eth0 up

# Or if you're on a baseboard with a second ethernet port, you can use that as:
ifconfig eth1 up

# Set an ip address (assumes 255.255.255.0 subnet mask)
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.50

# Set a specific subnet
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.50 netmask 255.255.0.0

# Configure your route.  This is the server that provides your internet connection.
route add default gw 192.168.0.1

# Edit /etc/resolv.conf for your DNS server
echo "nameserver 192.168.0.1" > /etc/resolv.conf

Most networks will offer a DHCP server, an IP address can be obtained from a server with a single command in linux:

Configure DHCP in Debian:

# To setup the default CPU ethernet port
dhclient eth0
# Or if you're on a baseboard with a second ethernet port, you can use that as:
dhclient eth1
# You can configure all ethernet ports for a dhcp response with
dhclient


Systemd provides a networking configuration option to allow for automatic configuration on startup. Systemd-networkd has a number of different configuration files, some of the default examples and setup steps are outlined below.

/etc/systemd/network/eth.network

[Match]
Name=eth*

[Network]
DHCP=yes

To use DHCP to configure DNS via systemd, start and enable the network name resolver service, systemd-resolved:

systemctl start systemd-resolved.service 
systemctl enable systemd-resolved.service
ln -s /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf


For a static config create a network configuration for that specific interface.

/etc/systemd/network/eth0.network

[Match]
Name=eth0

[Network]
Address=192.168.0.50/24
Gateway=192.168.0.1
DNS=192.168.0.1

For more information on networking, see Debian and systemd's documentation:

Debian WIFI Client

Note: To use WiFi on this product, the wilc3000 driver must be installed. Run "tshwctl -a 1 -w3;modprobe wilc_spi" before continuing

If connecting to a WPA/WPA2 network, a wpa_supplicant config file must first be created:

wpa_passphrase yournetwork yournetworkpassphrase > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf


Create the file /lib/systemd/system/wpa_supplicant@.service with these contents

[Unit]
Description=WPA supplicant daemon (interface-specific version)
Requires=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/sbin/wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-%I.conf -i%I

[Install]
Alias=multi-user.target.wants/wpa_supplicant@%i.service


Create the file /etc/systemd/network/wlan0.network with:

[Match]
Name=wlan0

[Network]
DHCP=yes

See the systemctl-networkd example for setting a static IP for a network interface. The wlan0.network can be configured the same way as an eth.network.


To enable all of the changes that have been made, run the following commands:

systemctl enable wpa_supplicant@wlan0
systemctl start wpa_supplicant@wlan0
systemctl restart systemd-networkd

Debian WIFI Access Point

First, hostapd needs to be installed in order to manage the access point on the device:

apt-get update && apt-get install hostapd -y

Edit /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf to include the following lines:

interface=wlan0
driver=nl80211
ssid=YourAPName
channel=1
Note: Refer to the kernel's hostapd documentation for more wireless configuration options.


To start the access point launch hostapd:

hostapd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf &

This will start up an access point that can be detected by WIFI clients. A DHCP server will likely be desired to assign IP addresses. Refer to Debian's documentation for more details on DHCP configuration.

Debian Application Development

Debian Jessie Cross Compiling

Debian Jessie previously provided cross compilers via the Emdebian project. However, Emdebian has been unmaintained for a number of years and is no longer able to provide a viable install package. In order to cross compile from a Debian Jessie workstation, a third party cross compiler is required.

A Debian Jessie install on a workstation has the ability to build for the same release on other architectures using Debian binary libraries. A PC, virtual machine, or chroot will need to be used for this. Install Debian Jessie for your workstation here.

From a Debian workstation (not the target), run the following commands to set up the cross compiler. Note that this expects a 64-bit Debian Jessie install on the workstation. 32-bit installations are not supported at this time.

# Run "lsb_release -a" and verify Debian 8.X is returned.  These instructions are not
# expected to work on any other version or distribution.

cd ~
wget http://ftp.embeddedTS.com/ftp/ts-arm-sbc/ts-7553-V2-linux/cross-toolchains/gcc-linaro-4.9-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
# The above toolchain is from Linaro. Other cross compilers can be used but have not been tested.
mkdir cross_compiler
tar xvf gcc-linaro-4.9-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz -C ~/cross_compiler
export PATH=$PATH:~/cross_compiler/gcc-linaro-4.9-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf/bin/
# The 'export' command needs to be run every time the user logs in. It is possible to add this command to the user's ".bashrc" file
# in their home directory to ensure it is automatically run every time the user is logged in.
su root
dpkg --add-architecture armhf
apt-get update
apt-get install build-essential

This will install a toolchain that can be used with the prefix "arm-linux-gnueabihf-". The standard GCC tools will start with that name, eg "arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc".

The toolchain can now compile a simple hello world application. Create hello-world.c on the Debian workstation:

#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
    printf("Hello World\n");
}

To compile this:

arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc hello-world.c -o hello-world
file hello-world

This will return that the binary created is for ARM. Copy this to the target platform to run it there.

Debian Jessie supports multiarch which can install packages designed for other architectures. On workstations this is how 32-bit and 64-bit support is provided. This can also be used to install armhf packages on an x86 based workstation.

This cross compile environment can link to a shared library from the Debian root. The package would be installed in Debian on the workstation to provide headers and ".so" files. This is included in most "-dev" packages. When run on the arm target it will also need a copy of the library installed, but it does not need the -dev package. Note that since the cross compiler used is 3rd party and not directly from Debian, some compile commands that include libraries will need additional arguments to tell the compiler and linker where on the workstation to find the necessary headers and libraries. Usually, the additional arguments will look like the following string, however adjustments may need to be made depending on the application.

 -I/usr/include -L/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -L/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -Wl,-rpath=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf,-rpath=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf


apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev:armhf

# Download the simple.c example from curl:
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bagder/curl/master/docs/examples/simple.c
# After installing the supporting library, curl will link as compiling on the unit.
arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc -I/usr/include -L/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -L/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf -Wl,-rpath=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf,-rpath=/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf simple.c -o simple -lcurl

Copy the binary to the target platform and run on the target. This can be accomplished with network protocols like NFS, SCP, FTP, etc.

If any created binaries do not rely on hardware support like GPIO or CAN, they can be run using qemu.

# using the hello world example from before:
./hello-world
# Returns Exec format error
apt-get install qemu-user-static
./hello-world

Debian Installing New Software

Debian provides the apt-get system which allows management of pre-built applications. The apt tools require a network connection to the internet in order to automatically download and install new software. The update command will download a list of the current versions of pre-built packages.

Older Debian releases are moved to a different server to indicate it is no longer getting security updates. To download packages for these older distributions, edit /etc/apt/sources.list to only have the following lines:

Jessie:

deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ jessie main
deb-src http://archive.debian.org/debian/ jessie main

Wheezy:

deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main
deb-src http://archive.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main

After modifying that file, be sure to update the package list:

apt-get update

A common example is installing Java runtime support for a system. Find the package name first with search, and then install it.

root@ts:~# apt-cache search openjdk
jvm-7-avian-jre - lightweight virtual machine using the OpenJDK class library
freemind - Java Program for creating and viewing Mindmaps
icedtea-7-plugin - web browser plugin based on OpenJDK and IcedTea to execute Java applets
default-jdk - Standard Java or Java compatible Development Kit
default-jdk-doc - Standard Java or Java compatible Development Kit (documentation)
default-jre - Standard Java or Java compatible Runtime
default-jre-headless - Standard Java or Java compatible Runtime (headless)
jtreg - Regression Test Harness for the OpenJDK platform
libreoffice - office productivity suite (metapackage)
icedtea-7-jre-jamvm - Alternative JVM for OpenJDK, using JamVM
openjdk-7-dbg - Java runtime based on OpenJDK (debugging symbols)
openjdk-7-demo - Java runtime based on OpenJDK (demos and examples)
openjdk-7-doc - OpenJDK Development Kit (JDK) documentation
openjdk-7-jdk - OpenJDK Development Kit (JDK)
openjdk-7-jre - OpenJDK Java runtime, using Hotspot Zero
openjdk-7-jre-headless - OpenJDK Java runtime, using Hotspot Zero (headless)
openjdk-7-jre-lib - OpenJDK Java runtime (architecture independent libraries)
openjdk-7-source - OpenJDK Development Kit (JDK) source files
uwsgi-app-integration-plugins - plugins for integration of uWSGI and application
uwsgi-plugin-jvm-openjdk-7 - Java plugin for uWSGI (OpenJDK 7)
uwsgi-plugin-jwsgi-openjdk-7 - JWSGI plugin for uWSGI (OpenJDK 7)
                                                       

In this case you will want the openjdk-7-jre package. Names of packages are on Debian's wiki or the packages site.

With the package name apt-get install can be used to install the prebuilt packages.

apt-get install openjdk-7-jre
# More than one package can be installed at a time.
apt-get install openjdk-7-jre nano vim mplayer

For more information on using apt-get refer to Debian's documentation here.

Debian Setting up SSH

To install ssh, install the package as normal with apt-get:

apt-get install openssh-server


Make sure the device is configured on the network and set a password for the remote user. SSH will not allow remote connections without a password or a valid SSH key pair.

passwd root
Note: The default OpenSSH server will not permit root to login via SSH as a security precaution. To allow root to log in via ssh anyway, edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and add the line PermitRootLogin yes in the authentication section. This change will take effect after reboot or after sshd service restart.

After this setup it is now possible to connect from a remote PC supporting SSH. On Linux/OS X this is the "ssh" command, or from Windows using a client such as PuTTY.

Note: If a DNS server is not present on the target network, it is possible to save time at login by adding "UseDNS no" in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.

Debian Starting Automatically

A systemd service can be created to start up headless applications. Create a file in /etc/systemd/system/yourapp.service

[Unit]
Description=Run an application on startup

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/your_app_or_script

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

If networking is a dependency add "After=network.target" in the Unit section. Once you have this file in place add it to startup with:

# Start the app on startup, but will not start it now
systemctl enable yourapp.service

# Start the app now, but doesn't change auto startup
systemctl start yourapp.service
Note: See the systemd documentation for in depth documentation on services.

To start an application on bootup with X11 instead change the x-session-manager. By default the system starts xfce:

root@ts:~# ls -lah /usr/bin/x-session-manager 
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 May 26  2015 /usr/bin/x-session-manager -> /etc/alternatives/x-session-manager
root@ts:~# ls -lah /etc/alternatives/x-session-manager
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 May 26  2015 /etc/alternatives/x-session-manager -> /usr/bin/startxfce4

The x-session can be modified to only start specified processes. Create the file /usr/bin/mini-x-session with these contents:

#!/bin/bash
matchbox-window-manager -use_titlebar no &

exec xfce4-terminal

You may need to "apt-get install matchbox-window-manager." first. This is a tiny window manager which also has a few flags that simplify embedded use. Now enable this session manager and restart slim to restart x11 and show it now.

chmod a+x /usr/bin/mini-x-session
rm /etc/alternatives/x-session-manager
ln -s /usr/bin/mini-x-session /etc/alternatives/x-session-manager
service slim restart

If the x-session-manager process ever closes x11 will restart. The exec command allows a new process to take over the existing PID. In the above example xfce4-terminal takes over the PID of x-session-manager. If the terminal is closed with commands like exit the slim/x11 processes will restart.

Backup / Restore

MicroSD Card

These instructions describe how to create a bootable SD card image. They assume you have an SD card with one partition. Most SD cards ship this way by default, but if you have modified the partitions, you may need to use a utility such as gparted or fdisk to recreate the table with one partition.

These instructions assume your SD interface is /dev/sdc, but plug the SD card into your USB reader and check dmesg to confirm. On the TS-7180, its on-board SD card reader is /dev/mmcblk1p1.

Running these commands will reflash the SD card to our default latest image.

# Verify nothing else has this mounted
sudo umount /dev/sdc1

sudo mkfs.ext4 -O ^metadata_csum,^64bit /dev/sdc1
sudo mkdir /mnt/sd
sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/sd/
wget https://ftp.embeddedTS.com/ts-arm-sbc/ts-7180-linux/distributions/debian/ts7180-debian-buster-latest.tar.xz
sudo tar -xjf ts7180-debian-buster-latest.tar.xz -C /mnt/sd
sudo umount /mnt/sd
sync

After it is written you can verify the data was written correctly. Reinsert the disk to verify any block cache is gone, then run these:

mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/sd
cd /mnt/sd/
sudo md5sum -c md5sums.txt
umount /mnt/sd
sync

The md5sums command will report what differences there are, if any, and return if it passed or failed.

eMMC

The simplest way to backup/restore the eMMC is by booting to the SD card and then writing the eMMC image to removable media such as a USB stick.

sudo mkdir /mnt/emmc/
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk1p1 /mnt/emmc/
cd /mnt/emmc/
tar -cjf /path/to/ts7180-backup-image.tar.bz2
cd ../
umount /mnt/emmc/
sync

To write a new filesystem to the TS-7180, first boot to an SD card or USB stick. Then re-image the eMMC:

# The eMMC is /dev/mmcblk1.
#
# Ensure the media has an MBR (not GPT) partition table with exactly one partition.
# Re-partition the device with fdisk or gparted if it isn't already partitioned correctly.

sudo mkdir /mnt/emmc/

sudo mkfs.ext4 -O ^metadata_csum,^64bit /dev/mmcblk1p1
# If the above command fails, complaining of an invalid filesystem option, it is fine to omit that flag:
# An older mkfs.ext4 that doesn’t understand it also can’t create a backwards compatibility issue.

sudo mount /dev/mmcblk1p1 /mnt/emmc/
tar -xjf /path/to/ts7180-new-image.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/emmc
umount /mnt/emmc/
sync

Compile the Kernel

This board has a 4.9 LTS kernel, the source for which is on github in embeddedTS/linux-4.9.y. Compiling the kernel requires an armhf toolchain.

Preparing to Build

We recommend building in a Debian environment, whether actual system (or VM) or a Docker container. Here are the instructions for each:

Building under Debian

Builds require several tools to be present your distribution. For Debian:

WARNING: This process may be broken for generic Debian; the commands for Ubuntu should be correct.
su root

apt-get install curl git build-essential lzop u-boot-tools libncursesw5-dev
echo "deb http://emdebian.org/tools/debian buster main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/emdebian.list
curl http://emdebian.org/tools/debian/emdebian-toolchain-archive.key | apt-key add -
dpkg --add-architecture armhf
apt-get update
apt-get install crossbuild-essential-armhf

For Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install crossbuild-essential-armhf git build-essential lzop u-boot-tools libncursesw5-dev

Building under Docker

Debian only provides their cross compiler for their distribution. Our examples will set up a Docker for Debian to use for development. If using Debian 10 Buster directly, or through a VM then the docker usage can be skipped.

Create a file called "Dockerfile" with these contents:

FROM debian:buster

RUN dpkg --add-architecture armhf

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    autogen \
    automake \
    bash \
    bc \
    bison \
    build-essential \
    bzip2 \
    ca-certificates \
    ccache \
    chrpath \
    cpio \
    curl \
    diffstat \
    fakeroot \
    file \
    flex \
    gawk \
    gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf \
    git \
    gzip \
    kmod \
    libgpiod-dev:armhf \
    libncursesw5-dev \
    libssl-dev \
    libtool \
    locales \
    lzop \
    make \
    multistrap \
    ncurses-dev \
    pkg-config \
    python \
    python3 \
    python3-pip \
    python3-pexpect \
    qemu-user-static \
    rsync \
    socat \
    runit \
    texinfo \
    u-boot-tools \
    unzip \
    vim \
    wget \
    xz-utils

# To make a more readable PS1 to show we are in the Docker
ENV debian_chroot debian_buster
RUN echo "PS1='\${debian_chroot}\\[\033[01;32m\\]@\\H\[\\033[00m\\]:\\[\\033[01;34m\\]\\w\\[\\033[00m\\]\\$ '" >> /etc/bash.bashrc

# Set up locales.  Needed by yocto.
RUN sed -i -e 's/# en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8/' /etc/locale.gen && \
        echo 'LANG="en_US.UTF-8"'>/etc/default/locale && \
        dpkg-reconfigure --frontend=noninteractive locales && \
        update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

ENV LC_ALL en_US.UTF-8
ENV LANG en_US.UTF-8
ENV LANGUAGE en_US.UTF-8

In the same directory as the file named "Dockerfile" run:

docker build --tag armhf-buster-toolchain .

When this has finished the docker can be used with:

docker run --rm -it --volume $(pwd):/work armhf-buster-toolchain bash

This will map the current directory to /work.

At this point the Debian Docker is ready to compile armhf binaries. For example, create a hello world in your home folder at ~/hello.c

#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
    printf("Hello World\n");
}

To compile this enter the docker with:

docker run -it --volume $(pwd):/work armhf-buster-toolchain bash
# Then from the docker:
cd /work/
arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc hello.c -o hello

Check "file hello" to verify the binary type:

user@host:~/$ file hello
hello: ELF 32-bit LSB pie executable, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, BuildID[sha1]=8a8cee3341d3ef76ef6796f72d5722ae9d77c8ea, not stripped

This can also be used to develop against dynamic libraries from Debian. The armhf packages can be installed in the Docker. For example, to link against curl:

# Enter the Docker:
docker run -it --volume $(pwd):/work armhf-buster-toolchain bash
cd /work/

apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev:armhf
# Download curl's simple.c example
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bagder/curl/master/docs/examples/simple.c
arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc simple.c -o simple -lcurl

The "simple" binary is now built for armhf and links dynamically to curl.

This will only retain the armhf libcurl package until the docker is exited. To make the changes permanent, add the package to the Dockerfile and rerun:

docker build --tag armhf-buster-toolchain .

Compiling the Kernel

Once your build environment is prepared:

git clone https://github.com/embeddedTS/linux-4.9.y
cd linux-4.9.y
git checkout master

## If you are using the 64-bit toolchain:
export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf-
export ARCH=arm
export LOADADDR=0x80800000

make tsimx6ul_defconfig

## Make any changes in "make menuconfig" or driver modifications, then compile
make && make zImage && make modules

Installing the Kernel, Headers, or Modules

To install the headers and/or objects built above to a board, first create a tarball so you can copy it to removable media or another machine.

The following will install the kernel and modules to a temporary directory, and then pack them up in to a single tarball:

TEMPDIR=$(mktemp -d)
mkdir "${TEMPDIR}/boot/"
cp arch/arm/boot/zImage "${TEMPDIR}"/boot/zImage
cp arch/arm/boot/dts/imx6ul*ts*.dtb  "${TEMPDIR}"/boot/
INSTALL_MOD_PATH="${TEMPDIR}" make modules_install
INSTALL_HDR_PATH="${TEMPDIR}" make headers_install 
tar czf linux-tsimx6ul-"$(cat include/config/kernel.release)"-"$(date +"%Y%m%d")".tar.gz -C "${TEMPDIR}" .
rm -rf "${TEMPDIR}"

This will output a tarball with the kernel version and short git hash, as well as the date the tarball was created. For example: linux-tsimx6ul-v4.9.171-60-g01e2117e-20190823.tar.gz

This tarball can be directly unpacked to the root folder of a bootable media for the device. It is also possible to unpack it directly on a booted system, however we do not recommend doing so on an active deployed system without extensive testing.

# Unpack it to a mounted disk, this assumes the disk is mounted to "/mnt"
tar xf linux-tsimx6ul...tar.gz -C /mnt

# Unpack it to the root directory of a booted system
tar xf linux-tsimx6ul...tar.gz -C /

Troubleshooting

If you experience problems compiling the kernel with the compiler in your distribution, please try whichever of the below toolchains is appropriate for your architecture:

In the case of either toolchain you would run these commands to install them:

chmod a+x poky-*.sh
sudo ./poky-*.sh

5.10 Kernel Compile Guide

Although the TS-7180 is currently shipping with 4.9, a 5.10 kernel is available for testing on GitHub. See below for instructions on building and running it.

A compatible armhf cross compiler is needed for building the 5.10 kernel. We recommend using the cross compiler available in Debian distributions. It is also possible to use our Buildroot repository to build a compatible cross compiler.


Download and Configure

These steps assume a host Linux workstation with an appropriate cross compiler. While on most platforms the kernel can be downloaded, built, and installed all on the device, we recommend against this due to the amount of time, memory, and disk space that can be needed for a build.


Prerequisites

If using our instructions for using Docker to handle the cross compiler, then the Docker environment needs to be entered first:

# Create a place to store the kernel:
mkdir -p ~/Projects/tsimx6ul/kernel/
cd ~/Projects/tsimx6ul/kernel/
docker-debian-bookworm

If the Docker container is not being used, a number of host tools are required to be installed on the workstation:

# Install dependencies for kernel build
# The following command is for Ubuntu / Debian workstations. If using a different
# distribution, please consult distribution docs for the proper commands to install
# new packages/tools/libraries/etc.
apt-get install git fakeroot build-essential ncurses-dev xz-utils libssl-dev bc flex libelf-dev bison
Note: The above prerequisite libraries and tools may not be the complete list, depending on the workstation's distribution and age. It may be necessary to install additional packages to support kernel compilation.

Download kernel repo on a host Linux workstation:

# Do a shallow clone of the sources
git clone --depth 1 -b linux-5.10.y https://github.com/embeddedTS/linux-lts

cd linux-lts/
git checkout add-ts7180-support


Configure environment variables needed for building. This specifies the architecture, the cross compiler that is being used, and to set up building the kernel modules for the WILC3000 Wi-Fi/BLE module:

export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf-  # This may be different if using a different compiler!
export ARCH=arm
export WILC=y


The WILC3000 Wi-Fi/BLE drivers are maintained and built externally out of the kernel tree. Clone this tree inside of the linux-lts/ directory (this is built later):

git clone https://github.com/embeddedTS/wilc3000-external-module/


Next, set the default configuration for this platform. Note that a minimal defconfig and a full-feature defconfig are available. The minimal defconfig contains options for supporting the device and a few common peripherals and technologies. While the full defconfig includes much more support for things like USB devices, a more broad range of netfilter/iptables filter module support, etc.

make tsimx6ul_defconfig

# The minimal defconfig can alternately be used with:
# make tsimx6ul_minimal_defconfig


Build and Install

Note: If using the Docker container to cross compile, be sure to exit the container after the build script below completes! The tarball will be located in the linux-lts/ folder that was created.

The following will build the kernel and modules, and install the kernel, modules, and headers to a folder and create a tarball from that. This tarball can be unpacked to bootable media, e.g. microSD, eMMC, USB, etc., to update an existing bootable disk.

The script below is most easily saved as a text file and run from the command line as a script. Most terminal emulators will accept the whole script copy/pasted in to the terminal. But it is also possible to copy paste each line of text in to a terminal. In any case, the following is an example of how to compile the kernel. The script or commands used can be modified as needed to suit a specific build pipeline.

The script assumes the following environment variables are set before it is run. See the above sections for what these variables should be set to for this specific platform.

ARCH
Used to indicate the target CPU architecture.
CROSS_COMPILE
Used to point to an appropriate cross toolchain for the target platform.
LOADADDR [Optional]
Used on some platforms to tell U-Boot where to load the file.
WILC [Optional]
Set to "y" to build and install the WILC3000 Wi-Fi/BLE external modules.
#!/bin/bash -e

# Always build zImage, most common. If LOADADDR is set, then uImage is also built
TARGETS="zImage"
if [ -n "${LOADADDR}" ]; then TARGETS+=" uImage"; fi

# Build the actual kernel, binary files, and loadable modules.
# Use as many CPUs to do this as possible.
make -j"$(nproc)" && make ${TARGETS} && make modules

# Create a temporary directory to install the kernel to in order to use that as a base directory for a tarball.
# Also creates a temporary file that is used as the tarball name.
TEMPDIR=$(mktemp -d)
TEMPFILE=$(mktemp)
mkdir "${TEMPDIR}/boot/"

# Adds "arch/arm/boot/" path prefix to each TARGET
cp $(for i in ${TARGETS}; do echo arch/arm/boot/$i; done) "${TEMPDIR}"/boot/

# Copy the full .config file to the target, this is optional and can be removed
cp .config "${TEMPDIR}"/boot/config

# Copy all of the generated FDT binary files to the target
cp arch/arm/boot/dts/*ts*.dtb  "${TEMPDIR}"/boot/

# Install kernel modules to the target
INSTALL_MOD_PATH="${TEMPDIR}" make modules_install

# Install kernel headers to the target, this is optional in most cases and can be removed to save space on the target
make headers_install INSTALL_HDR_PATH="${TEMPDIR}"

# If WILC is set to "y", then build the external module for the WILC300 Wi-Fi/BLE device.
# Note that this expects the source to be available as a subfolder in the kernel. See the above sections 
# for details on getting the driver source if it is used on this specific platform.
if [ "${WILC}" == "y" ]; then
    CONFIG_WILC_SPI=m INSTALL_MOD_PATH="${TEMPDIR}" make M=./wilc3000-external-module modules modules_install
fi

# Use fakeroot to properly set permissions on the target folder as well as create a tarball from this.
fakeroot sh -c "chmod 755 ${TEMPDIR};
        chown -R root:root ${TEMPDIR};
        tar czf ${TEMPFILE}.tar.gz -C ${TEMPDIR} .";

# Create a final output tarball and cleanup all of the temporary files and folder.
cp ${TEMPFILE}.tar.gz embeddedTS-linux-lts-"$(date +"%Y%m%d")"-"$(git describe --abbrev=8 --dirty --always)".tar.gz
rm -rf "${TEMPDIR}" "${TEMPFILE}"


At this point, the tarball can be unpacked to a bootable media for the device. This can be done from a booted device, or by mounting removable media from a host Linux workstation. For example, if the root folder of the target filesystem to be updated is mounted to /mnt/, the following can be used to unpack the above tarball:

# Ensure the target filesystem is mounted to /mnt first!

# Extract kernel tarball to target filesystem, 
tar xhf embeddedTS-linux-lts-*.tar.gz -C /mnt
Note: The h argument to tar is necessary on recent distributions that use paths with symlinks. Not using it can potentially render the whole filesystem no longer bootable.


This will correctly unpack the kernel, modules, and headers to the target filesystem which can then be booted as normal.

Features

ADC

The TS-7180 has four ADC channels, whose inputs are available on the P3 connector as AN_IN_1 through AN_IN_4. Each input may be configured to measure voltage in either one of two ranges (0-2.5V and 0-10.9V) or a 20mA current-loop. Voltage measurements outside those ranges can be accomplished by adding an external voltage divider and then also making corresponding adjustments to the scaling applied in the code examples below.

These ADCs are accessed through the IIO layer in Linux. This provides ADC samples up to 6ksps between all channels. The simplest API for slow speed acquisition is through /sys/:

cat /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio\:device0/in_voltage4_raw

To switch to the 10.9V input range, the appropriate enable must be set high. Each input AN_IN_1 through AN_IN_4 has its own enable, EN_ADC1_10V through EN_ADC4_10V, and these are controlled by GPIO #10 through #13. For example, to switch AN_IN_1 to the 10.9V range, run the following command:

gpioset 5 10=1

Note that the result must now be multiplied by (10.9/2.5). Note also that the input impedance will now be around 2k ohms.

To switch to the 20mA current-loop mode, the appropriate enable must be set high. These are EN_CL_1 through EN_CL_4, and are controlled by GPIO #6 through #9.

# Select 2.5V
gpioset 5 10=0
# Asssert EN_CL_1
gpioset 5 6=1
ADC Table
# 'raw' 2.5/10.9V Select 20mA Loop Select
AN_IN_1 in_voltage4_raw gpio bank 5 io 10 gpio bank 5 io 6
AN_IN_2 in_voltage5_raw gpio bank 5 io 11 gpio bank 5 io 7
AN_IN_3 in_voltage8_raw gpio bank 5 io 12 gpio bank 5 io 8
AN_IN_4 in_voltage9_raw gpio bank 5 io 13 gpio bank 5 io 9
Note: The four ADC inputs use the CPU ADC inputs 4,5,8, and 9, corresponding with the 'raw' entries in the above table.

The libiio library provides simple access to the IO. The fastest API is in C which will get about 6ksps.

/* Build with gcc adc-test.c -o adc-test -liio 
 * Gets ~6ksps
 * At the time of writing this does not support the buffer interface */

#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <assert.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <iio.h>

uint32_t scale_mv(uint32_t raw)
{
	/* scale a 0-4095 raw reading to 0-2500 mV */
	uint32_t val = raw * 5000 / (4095 * 2);

	return val;
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
	static struct iio_context *ctx;
	static struct iio_device *dev;
	static struct iio_channel *chn[4];
	int i, ret;
	long long sample;

	ctx = iio_create_default_context();
	assert(ctx);
	dev = iio_context_find_device(ctx, "2198000.adc");
	assert(dev);

	chn[0] = iio_device_find_channel(dev, "voltage4", false);
	chn[1] = iio_device_find_channel(dev, "voltage5", false);
	chn[2] = iio_device_find_channel(dev, "voltage8", false);
	chn[3] = iio_device_find_channel(dev, "voltage9", false);

	for (i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
		ret = iio_channel_attr_read_longlong(chn[i], "raw", &sample);
		assert(!ret);
		printf("AN_CH%d_mv=%d\n", i, scale_mv((uint32_t)sample));
	}

	return 0;
}

The python bindings currently achieve about 2ksps with similar code.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import iio

ctx = iio.Context('local:')
dev = ctx.find_device('2198000.adc')

scan_channels = ["voltage4", "voltage5", "voltage8", "voltage9"]

for n, chan_name in enumerate(scan_channels, start=1):
	chn = dev.find_channel(chan_name)
	raw = int(chn.attrs['raw'].value)

	# Scale 0-4095 raw value to 0-2500(mV)
	scaled = raw * (2.5/4095)

	print('AN_CH{}_V={:.3f}'.format(n, scaled))

Bluetooth

The WIFI option on the board also includes a bluetooth 4.0 LE module. To use bluetooth, it is necessary to first configure the WIFI interface (see Debian WiFi Client). Then, run the following commands:

# Install bluez if it is not already present
apt-get update
apt-get install bluez bluez-tools

hciattach /dev/ttymxc2 any 115200 noflow
hciconfig hci0 up
hcitool cmd 0x3F 0x0053 00 10 0E 00 01
stty -F /dev/ttymxc2 921600 crtscts

Now you may scan for available devices with:

hcitool scan

This will return a list of devices such as:

14:74:11:AB:12:34	SAMSUNG-SM-G900A

You may request more information from a detected device like so:

hcitool info 14:74:11:AB:12:34

This will produce lots of details about the device, for example:

Requesting information ...                                                      
        BD Address:  14:74:11:AB:12:34                                          
        OUI Company: Samsung Electronics Co.,Ltd (4C-A5-6D)                     
        Device Name: SAMSUNG-SM-G900A                                           
        LMP Version: 4.1 (0x7) LMP Subversion: 0x610c                           
        Manufacturer: Broadcom Corporation (15)                                 
        Features page 0: 0xbf 0xfe 0xcf 0xfe 0xdb 0xff 0x7b 0x87        
        .
        .
        .

Bluez has support for many different profiles for HID, A2DP, and many more. Refer to the Bluez documentation for more information.

CAN

The i.MX6UL includes 2 CAN controllers which support the SocketCAN interface, and these are presented on the P3 & P5 connectors (custom populations may differ).

Before proceeding with the examples, see the Kernel's CAN documentation here.

Note: The EN_CAN_XVR# line must be set low, by executing the following command: tshwctl -a 20 -w 1

This board comes preinstalled with can-utils which can be used to communicate over a CAN network without writing any code. The candump utility can be used to dump all data on the network

## First, set the baud rate and bring up the device:
ip link set can0 type can bitrate 250000
ip link set can0 up

## Dump data & errors:
candump can0 &

## Send the packet with:
#can_id = 0x7df
#data 0 = 0x3
#data 1 = 0x1
#data 2 = 0x0c
cansend can0 -i 0x7DF 0x3 0x1 0x0C
## Some versions of cansend use a different syntax.  If the above
## commands gives an error, try this instead:
#cansend can0 7DF#03010C

The above example packet is designed to work with the Ozen Elektronik myOByDic 1610 ECU simulator to read the RPM speed. In this case, the ECU simulator would return data from candump with:

 <0x7e8> [8] 04 41 0c 60 40 00 00 00 
 <0x7e9> [8] 04 41 0c 60 40 00 00 00 

In the output above, columns 6 and 7 are the current RPM value. This shows a simple way to prove out the communication before moving to another language.

The following example sends the same packet and parses the same response in C:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <net/if.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <net/if.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
#include <assert.h>
#include <linux/can.h>
#include <linux/can/raw.h>

int main(void)
{
	int s;
	int nbytes;
	struct sockaddr_can addr;
	struct can_frame frame;
	struct ifreq ifr;
	struct iovec iov;
	struct msghdr msg;
	char ctrlmsg[CMSG_SPACE(sizeof(struct timeval)) + CMSG_SPACE(sizeof(__u32))];
	char *ifname = "can0";
 
	if((s = socket(PF_CAN, SOCK_RAW, CAN_RAW)) < 0) {
		perror("Error while opening socket");
		return -1;
	}
 
	strcpy(ifr.ifr_name, ifname);
	ioctl(s, SIOCGIFINDEX, &ifr);
	addr.can_family  = AF_CAN;
	addr.can_ifindex = ifr.ifr_ifindex;
 
	if(bind(s, (struct sockaddr *)&addr, sizeof(addr)) < 0) {
		perror("socket");
		return -2;
	}
 
 	/* For the ozen myOByDic 1610 this requests the RPM guage */
	frame.can_id  = 0x7df;
	frame.can_dlc = 3;
	frame.data[0] = 3;
	frame.data[1] = 1;
	frame.data[2] = 0x0c;
 
	nbytes = write(s, &frame, sizeof(struct can_frame));
	if(nbytes < 0) {
		perror("write");
		return -3;
	}

	iov.iov_base = &frame;
	msg.msg_name = &addr;
	msg.msg_iov = &iov;
	msg.msg_iovlen = 1;
	msg.msg_control = &ctrlmsg;
	iov.iov_len = sizeof(frame);
	msg.msg_namelen = sizeof(struct sockaddr_can);
	msg.msg_controllen = sizeof(ctrlmsg);  
	msg.msg_flags = 0;

	do {
		nbytes = recvmsg(s, &msg, 0);
		if (nbytes < 0) {
			perror("read");
			return -4;
		}

		if (nbytes < (int)sizeof(struct can_frame)) {
			fprintf(stderr, "read: incomplete CAN frame\n");
		}
	} while(nbytes == 0);

	if(frame.data[0] == 0x4)
		printf("RPM at %d of 255\n", frame.data[3]);
 
	return 0;
}

See the Kernel's CAN documentation here. Other languages have bindings to access CAN such as Python, Java using JNI.

In production use of CAN we also recommend setting a restart-ms for each active CAN port.

ip link set can0 type can restart-ms 100

This allows the CAN bus to automatically recover in the event of a bus-off condition.

COM Ports

The TS-7180 provides three standard RS-232 ports, and one RS-485 port. A fourth RS-232 port is a non-standard option. All of these ports are presented on the P5 connector. The RS-485 port has auto-transmit-enable and an on-board terminator that may be enabled by installing the "485" jumper (adjacent to the RTC battery).

RS-232 ports 1 through 3

UART Linux /dev Connection on Terminal Block P5-A To "steal [1]" TX pin RX pin
UART2 ttymxc1 TX2/RX2 5 6
UART5 ttymxc4 TX1/RX1 2 3
UART7 ttymxc6 TX3/RX3 (unless "stolen") 4 7 8
  1. Writing this value to FPGA address 307 or 308 takes over this UART device for the cell modem or HD12, respectively. While "stolen", this physical RS-232 connection no longer possesses a UART device.
Note: The RS-232 transceiver chip on the board must be enabled before those ports can be used. This is done by running the command tshwctl -a 21 -w 3.

RS-485

UART 485+ 485-
ttymxc3 P5-13 P5-14

RS-485 on the P5 terminal block is accessible via /dev/ttymxc3, unless that device is "stolen" for RS-232 on the XBee/Nimbelink/MultiTech sockets or the HD12 header.

RS-232 port 4 (optional)

Custom boards may provide a fourth RS-232 port on P5, taking over the pins that by default are assigned to the second CAN controller. In this case, the pinout of the additional RS-232 port is:

UART TX RX
ttymxc7 P5-10 P5-11


The daughter-card interface (HD12 header) contains TTL-level TX/RX pins that may be used to connect to a CPU UART, with the caveat that to do so, one of the assigned UARTs must be reassigned to the header. The reassignment is done by writing to the register at address 308 in the FPGA. The table in the FPGA Registers section shows which UARTs may be reassigned. By default, the HD12 TX/RX pins are not connected to any UART.

CPU

The TS-7180 uses a 696MHz NXP i.MX6UL applications processor, which is very similar to the i.MX6 Solo used on the TS-4900. The 6UL has many of the same peripheral IP cores, but it omits the GPU and replaces the ARM Cortex-A9 with a Cortex-A7 CPU to target lower power consumption. Refer to NXP's documentation for more detailed information on the CPU core:

eMMC

This board includes a Micron eMMC module. Our off-the-shelf builds are 4GiB, but up to 64GiB are available for larger builds. The eMMC flash appears to Linux as an SD card at /dev/mmcblk1. Our default programming will include one partition programmed with our Debian image.

eMMC also provides ways to estimate the wear on the module. First, determine your eMMC chipset revision:

root@tsimx6:~# mmc extcsd read /dev/mmcblk1 | grep "CSD rev"
[64446.059203]  mmcblk1: p1
  Extended CSD rev 1.7 (MMC 5.0)

or

root@tsimx6:~# mmc extcsd read /dev/mmcblk1 | grep "CSD rev"
[64446.059203]  mmcblk1: p1
  Extended CSD rev 1.5 (MMC 4.41)

In eMMC revision 5.0 and above, part of the specification includes a way to estimate lifetime of the chipset. For example:

root@tsimx6:~# mmc extcsd read /dev/mmcblk1 | grep -e EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME -e PRE_EOL
[64618.159298]  mmcblk1: p1
eMMC Life Time Estimation A [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_A]: 0x01
eMMC Life Time Estimation B [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_B]: 0x01
eMMC Pre EOL information [EXT_CSD_PRE_EOL_INFO]: 0x01

If you have reconfigured your device as SLC, use TYP_A. If you are using the default MLC setting, use TYP_B. These LIFE_TIME_EST values indicate in 10s of percent how much of the reserve blocks are still available. The 0x1 value indicates < 10%. 0x7 would indicate < 70%.

EXT_CSD_PRE_EOL_INFO can also be used as an early warning indicator.

EXT_CSD_PRE_EOL_INFO values
Value Description
0x1 Normal (< 80% blocks used)
0x2 Warning (> 80% blocks used)
0x3 Urgent (>90% blocks used)

If this is below 5.0, you must use a vendor specific utility. Micron eMMC uses the emmcparm utility. Refer to Micron's TN-FC-25 for the emmcparm utility and related documentation.


Ethernet Ports

The NXP iMX6.UL processor implements two 10/100 Ethernet controllers via external Microchip/Micrel KSZ8081 PHYs and dual RJ45 jacks at the edge of the board. Their MAC addresses will always be sequential and are assigned from a Technologic Systems pool (e8:1a:58 or 00:d0:69).

Support is built into U-Boot as well as the Linux kernel, where standard utilities such as ifconfig/ip can be used to control these interfaces. See the Configuring the Network section for more details. The Precision Time Protocol (PTP) is also supported. For further specifics of this controller, see the CPU manual.

TS-7180-EthernetPorts.png

When the optional TS-DC767-POE daughter-card is installed, Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) may be received only via eth1 (ethernet@2188000 in U-Boot), which is the second port in the picture above.

FPGA

FPGA Registers

The recommended way to access the TS-7180 FPGA's forty-four GPIO registers is with Linux's gpioset and gpioget commands (see: GPIO).

The supplied tshwctl utility may also be used to access these registers; run tshwctl -h to see how to use it.

Internally, the TS-7180 accesses its FPGA registers over the 6UL's I2C bus 3. You should only need to do this in programming environments that lack both of those methods mentioned above. The FPGA is available at I2C addresses 0x28-0x2f. First write the address (which is two bytes wide), followed by the data, which is one byte.

The tables below lists all FPGA registers and their functions.

FPGA Registers
Address Bits Description
0-43[1] 7:3 Reserved (Write 0)
2 GPIOn Input Data
1 GPIOn Output Data
0 GPIOn Output Enable
307 7:3 Reserved (Write 0)
2:0 XBee/Nimbelink/MultiTech Cell-modem UART selector (default: 0)
Value Function
0 Leave disconnected
1 Steal UART3 (ttymxc2) from BT
2 Steal UART4 (ttymxc3) from RS-485
3 Steal UART6 (ttymxc5) from RS-232 (on P5 pins 10/11)
4 Steal UART7 (ttymxc6) from RS-232 (on P5 pins 7/8)
5 Steal UART8 (ttymxc7) from GPS
308 7:3 Reserved (Write 0)
2:0 HD12 UART selector (default: 0)
Value Function
0 Leave disconnected
1 Steal UART3 (ttymxc2) from BT
2 Steal UART4 (ttymxc3) from RS-485
3 Steal UART6 (ttymxc5) from RS-232 (on P5 pins 10/11)
4 Steal UART7 (ttymxc6) from RS-232 (on P5 pins 7/8)
5 Steal UART8 (ttymxc7) from GPS
309 0 PWM control[2]
310 7:0 GPIO chip 0/pin 18 (SPARE_1) MUX[3]
(1 = connected, 0 = ignored)
Bit Enable
0 DIG_IN_1
1 DIG_IN_2
2 DIG_IN_3
3 DIG_IN_4
4 DIO_1_IN
5 DIO_2_IN
6 DIO_3_IN
7 DIO_4_IN
311 7:0 Polarity into GPIO chip 0/pin 18 (SPARE_1) MUX[3]
Bit Active High EN
0 DIG_IN_1
1 DIG_IN_2
2 DIG_IN_3
3 DIG_IN_4
4 DIO_1_IN
5 DIO_2_IN
6 DIO_3_IN
7 DIO_4_IN
  1. Each address value corresponds to one GPIO number (n) in the table below.
  2. Write 1 to this address to route the CPU PWM to DIO_1
  3. 3.0 3.1 Requires a board with FPGA version 16 or later.


FPGA GPIOs

The FPGA's GPIOs are "gpiochip5" in the Linux GPIO subsystem.

FPGA GPIO
IO Number Pad Direction
0 WIFI_RESET# OUT
1 EN_WIFI_PWR OUT
2 EN_YEL_LED# OUT
3 EN_GREEN_LED# OUT
4 EN_RED_LED# OUT
5 EN_BLUE_LED# OUT
6 EN_CL_1 OUT
7 EN_CL_2 OUT
8 EN_CL_3 OUT
9 EN_CL_4 OUT
10 EN_ADC1_10V OUT
11 EN_ADC2_10V OUT
12 EN_ADC3_10V OUT
13 EN_ADC4_10V OUT
14 EN_SD_POWER OUT
15 EN_USB_HOST_5V OUT
16 EN_OFF_BD_5V OUT
17 EN_CELL_MODEM_PWR OUT
18 EN_NIMBEL_3.3V OUT
19 EN_GPS_PWR# OUT
20 EN_CAN_XVR# OUT
21 EN_232_XVR OUT
22 EN_LS_OUT_1 OUT
23 EN_LS_OUT_2 OUT
24 EN_LS_OUT_3 OUT
25 EN_LS_OUT_4 OUT
26 EN_LS_OUT_5 OUT
27 EN_LS_OUT_6 OUT
28 EN_LS_OUT_7 OUT
29 MT_RESET# [1] OUT
30 Unused n/a
31 Unused n/a
32 DIG_IN_1 IN
33 DIG_IN_2 IN
34 DIG_IN_3 IN
35 DIG_IN_4 IN
36 SD_BOOT_JMP# IN
37 DIO_IN_1 IN
38 DIO_IN_2 IN
39 DIO_IN_3 IN
40 DIO_IN_4 IN
41 DIO_IN_5 IN
42 DIO_IN_6 IN
43 DIO_IN_7 IN
  1. Requires a board with FPGA version 16 or later.

FRAM

This platform supports a soldered-down, non-volatile Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) device. The Cypress FM25L16B is a 2 KiB FRAM device in a configuration not unlike an SPI EEPROM. The nature of FRAM means it is non-volatile, incredibly fast to write, and is specified with 100 trillion read/write cycles (per each of the 256 sequential 8 byte rows) with a 150 year data retention at temperatures below 65 °C. The device is connected to Linux and presents itself as a flat file that can be read and written like any standard Linux file.


The FRAM can be accessed as a flat file from Linux:

# xxd -a /sys/class/spi_master/spi2/spi2.2/eeprom | head
00000000: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
*
000007f0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0030  ...............0

If U-Boot's bootcount tracking environment variable is enabled, the last byte of FRAM is reserved for storing the boot count, and care should be taken to not overwrite it inadvertently. In U-Boot, the boot count can be accessed with the fram command.

GPIO

The i.MX6UL CPU and FPGA GPIO are exposed using a kernel character device. This interface provides a set of files and directories for interacting with GPIO which can be used from any language that interact with special files in linux using ioctl() or similar. For our platforms, we pre-install the "libgpiod" library and binaries package. Documentation on this package can be found here. This section only covers using these userspace tools and does not provide guidance on using the libgpiod library in end applications. Please see the libgpiod documentation for this purpose.

A user with suitable permissions to read and write /dev/gpiochip* files can immediately interact with GPIO pins. For example, to read the push_sw:

gpioget 2 18 # Returns 0 when pressed, 1 when not

Multiple pins in the same chip can be read simultaneously by passing multiple pin numbers separated by spaces.

This GPIO interface also provides labels for all the I/O. To get a reference from the board of all GPIO run:

gpioinfo

The TS-7180 provides seven IO ports that can sink up to 500mA, or withstand up to 30V at the input. These are available on the P3 connector. DIO_1 through DIO_7 appear as GPIO bank 5 io 37 through 43 (when used as inputs), and as GPIO bank 5 io 22 through 28 (when used as outputs). For example, to read the state of DIO_1, enter the following command:

gpioget 5 37

To drive enable the 500mA sink, enter the following command:

gpioset 5 22=1
gpiochip0 - 32 lines:
	line   0: "BOOT_MODE_0" unused input active-high 
	line   1:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line   2:  "I2C_1_CLK"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   3:  "I2C_1_DAT"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   4:      "ADC_1"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   5:      "ADC_2"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   6:   "ETH_MDIO"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   7:    "ETH_MDC"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   8:      "ADC_3"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   9:      "ADC_4"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  10:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  11:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  12:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  13:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  14:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  15:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  16: "CONSOLE_TXD" unused input active-high 
	line  17: "CONSOLE_RXD" unused input active-high 
	line  18:    "SPARE_1"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  19:     "EN_485"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  20:  "UART2_TXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  21:  "UART2_RXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  22:  "CAN_2_TXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  23: "CAN2_RXD_3V" unused input active-high 
	line  24:  "UART3_TXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  25:  "UART3_RXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  26: "UART3_CTS#"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  27: "UART3_RTS#"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  28:  "UART4_TXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  29:  "UART4_RXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  30:  "UART5_TXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  31:  "UART5_RXD"       unused   input  active-high 
gpiochip1 - 32 lines:
	line   0: "ENET1_RX_DATA0" unused input active-high 
	line   1: "ENET1_RX_DATA1" unused input active-high 
	line   2: "ENET1_RX_EN" unused input active-high 
	line   3: "ENET1_TX_DATA0" unused input active-high 
	line   4: "ENET1_TX_DATA1" unused input active-high 
	line   5: "ENET1_TX_EN" unused input active-high 
	line   6: "ENET1_TX_CLK" unused input active-high 
	line   7: "ENET1_RX_ER" unused input active-high 
	line   8: "ENET2_RX_DATA0" unused input active-high 
	line   9: "ENET2_RX_DATA1" unused input active-high 
	line  10: "ENET2_RX_EN" unused input active-high 
	line  11: "ENET2_TX_DATA0" unused input active-high 
	line  12: "ENET2_TX_DATA1" unused input active-high 
	line  13: "ENET2_TX_EN" unused input active-high 
	line  14: "ENET2_TX_CLK" unused input active-high 
	line  15: "ENET2_RX_ER" unused input active-high 
	line  16:     "SD_CMD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  17:     "SD_CLK"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  18:      "SD_D0"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  19:      "SD_D1"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  20:      "SD_D2"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  21:      "SD_D3"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  22:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  23:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  24:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  25:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  26:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  27:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  28:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  29:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  30:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  31:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
gpiochip2 - 32 lines:
	line   0: "HD1_SPI_CS"    "spi_imx"  output  active-high [used]
	line   1: "JTAG_FPGA_TCK" unused input active-high 
	line   2: "JTAG_FPGA_TMS" unused input active-high 
	line   3: "JTAG_FPGA_TDI" unused input active-high 
	line   4:      "WDOG#"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   5:  "I2C_3_DAT"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   6:  "I2C_3_CLK"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   7:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line   8: "HD1_I2C_CLK" "scl" output active-high [used]
	line   9: "HD1_I2C_DAT" "sda" output active-high [used]
	line  10: "HD1_DIG_INPUT" unused input active-high 
	line  11: "NO_CHRG_JMP#" unused input active-high 
	line  12: "EN_NIM_USB#" unused input active-high 
	line  13:  "CAN_1_TXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  14: "CAN1_RXD_3V" unused input active-high 
	line  15:  "XBEE_CTS#"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  16: "U_BOOT_JMP#" unused input active-high 
	line  17:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  18: "PUSH_SW_CPU#" unused input active-high 
	line  19: "NIMBEL_PWR_ON" unused input active-high 
	line  20:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  21:  "UART7_TXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  22:  "UART7_RXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  23:        "ID4"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  24: "JTAG_FPGA_TDO" unused input active-high 
	line  25:  "UART8_TXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  26:  "UART8_RXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  27:        "ID1"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  28: "ETH_PHY_RESET#" unused input active-high 
	line  29:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  30:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  31:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
gpiochip3 - 32 lines:
	line   0:   "EMMC_CLK"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   1:   "EMMC_CMD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   2:    "EMMC_D0"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   3:    "EMMC_D1"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   4:    "EMMC_D2"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   5:    "EMMC_D3"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   6:  "SPI_4_CLK"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   7: "SPI_4_MOSI"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   8: "SPI_4_MISO"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   9:  "SPI_4_CS#"    "spi_imx"  output  active-high [used]
	line  10:  "MAG_N_IRQ"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  11: "FPGA_RESET#" unused input active-high 
	line  12: "SPI_3_FPGA_CS#" "spi_imx" output active-high [used]
	line  13:  "SPI_3_CLK"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  14: "SPI_3_MOSI"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  15: "SPI_3_MISO"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  16:      "PWM_5"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  17:  "UART6_TXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  18:  "UART6_RXD"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  19:        "ID5"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  20:   "GYRO_INT"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  21: "6UL_FORCE_5V_ON" unused input active-high 
	line  22: "EN_EMMC_3.3V#" "?" output active-low [used]
	line  23: "EN_YEL_LED#" "?" output active-low [used]
	line  24: "EN_RED_LED#" "?" output active-low [used]
	line  25: "EN_GRN_LED#" "?" output active-low [used]
	line  26: "EN_BLU_LED"          "?"  output  active-high [used]
	line  27: "FRAM_SPI_CS#" "spi_imx" output active-high [used]
	line  28: "SD_VSEL_1.8V" unused input active-high 
	line  29:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  30:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  31:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
gpiochip4 - 32 lines:
	line   0: "POWER_FAIL"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   1:   "FPGA_IRQ"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   2:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line   3:  "GPIO_DVFS"          "?"  output  active-high [used]
	line   4:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line   5: "SILAB_C2_CLK" unused input active-high 
	line   6: "SILAB_C2_DATA" unused input active-high 
	line   7: "SILAB_C2_RESET" unused input active-high 
	line   8:    "SPARE_4"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   9:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  10:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  11:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  12:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  13:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  14:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  15:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  16:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  17:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  18:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  19:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  20:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  21:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  22:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  23:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  24:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  25:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  26:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  27:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  28:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  29:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  30:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  31:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
gpiochip5 - 64 lines:
	line   0: "WIFI_RESET#" unused output active-high 
	line   1: "EN_WIFI_PWR" unused output active-high 
	line   2:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line   3:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line   4:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line   5:   "FRAM_WP#"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   6:    "EN_CL_1"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   7:    "EN_CL_2"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   8:    "EN_CL_3"       unused   input  active-high 
	line   9:    "EN_CL_4"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  10: "EN_ADC1_10V" unused input active-high 
	line  11: "EN_ADC2_10V" unused input active-high 
	line  12: "EN_ADC3_10V" unused input active-high 
	line  13: "EN_ADC4_10V" unused input active-high 
	line  14: "EN_SD_POWER" "?" output active-high [used]
	line  15: "EN_USB_HOST_5V" unused input active-high 
	line  16: "EN_OFF_BD_5V" unused input active-high 
	line  17: "EN_AUX_PWR"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  18: "EN_NIMBEL_3.3V" unused input active-high 
	line  19: "EN_GPS_PWR#" unused input active-high 
	line  20: "EN_CAN_XVR#" "en-can" output active-high [used]
	line  21: "EN_232_XVR"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  22: "EN_LS_OUT_1" unused input active-high 
	line  23: "EN_LS_OUT_2" unused input active-high 
	line  24: "EN_LS_OUT_3" unused input active-high 
	line  25: "EN_LS_OUT_4" unused input active-high 
	line  26: "EN_LS_OUT_5" unused input active-high 
	line  27: "EN_LS_OUT_6" unused input active-high 
	line  28: "EN_LS_OUT_7" unused input active-high 
	line  29:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  30:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  31:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  32:   "DIG_IN_1"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  33:   "DIG_IN_2"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  34:   "DIG_IN_3"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  35:   "DIG_IN_4"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  36: "SD_BOOT_JMP#" unused input active-high 
	line  37:   "DIO_1_IN"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  38:   "DIO_2_IN"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  39:   "DIO_3_IN"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  40:   "DIO_4_IN"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  41:   "DIO_5_IN"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  42:   "DIO_6_IN"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  43:   "DIO_7_IN"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  44:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  45:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  46:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  47:         "N7"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  48:         "P7"       unused   input  active-high 
	line  49:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  50:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  51:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  52:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  53:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  54:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  55:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  56:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  57:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  58:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  59:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  60:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  61:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  62:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 
	line  63:      unnamed       unused   input  active-high 

GPIOs into the CPU, such as those on the push switch near the row of LEDs (PUSH_SW_CPU#) and internal headers can generate interrupts and be used with gpiomon(1):

root@tsimx6:~# gpiomon 2 18
event: FALLING EDGE offset: 18 timestamp: [1643650592.848516846]
event:  RISING EDGE offset: 18 timestamp: [1643650593.225238304]
^Croot@tsimx6:~# 

One way of turning that into something useful would be by running it in a shell script:

while true ; do
      event=$(gpiomon --num-events=1 --falling-edge 2 18)
      echo "received $event"
      # do something
done
Note: DIO lines on the FPGA (gpiochip5) don't have their own interrupts, thus the gpiomon(1) command does not normally work for them.

GPS

TS-7180-GPS-Antenna.png

The TS-7180 has an optional on-board Telit SL869 GPS receiver, accessible at /dev/ttymxc7, through which the GPS provides NMEA strings. An SMA female connector is provided for attaching an antenna.

The GPS power is controllable through a GPIO. For example:

gpioset 5 19=1 # turn on GPS
gpioset 5 19=0 # turn off GPS

By default, the GPS module is powered on when the board starts up.

A typical way of interfacing with the GPS is using gpsd. For example, under Debian, load these packages:

apt install gpsd gpsd-clients -y

Then edit /etc/default/gpsd and enable and/or change these two variables:

# Devices gpsd should collect to at boot time.
# They need to be read/writeable, either by user gpsd or the group dialout.
DEVICES="/dev/ttymxc7"

# Other options you want to pass to gpsd
GPSD_OPTIONS="-n"

Then restart gpsd:

service gpsd restart

For testing, run gpsmon to see lock, coordinates, and time information.

You will likely want gpsd to start automatically at boot. To make this always happen, type:

systemctl enable gpsd

Finally, the following article describes writing clients that interface with gpsd, which can do so from most programming languages:

IMU

This platform can support an MPU-9250 IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) device. This provides a MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer. The physical interface is over an I2C bus, and the controlling software is entirely userspace. This allows for easy integration in to applications and reduces overhead of kernel calls. Support for this MPU-9250 is provided through a project called BB-MPU9150. While it is targeted at the MPU-9150, the MPU-9250 used on this platform is a lower power variant.

The following commands can be used to download, build, install, calibrate, and run the application for the IMU:

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/embeddedTS/bb_mpu9150
cd bb_mpu9150/src/linux-mpu9150/


Build the project:

DEFS="-DMPU9250" make

# If building via a cross compiler, it can be passed on the command line:
CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf- DEFS="-DMPU9250" make

# It is also possible to specify the default I2C bus on the command line:
DEFS="-DMPU9250 -DDEFAULT_I2C_BUS=<bus>" make

See the I2C section for a listing of the I2C buses.


Calibration has two steps, one for the accelerometer and one for the magnetometer. The output of the calibration is saved in the current directory. In order to properly calibrate the IMU the tool must be started, and while it is running, the whole physical device must be slowly rotated completely through every axis. Being slow is key as this process is measuring the effect of gravity on the device for minimum and maximum values. Rapid movements during this time will increase the forces applied and will throw off the calibration. Once all of the axes have been rotated through, press ctrl+c to end the calibration and write the calibration file to disk.

Note the the proper I2C bus number must be passed in order for the tool to communicate with the IMU. See the I2C section for a listing of the I2C buses. If the tool was built with the correct

./imucal -b<bus> -a  # To calibrate the accelerometer, must move slowly
./imucal -b<bus> -m  # To calibrate the magnetometer, can move faster

The calibration tool will output 'accelcal.txt' and 'magcal.txt'. If these files are in the same folder as the 'imu' binary then they will automatically be loaded when the binary is executed.


At this point, the 'imu' binary can be run to gather and display samples of the data. The readings below were taken from a unit sitting flat on a desk after calibration was complete:

./imu -b<bus>

Initializing IMU .......... done


Entering read loop (ctrl-c to exit)

X: 1 Y: 3 Z: 76

For further information on using this tool, the various modes of operation it supports, and developing applications that use it please see the documentation in the BB-MPU9150 project github.

Interrupts

TS-7180 interrupts

Jumpers

The TS-7180 has a set of jumpers located near the SuperCaps on the edge of the SBC.


20170224 140329.jpg

These jumpers control a number of aspects of the TS-7180's behavior. The jumpers are labeled on the silkscreen rather than numbered:

Label Description
NO Charge When jumper is set, disable charging of the SuperCaps. Beneficial for early development and testing.
SD Boot When jumper is set, boot kernel and Debian from the SD card. Otherwise boot kernel and Debian from eMMC. This jumper influences U-Boot behavior.
U Boot When jumper is set, pause booting in U-Boot and drop to a U-Boot shell. Otherwise boot straight to Debian.
CAN When jumper is set, adds a 120 ohm termination resistor across CAN1 H and L pins. (Note: the CAN2 interface always has a 120 ohm termination)
485 When jumper is set, adds a 120 ohm termination resistor across RS-485 + and - pins.

LEDs

There are four LEDS on the TS-7180 that may be controlled by the user through the sysfs interface. These are colored yellow, green, red, and blue.

To turn an LED on, write a 1 to 'brightness'. To turn it off again, write a 0.

# Example:  Turn on the Blue LED...
echo 1 > /sys/class/leds/blue-led/brightness

# Turn it off again...
echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/blue-led/brightness

A number of triggers are also available for each LED, including timers, disk activity, and heartbeat. These allow the LEDs to represent various system activities as they occur. See the kernel LED documentation for more information on triggers and general use of LED class devices.

MicroSD Card Interface

The i.MX6ul SDHCI driver supports MicroSD (0-2GB), MicroSDHC (4-32GB), and MicroSDXC(64GB-2TB). The cards available on our website on average support up to 16MB/s read, and 22MB/s write using this interface. Sandisk Extreme cards with UHS support have shown 58MB/s Read and 59MB/s write. The linux driver provides access to this socket at /dev/mmcblk0 as a standard Linux block device.

This graph shows our SD write endurance test for 40 TS-7553 boards running a doublestore stress test on 4GB Sandisk MicroSD cards. A failure is marked on the graph for a card once a single bit of corruption is found.

Seethe IMX6ul reference manual for more information on this controller.

We have performed compatibility testing on the Sandisk MicroSD cards we provide, and we do not suggest switching brands/models without your own qualification testing. Though SD cards in theory will all follow the standard and just work, in practice cards vary significantly and can fail in subtle ways. We do not recommend ATP or Transcend MicroSD cards specifically due to known corruption issues that can occur after many GB of written data.

Our testing has shown that on average microSD cards will last between 6-12TB of written data before showing a single bit of corruption. This is enough for most applications to write for years and not see any issues, but for more reliable consider the eMMC which is expected to last over 100TB of writes. Higher end SD cards can also extend this, but industrial grade SD cards typically carry a cost much higher than the eMMC.

MicroSD cards should not be powered down during a write/erase cycle or you will eventually experience disk corruption. It is not always possible for fsck to recover from the types of failures that will be seen with SD power loss. The system should be designed to avoid power loss to SD cards, or the eMMC module should be used for storage instead which can be configured to be resilient to power loss.

PWM

WARNING: This requires FPGA Rev 11 or later

The TS-7180 provides a single PWM channel, available on DIO_1 (pin #1 of P3-A). Because DIO_1 is a general-purpose IO, to use it as a PWM output it is first necessary to enable such usage by writing to address 309 in the FPGA, as follows:

tshwctl -a 309 -w 1

PWM devices are available though the sysfs filesystem, they will appear at "/sys/class/pwm/pwmchipX/" where X is the PWM channel number. Due to the layout of the PWM controller, each PWM channel is on a separate chip. Normally a single PWM chip can support multiple PWM devices through linux, however in this case each chip only has a single device; pwm0. This device is not enabled by default and must be turned on manually: can be used to control the PWM.

# Each PWM controller has "1" PWM device which will be PWM channel 0
echo 0 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchipX/export

This will create a pwm0/ directory under each pwmchipX/ directory which will contain the following relevant files.:

period Total period, inactive and active time in the PWM cycle specified in nanoseconds.
duty_cycle Active time of the PWM signal specified in nanoseconds. Must be less than the period.
enable Write 1 to enable, 0 to disable

As an example, this will set a 50khz signal with 50 percent duty cycle on PWM channel 4:

# 20us is the period for 50khz
echo 20000 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip4/pwm0/period
echo 10000 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip4/pwm0/duty_cycle
echo 1 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip4/pwm0/enable


Note: The DIO pins on the TS-7180 have a 1.5k pull-up, which means that the rise-time on these outputs is relatively slow. Therefore, you might need to add an off-board pull-up to get a faster rise-time.

Quadrature & Edge-Counters

Quadrature Counters

The TS-7180 provides three independent quadrature counters. The associated inputs are shown in the table below.

Quadrature
Quad # INPUTS
Quad0 DIG_IN_1 + DIG_IN_2
Quad1 DIG_IN_3 + DIG_IN_4
Quad2 DIO_6_IN + DIO_7_IN


Each of the quadrature counters (which are in the FPGA) is 16-bits wide, and are accessed via i2c. The addresses are shown below.


Quad # MSB LSB MSB Alias
Quad0 96 97 98
Quad1 99 100 101
Quad2 102 103 104


For example, to read the MSB for Quad1:

tshwctl -r -a 99


The MSB aliases are used to detect 16-bit rollover. If the first reading of the MSB is not equal to the second, overflow/underflow was detected during the read.


Edge-Counters, Period-counters


For each input pin, there is an edge-counter, and a period-counter. The former counts the positive edges on an input pin, while the latter may be used to measure the elapsed time between N positive-edges.

Edge-counters are 16-bits wide, and their addresses are shown in the table below.

Edge Counters
Input MSB LSB MSB Alias
DIG_IN_1 105 106 107
DIG_IN_2 108 109 110
DIG_IN_3 111 112 113
DIG_IN_4 114 115 116
DIO_6_IN 117 118 119
DIO_7_IN 120 121 122


Period counters are 32-bits wide, and their addresses are shown in the table below.

Period Counters
Input Byte 3 Byte 2 Byte 1 Byte 0
DIG_IN_1 131 132 133 134
DIG_IN_2 135 136 137 138
DIG_IN_3 139 140 141 142
DIG_IN_4 143 144 145 146
DIO_6_IN 147 148 149 150
DIO_7_IN 151 152 153 154

To use the period counters, it is first necessary to write N (for the number of edges to count) to address 155. This may be done like so:

tshwctl -a 155 -w N

As soon as address 155 is written, counting begins, clocked at 63MHz. After N edges have been detected, the period registers may be read. The frequency of the input may be calculated from the period, as shown here:

frequency = (N * 63000000) / period


Technologic Systems has provided a simple test program for accessing and displaying the values from the quadrature and edge-counters. Download the source tarball here: File:Test-edges.tar.gz

RTC

The TS-7180 includes an ST M41T00S low-power serial real-time clock (RTC) with battery-backup. This is /dev/rtc0 in our images, and is accessed using the standard hwclock command.

SPI

The i.MX6UL CPU has a native SPI peripheral that is used in a number of places on the TS-7180. Additionally, kernel spidev support is added to allow SPI access from userspace. User SPI can be used fora generic SPI connection on HD12, as well as user accessible FRAM.

The ECSPI peripheral in the i.MX6UL CPU is highly flexible and can even support SPI slave mode. For more information on the peripheral itself, please see the CPU reference manual.


The SPI peripheral is accessible as /dev/spidev2.x, where "x" is one of the three chip select lines. Additional chip select lines can be implemented if needed by adding them to the kernel device-tree by using GPIO.

CS Device
0 Reserved for FPGA
1 HD12
2 FRAM

See the kernel spidev documentation for more information on interfacing with the SPI peripherals.

SuperCaps

Note: This section is incomplete at this time.

The TS-7180 has an option to add two 2.7 V 10 F supercapacitors. These two SuperCaps can provide up to 20 seconds of power hold time automatically if the external power input is removed. The Power Fail input signal (see the DIO Section) can be used to determine if the exterior power has been removed or fallen below a valid input level. Using this signal, a proper shutdown can be issued to ensure that all data is flushed from cache to disk, and all disks are unmounted properly.

The SuperCaps charge and discharge is managed transparently by the supervisory microcontroller. A jumper is provided to disable the charging and use of the SuperCaps. This mode is very useful for development to allow for proper power-off conditions without having to wait for the SuperCaps to discharge. The supervisory microcontroller will also not allow the TS-7180 to boot if power input is invalid. If the system shuts-down safely due to a power failure, it will remain in a powered off state until external power is re-applied, or the SuperCaps discharge below the sustainable threshold.

By default, a script is started with systemd to monitor the Power Fail pin, and present all logged in users with a message saying that the power has failed and a graceful shutdown is taking place if the power input has failed. This script is located at /usr/local/bin/tssilomon

Additionally, U-Boot can delay booting until the SuperCaps are charged to a certain percentage, and optionally print the current percentage once per second. These are controlled with the environment variables "chrg_pct" and "chrg_verb" By setting chrg_pct to anything other than 0 (0 means do not wait, which is the default behavior), booting will be delayed until that percentage is reached. Setting chrg_verb to 1 will enable the verbose printing of the current percentage every second. Note that the SuperCaps may be at "0%" for a large period of time, this is due to the charge level being below a voltage that can sustain the TS-7180. See the U-Boot section for information on setting environment variables.

A recommended value is 100%. This value was chosen because it can ensure the system is powered long enough to boot up and safely shut down (and provide an additional 8 s of power) if power is immediately cut once booting has started. Please note that this only applies to the default stock image, any further changes to the TS-7180 hardware or software, such as connecting powered devices like USB or adding additional applications may cause the recommended value to not sustain the TS-7180 until a safe shutdown is completed. The time it takes to reach 100% charge will vary depending on the current charge of the SuperCaps. On average, it will take about 20 seconds to charge the SuperCaps to 100%; this is assuming the SuperCaps have very recently fallen below the threshold voltage to sustain the TS-7180.

TWI

The i.MX6 supports standard I²C at 100 kHz, or using fast mode for 400 kHz operation. The CPU is connected to two I²C buses on the TS-7180.

I2C1 is internal to the TS-7180 and connects to the onboard Silabs supervisory microcontroller at 100 kHz; and to the onboard ST M41T00S real-time clock (RTC).

/dev/i2c-0
Address Device
0x4a #Silabs
0x68 #RTC

The second I²C bus, I2C3, is connected to the onboard FPGA, for communication between it and the CPU. This bus also runs at 400 kHz by default.

/dev/i2c-2
Address Device
0x28-0x2f #FPGA


In addition to the CPU I²C buses, a bit-banged I²C interface is available on the daughter-card interface, using gpio. The following command will instantiate (create a device node for) a new ssd1306 display at I²C address 0x3C:

  echo ssd1306 0x3c > /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-4/new_device

Once this is done, i2c-tools can manipulate the I²C device, or a the downstream developer can write their own client. Technologic Systems has provided a simple client program for writing to an SSD1306 OLED display connected to the HD12 connector. The photo below shows output on the display.

Download the source-code tarball here: File:Ssd1306-demo.tar.gz


Note: It is also possible to request the kernel to bitbang additional I²C buses as needed. See an example here.

The kernel makes the I²C available at /dev/i2c-#, where "#" is 0, 2, or 4. You can use the i2c-tools (i2cdetect, i2cget, i2cset), or you can write your own client.

USB

The TS-7180 has both a Host connector and a Device connector.

TS-7180-USB-Connectors.png

USB Host

The TS-7180 provides a standard USB 2.0 host supporting 480Mb/s. Typically this is interfaced with by using standard Linux drivers, but low level USB communication is possible using libusb.

USB DEVICE

The USB type B device port is connected to the onboard Silabs for USB to serial console.

Watchdog

The kernel provides an interface to the watchdog driver at /dev/watchdog. Refer to the kernel documentation for more information:

WIFI

The TS-7180 uses an Atmel ATWILC3000-MR110CA IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Link Controller Module With Integrated Bluetooth® 4.0. Linux provides support for this module using the wilc3000 driver.

Summary features:

  • IEEE 802.11 b/g/n RF/PHY/MAC SOC
  • IEEE 802.11 b/g/n (1x1) for up to 72 Mbps PHY rate
  • Single spatial stream in 2.4GHz ISM band
  • Integrated PA and T/R Switch Integrated Chip Antenna
  • Superior Sensitivity and Range via advanced PHY signal processing
  • Advanced Equalization and Channel Estimation
  • Advanced Carrier and Timing Synchronization
  • Wi-Fi Direct and Soft-AP support
  • Supports IEEE 802.11 WEP, WPA, and WPA2 Security
  • Supports China WAPI security
  • Operating temperature range of -40°C to +85°C


Physical Interfaces

Internal Interfaces

External Interfaces

Power Connector

The power connector, CN7, is shown in the photograph below. This accepts an 8-28 VDC input.

DSC02589.JPG

Terminal Blocks

The TS-7180 includes four removable terminal blocks (OSTTJ0811030) for UARTs, CAN, ADC, and other general purpose IO.

TS-7180 Terminal Blocks-8.png
P5-A
Pin # Description
1 Ground
2 RS-232_STC_TXD (/dev/ttymxc4)
3 RS-232_STC_RXD (/dev/ttymxc4)
4 Ground
5 RS-232_STC_TXD (/dev/ttymxc1)
6 RS-232_STC_RXD (/dev/ttymxc1)
7 RS-232_STC_TXD (/dev/ttymxc6)
8 RS-232_STC_RXD (/dev/ttymxc6)
P5-B
Pin # Description
1 Ground
2 STC_CAN_2_H (can2 interface)[1]
3 STC_CAN_2_L (can1 interface)[2]
4 Ground
5 STC_485+ (/dev/ttymxc3)
6 STC_485- (/dev/ttymxc3)
7 Ground
8 WAKE-UP / gpio bank 2 io 18
  1. RS-232_STC_TXD (/dev/ttymxc5) depending on option
  2. RS-232_STC_RXD (/dev/ttymxc5) depending on option
TS-7180 Terminal Blocks-12.png
P3-A
Pin # Description
1 DIO_1_IN gpio bank 5 io 37 / EN_LS_OUT_1 gpio bank 5 io 21 [1]
2 DIO_2_IN gpio bank 5 io 38 / EN_LS_OUT_2 gpio bank 5 io 22 [1]
3 DIO_3_IN gpio bank 5 io 39 / EN_LS_OUT_3 gpio bank 5 io 23 [1]
4 DIO_4_IN gpio bank 5 io 40 / EN_LS_OUT_4 gpio bank 5 io 24 [1]
5 DIO_5_IN gpio bank 5 io 41 / EN_LS_OUT_5 gpio bank 5 io 25 [1]
6 DIO_6_IN gpio bank 5 io 42 / EN_LS_OUT_6 gpio bank 5 io 26 [1]
7 DIO_7_IN gpio bank 5 io 43 / EN_LS_OUT_7 gpio bank 5 io 27 [1]
8 DIG_IN_3_STC gpio bank 5 io 0
9 DIG_IN_3_STC gpio bank 5 io 1
10 Ground
11 Ground
12 Ground
P3-B
Pin # Description
1 STC_CAN_1_H (can1 interface)
2 STC_CAN_1_L (can1 interface)
3 AN_IN_1 (ADC)
4 AN_IN_2 (ADC)
5 AN_IN_3 (ADC)
6 AN_IN_4 (ADC)
7 DIG_IN_3_STC gpio bank 5 io 2
8 DIG_IN_4_STC gpio bank 5 io 3
9 5V
10 Ground
11 Ground
12 Ground
  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 These low side switches can sink 500mA. Set the output gpio to 1 to enable the sink, or 0 to disable or read the 0-30V input.

Modem Socket

The TS-7180 has provision for the mounting of a Multitech or NimbelLink modem.

To be completed.

The power to the modem (if installed) must be enabled by writing a 1 to the EN_CELL_MODEM_PWR bit in the FPGA GPIO registers.

Daughter Card Interface

The TS-7180 Daughter Card Interface (HD8) may be used to connect a variety of off-board peripherals.

Signals Pin Layout
HD8
Pin Description
1 VIN
2 POE_78 [1]
3 GND
4 POE_45 [1]
5 GND
6 POE_TX [1]
7 HD1_SPI_CS [2]
8 POE_RX [1]

TS-7180-V3-HD8 Header.svg

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The POE pins can be used with a daughtercard to add POE support to the TS-7180.
  2. This is a 5V tolerant input that can be read through gpio bank 2 io 10. As an output this is connected to gpio bank 2 io 0. The output by default is connected to /dev/spidev2.1. See the #SPI section for more details.

Specifications

Power Consumption

All tests are performed at 12V, with Ethernet, USB, supercaps, SD, disconnected or disabled unless otherwise specified.

TS-7180-SRW9I
Test Average Max
Idle 49mA/0.59W 148mA/1.78W
Idle with one Ethernet connected 76mA/0.91W 139mA/1.67W
Idle with both Ethernets connected 105mA/1.20W 156mA/1.87W
Idle CPU booting with Supercaps Enabled 51.1mA/0.61W[1] 531mA/6.37W
Busy CPU (openssl speed) 113mA/1.36W 156mA/1.87W
Sleep Mode 1.8mA/22mW 58mA/70mW
  1. Draws near peak and approaches typical power consumption over a minute as caps charge.

Revisions and Changes

TS-7180 PCB Revisions

Revision Description
C Initial sampling revision
D All Rev C fixes plus SD card socket moved slightly for clearance.

U-Boot Revisions

Version Description of changes
U-Boot 2016.03-14615-g4047d08843 (Dec 07 2018 - 14:16:47 -0800)
  • Engineering Sample Program release.

FPGA Revisions

Version Description of changes
0x0D: Revision 13. Engineering Sampling release version.

Software Images

Kernel Changelog

Version Description of changes
Linux ts-imx6ul 4.1.15-gf62b81dbcf54 #23 SMP PREEMPT Fri Dec 7 14:53:12 PST 2018 armv7l
  • Engineering Sample Program release.

Product Notes

FCC Advisory

This equipment generates, uses, and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used properly (that is, in strict accordance with the manufacturer's instructions), may cause interference to radio and television reception. It has been type tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class A digital device in accordance with the specifications in Part 15 of FCC Rules, which are designed to provide reasonable protection against such interference when operated in a commercial environment. Operation of this equipment in a residential area is likely to cause interference, in which case the owner will be required to correct the interference at his own expense.

If this equipment does cause interference, which can be determined by turning the unit on and off, the user is encouraged to try the following measures to correct the interference:

Reorient the receiving antenna. Relocate the unit with respect to the receiver. Plug the unit into a different outlet so that the unit and receiver are on different branch circuits. Ensure that mounting screws and connector attachment screws are tightly secured. Ensure that good quality, shielded, and grounded cables are used for all data communications. If necessary, the user should consult the dealer or an experienced radio/television technician for additional suggestions. The following booklets prepared by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may also prove helpful:

How to Identify and Resolve Radio-TV Interference Problems (Stock No. 004-000-000345-4) Interface Handbook (Stock No. 004-000-004505-7) These booklets may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402.

Limited Warranty

See our Terms and Conditions for more details.