Very Small Platforms - Rockchip 3308 and Allwinner V3s

[sfx2000]

12 minutes ago, TonyMac32 said:

At the moment I'm playing with ESP32, looking in the direction of the ATSAMD51 (it has a lot of high-end interfaces but is still a micro)  The ESP32 has existing software support going for it, the Atmega not as much, other than circuitpython and an Arduino core.

 

the ESP's are incredibly interesting when one considers the history of the chipset...

 

It was initially designed as a USB dongle chipset, similar to Atheros 9271 - which is why they have the Tensilica LX series core, and the WiFi mac is really open - to the point that robotics guys are using 802.11 vendor extensions to send data as WiFi action frames - it's an interesting chip family.

 

For 2019 - looks like they might intro a chip w/5GHz support if one follows the various feeds/threads - so it's a good platform to get familiar with.

 

From a WiFi perspective, it's actually more interesting than Atheros with the ath9k/ath9k-htc...

 

BTW - there is a little documented ethernet MAC in some variants of that chip family, helps to read Mandarin there...

 

 

[TonyMac32]

1 minute ago, sfx2000 said:

From a WiFi perspective, it's actually more interesting than Atheros with the ath9k/ath9k-htc...

I'd agree with that limited scope, yes.  The major downside is the extreme lack of I/O.  It has just enough to fill the "high-speed" interfaces on the Pi header, and I had to add a GPIO expander to make sure I had everything accounted for.

 

4 minutes ago, sfx2000 said:

For 2019 - looks like they might intro a chip w/5GHz support if one follows the various feeds/threads

 

Yes, I'd seen/heard some rumors floating around, should be interesting. 

[sfx2000]

8 minutes ago, TonyMac32 said:

I'd agree with that limited scope, yes.  The major downside is the extreme lack of I/O.  It has just enough to fill the "high-speed" interfaces on the Pi header, and I had to add a GPIO expander to make sure I had everything accounted for.

 

Yeah - but considering the scope - it's a good peripheral, and well understood there...

 

Before getting involved with current project, I was looking at doing a HAT type card for the "PI" bus...

[sfx2000]

On 4/8/2019 at 8:54 PM, TonyMac32 said:

Very nice

 

What's odd - the MIPS24Kc build is 6MB, the ARMv7A for H3 is 9MB - same environment, same build options - just different target.

 

I wonder why - I suppose code density, and the chip does do MIPS16, similar to Thumb on ARM. Haven't had time to dig into that.

 

DMIPS/HZ - the chips are similar at a given clock speed, the ARM Cortex-A7 single threaded..

 

Using about 30MB of RAM right now - and that's counting the 16MB of NOR flash, which 6MB is used.

 

DingleBerry Pi with this SoC in the now classic/reference format for Pi boards - swap out the 4 USB ports for 2 ethernet, and a single USB to fit inside the Pi Cases... might be good competition with EspressoBIN...

[TonyMac32]

2 minutes ago, sfx2000 said:

DingleBerry Pi

 

wikipedia may have multiple definitions, but my folks and village friends only used #3...

 

5 minutes ago, sfx2000 said:

swap out the 4 USB ports for 2 ethernet, and a single USB to fit inside the Pi Cases... might be good competition with EspressoBIN...

Stop putting ideas that are almost within my capabilities but outside my budget in front of me. 

[TonyMac32]

The question becomes, can you put 3 ethernet on the USB end and, since there,s no GPU, just stuff a single USB out the typical HDMI location?  I think yes.

[guidol]

On 2/2/2019 at 5:38 AM, chwe said:

 

Lichee Zero
===========
Welcome to ARMBIAN 5.74 user-built Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) 4.20.2-sunxi   
System load:   1.90 0.67 0.24  	Up time:       1 min		
Memory usage:  58 % of 50MB   	Zram usage:    36 % of 25Mb   	IP:            

 but well.. here you are.. Armbian booting from a LicheePiZero 

Does it make sense? not really.. but hey.. who cares.. it boots.. in less than 30 seconds..

 

Is there a chance to cut-down armbian in the start-configuration a little bit? 

Like a armbian-light for small/low-power systems like the Lichee (Zero)?

 

So if we could cut-down/replace "big" services like network-manager with smaller one (or remove some services which are not needed by everyone - and can later be installed when needed)....maybe we can come down to memory-usage like
(I have to say the *-word) DietPi or OpenWRT where the system has been booted with around 20MB (or less) memory-useage?

 

58% of 50MB are 29MB....so the goal isnt much away

(and why 50MB when the system has 64MB?)

maybe without using HDMI = only console we could get some another MB free?

 

 

[markbirss]

@guidol here is for reference the minimal buildroot guide for the Lichee Pi Zero for comparison

https://github.com/Squonk42/buildroot-licheepi-zero-old/wiki/Build-system-–-Installation

 

https://github.com/Squonk42/buildroot-licheepi-zero

 

https://github.com/Squonk42/buildroot-licheepi-zero-old/wiki/Fresh-image-–-Booting

 

https://hackaday.io/project/134065-funkey-zero/log/144796-linux-distribution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chwe]

4 hours ago, guidol said:

58% of 50MB are 29MB....so the goal isnt much away

(and why 50MB when the system has 64MB?)

no idea.. this was a 10min generate needed config files and compile job.. with a boot it once...

 

4 hours ago, guidol said:

So if we could cut-down/replace "big" services like network-manager with smaller one (or remove some services which are not needed by everyone - and can later be installed when needed)....maybe we can come down to memory-usage like
(I have to say the *-word) DietPi or OpenWRT where the system has been booted with around 20MB (or less) memory-useage?

https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/config/templates/customize-image.sh.template

[SvOlli]

The changes by "Squonk42" have been integrated into mainline buildroot something like two weeks ago. So if you checkout the current git, you can just build it.

 

I also did something similar using the external layer feature of buildroot. This keeps custom changes separated from the "official" buildroot, so hacking is a bit more straight forward and migration to a new version of buildroot is easier. It's available at:
https://git.h8u.de/Allwinner_V3s/buildroot-v3s
I can also create a mirror on github if anyone is interested in joining in.

[sfx2000]

16 hours ago, TonyMac32 said:

The question becomes, can you put 3 ethernet on the USB end and, since there,s no GPU, just stuff a single USB out the typical HDMI location?  I think yes.

 

I'd agree - and probably a better way to go, as the AR93xx chips only have the single USB host port if I recall.

[SvOlli]

12 hours ago, guidol said:

(and why 50MB when the system has 64MB?) 

Because the kernel is running from the same RAM is used, but not counted. And also some RAM has been reserved for graphics. Using a buildroot similar to Squonk42's setup I've got ~56M of RAM available and ~40M free with just logging, a dhcp client and dropbear running.

[markbirss]

9 hours ago, SvOlli said:

The changes by "Squonk42" have been integrated into mainline buildroot something like two weeks ago. So if you checkout the current git, you can just build it.

 

I also did something similar using the external layer feature of buildroot. This keeps custom changes separated from the "official" buildroot, so hacking is a bit more straight forward and migration to a new version of buildroot is easier. It's available at:
https://git.h8u.de/Allwinner_V3s/buildroot-v3s
I can also create a mirror on github if anyone is interested in joining in.

 

I will check this out also as I had to make changes for the Zero Dock to get Ethernet working. (the leds on the NIC don't light up as the GPIO pins are shared with the 2nd MMC slot !!!) I also wanted to get U-Boot working on 1024x600

 

[sfx2000]

@TonyMac32

 

Just a quick update - looking at AR9531, as it's not that much more cost wise, and same package with AR9331...

 

DingleberryPi* - board form factor - "Pi" on the X * Y * Z

• QCA9531, 650MHz - MIPS 24Kc
  • 128MB DDR2
  • 16MB SPI-NOR 
  • 128MB SPI-NAND
• BSP - OpenWRT Master (post 18.06) on ATH79 target (DTS based)
• 3 ethernet - 100BaseT
  • One main (WAN), two switched for LAN
• 1 USB 2.0 host - for Pi form factor, this is in place of the HDMI interface on the layout
• Traditional "Pi" bus - limited support for the 40-pin interface, only supported pins populated
  • Need to sort logic levels for GPIO, I2C - UART should be fine at 3.3vDC
  • PCI-e -1x - supported - maybe
    • there's a pseudo spec for that bus on SBC's
      • PIN location and voltages on recent SbC's... or just do it 
• 2*2:2 802.11n WiFi Client/Host in 2.4GHz - CCA trace or ceramic chip antennas
  • no SMA for externals (less testing for FCC/EU-R) and easier for end-users
  • Solid WiFi stack based on ATH9K
    • Client and AP - fairly open WiFi and firmware there
    • very approachable for Wireless LAN white hat hackers...
• Estimate on BOM is around $19USD
  • Cost of Goods FOB Shenzhen would be around $25
    • NRE - around $2K, FCC cert for WiFi would be additional depending on lab

 

Will probably release the schematics and perhaps board layouts - I'm busy with the DAYJOB at present

 

* Dingleberry - the southern mountain cranberry - aka Vaccinium erythrocarpum - however, it's ok for the slang verbiage as a side joke.

 

[TonyMac32]

6 minutes ago, sfx2000 said:

Traditional "Pi" bus - limited support for the 40-pin interface, only supported pins populated

For ESP32 I had to make a choice here as well, I opted to add an I2C expander to cover what the MCU could not.  I took the obvious approach, following the Arduino Core created by espressif I assigned the pins and busses accordingly, so both high-speed SPI's are available, both I2C's, the UART.   I cover the rest with remaining ESP32 pins, and any remaining holes with the I2C GPIO expander.

 

13 minutes ago, sfx2000 said:

FCC cert for WiFi

 

Always the hard part.  I hear they're at least rattling their sabres a bit concerning all the TV boxes being imported, I haven't had to fool with them any, my dayjob entails building sensors that can be blasted with a radar at 1 meter, but isn't allowed to make any noise of its own.

 

18 minutes ago, sfx2000 said:

* Dingleberry - the southern mountain cranberry - aka Vaccinium erythrocarpum

 

Haha yes, I sometimes have to let my 12-year-old self out for a breath of fresh air. 

 

19 minutes ago, sfx2000 said:

PCI-e -1x - supported - there's a pseudo spec for that bus on SBC's 

 

Interesting.  Can I assume it actually works (cough H6)?

[sfx2000]

9 minutes ago, TonyMac32 said:

Interesting.  Can I assume it actually works (cough H6)?

 

Yah - comes down to the rails on the bus and available power... bane of all the Pi form-factors with micro-USB power

 

Maybe on DingleberryPi - pads are there, just no pins if one wants to be true to the Pi form-factor - barrel connector changes things where we can provide more solid power - 5VDC/2A should be enough...

 

BTW, as a side note - I claim copyright on the "DingleberryPi" and  "Dingleberry Pi" product names based on this thread - effective date is 4/10/2019

[TonyMac32]

5 minutes ago, sfx2000 said:

Pi form-factors with micro-USB power

 

Yes, discussed at length on these forums, ignored by all...  There is the tiny barrel jacks like that seen on the Rock64.

[sfx2000]

FWIW  - kinda fun see MIPS24kc @ 650MHz vs ARMv7-a Cortex-A7 @ 1.3GHz...

 

MIPS24Kc - 650Mhz - single core - 24Kc is a software FPU - no SIMD stuff here, classic RISC... this one is big-endian

# gnutls-cli --benchmark-ciphers
Checking cipher-MAC combinations, payload size: 16384
             AES-128-GCM 4.01 MB/sec
             AES-128-CCM 3.77 MB/sec
       CHACHA20-POLY1305 17.20 MB/sec
                    NULL 0.41 GB/sec
        SALSA20-256-SHA1 14.41 MB/sec
        AES-128-CBC-SHA1 5.84 MB/sec
        AES-128-CBC-SHA256 4.84 MB/sec

Checking MAC algorithms, payload size: 16384
            SHA1 33.24 MB/sec
          SHA256 15.17 MB/sec
          SHA512 5.84 MB/sec

Checking ciphers, payload size: 16384
                3DES-CBC 1.60 MB/sec
             AES-128-CBC 7.04 MB/sec
             ARCFOUR-128 25.12 MB/sec
             SALSA20-256 24.72 MB/sec

AllWinner H3 - NanoPi Neo 1370 Mhz - quad-core - this is a single threaded test however, so 3 cores are left out

$ gnutls-cli --benchmark-ciphers
Checking cipher-MAC combinations, payload size: 16384
             AES-128-GCM 6.53 MB/sec
             AES-128-CCM 5.64 MB/sec
       CHACHA20-POLY1305 21.11 MB/sec
                    NULL 188.00 MB/sec
        SALSA20-256-SHA1 18.26 MB/sec
        AES-128-CBC-SHA1 8.42 MB/sec
        AES-128-CBC-SHA256 7.17 MB/sec

Checking MAC algorithms, payload size: 16384
            SHA1 36.25 MB/sec
          SHA256 20.58 MB/sec
          SHA512 8.40 MB/sec

Checking ciphers, payload size: 16384
                3DES-CBC 3.05 MB/sec
             AES-128-CBC 10.83 MB/sec
             ARCFOUR-128 40.26 MB/sec
             SALSA20-256 35.59 MB/sec

Interesting stuff - most of the consumer routers jumped over to ARM with 11ac, for various reasons - the MIPS chip is 55nm, and includes WiFi and an ethernet switch, no GPU - the AllWinner H3 obviously has HDMI and a GPU, but no wifi and still 100Base-T on ethernet.

[TonyMac32]

Too small for Linux, but if people don't want to fool with Linux but want the shiny HAT's: https://www.crowdsupply.com/thomas-mckahan/obsidian-esp32

 

I ran one for 8 hours on an RPi UPS hat, so that's a thing.  I need to do a more formal test, the 8 hours was without charging the battery, as it was received from the vendor...

 

I've also got I2S tested working on the right pins to support RPi DAC's, and am rewriting some code to use the Pimoroni Automation Hat.  The Espressif documentation is actually really thin in some places, so I'm having to prove things out that *should* work, but haven't been *documented* to work.

[sfx2000]

On 5/8/2019 at 11:17 PM, TonyMac32 said:

Too small for Linux, but if people don't want to fool with Linux but want the shiny HAT's: https://www.crowdsupply.com/thomas-mckahan/obsidian-esp32

 

 

That's a cute little board - and perhaps something useful considering the form-factor and utility - the ESP32 community is pretty strong, and I think this is perhaps needed.

 

Getting back to more Linux oriented platforms - Linux on MIPS24k runs nicely in 64MB of DDR2, with 16MB of SPI-NOR - I've got a performant AR9331 build running on OpenWRT with full 4g-modem support in less than 8MB image size...

sfx@blaster:~/builds/openwrt/bin/targets/ar71xx/generic$ ll
total 28384
-rw-r--r-- 1 sfx sfx    2806 May 26 13:51 config.seed
-rw-r--r-- 1 sfx sfx    4560 May 26 13:52 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-device-gl-ar150.manifest
-rw-r--r-- 1 sfx sfx 7536644 May 26 13:52 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-gl-ar150-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 sfx sfx 6160384 May 26 13:52 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-root.squashfs
-rw-r--r-- 1 sfx sfx 1621878 May 26 13:52 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-uImage-lzma.bin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 sfx sfx 5219948 May 26 13:52 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-vmlinux.bin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 sfx sfx 5225072 May 26 13:52 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-vmlinux.elf
-rw-r--r-- 1 sfx sfx 1638400 May 26 13:52 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-vmlinux.lzma
-rwxr-xr-x 1 sfx sfx 1632000 May 26 13:52 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-vmlinux-lzma.elf
drwxr-xr-x 2 sfx sfx    4096 May 26 13:52 packages
-rw-r--r-- 1 sfx sfx     932 May 26 13:52 sha256sums

 

So it can be done...

 

Armbian is a full-featured Linux, and that pulls in a lot of baggage - something more like Alpine where a small clib and busybox to replace things - this could fit nicely inside the resources for V3 or RK3308...

 

Armbian-Lite - which might have additional utility as an image for Docker/VM's for higher power SBC's in a cloud scale kind of thing.

 

The MIPS based dingleberry-pi will have to wait, or someone else will have to push it forward with AR9331 in a Pi/SBC form factor - long story there.

 

sfx

[chwe]

remember those dirt cheap android sticks you could buy years ago? The MK802.. I knew that I bought one years ago.. but didn't know for a long time that they're equipped with a AW A10... http://linux-sunxi.org/Rikomagic_mk802

 

 

Well, seems that they're supported in mainline (u-boot and kernel).

 

 __  __ _  _____   ___ ____  
|  \/  | |/ ( _ ) / _ \___ \ 
| |\/| | ' // _ \| | | |__) |
| |  | | . \ (_) | |_| / __/ 
|_|  |_|_|\_\___/ \___/_____|
                             
Welcome to Debian Stretch with Armbian Linux 5.1.7-sunxi
System load:   2.26 1.12 0.43  	Up time:       2 min		
Memory usage:  4 % of 999MB  	IP:            
CPU temp:      11°C           	
Usage of /:    4% of 30G    	
...


root@mk802:~# armbianmonitor -m
Stop monitoring using [ctrl]-[c]
Time        CPU    load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq   CPU

21:44:11: 1008MHz  1.57  82%  30%  20%   0%  30%   0% 11.6°C
21:44:16: 1008MHz  1.68  19%  19%   0%   0%   0%   0% 10.9°C
21:44:21: 1008MHz  1.55  13%  13%   0%   0%   0%   0% 11.4°C
21:44:27: 1008MHz  1.42  22%  21%   0%   0%   0%   0% 11.2°C
21:44:32: 1008MHz  1.31  17%  14%   1%   0%   0%   0% 11.6°C
21:44:37: 1008MHz  1.20  21%  20%   0%   0%   0%   0% 11.0°C
21:44:43: 1008MHz  1.11  13%  13%   0%   0%   0%   0%  8.5°C

well the thermal is a bit sloppy.. in fact the SoC was roughly 60°C at this time...

 

and soldering UART to test points isn't as fun.. but it works

 

and now imagine this board with sata instead of HDMI wired out.. (well maybe with the A20 instead of A10)..

[TonyMac32]

5 hours ago, chwe said:

and soldering UART to test points isn't as fun.. but it works

 

You have used an RPi zero before, yes? 

[chwe]

11 hours ago, TonyMac32 said:

You have used an RPi zero before, yes? 

is UART on testpoints there?

 

Honestly, I never soldered anything to a Pi zero.. They got a camera, a quick and dirty case.. a well.. one got a SPI thingie attached to it (soldering wires directly to the pins.. )

 

In fact it is A RPi Zero without pinheader, but with 1GB ram, open bootloader, ARMv7, and 4GB NAND (which nobody will use anymore.. ).. And I think I bought it roughly 10 years ago? ahh and completely forgot.. it has a fullsize USB A and a small barrelplug for powering..

[TonyMac32]

Testpoints everywhere

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[chwe]

the RPi isn't a board I look long enough to it.. Glue it together and hopefully you don't have to spend more time with it at all..

 

 

[gounthar]

Quote

Radxa unveiled a 38 x 38mm, $10 and up “Rock Pi S” SBC that runs Linux on a quad -A53 RK3308.

http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/125008

https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/06/19/rock-pi-s-tiny-sbc-rockchip-rk3308-processor/

[gounthar]

It looks like I'm going to get one!

[gounthar]

Received that tonight.

I still have to figure out what this board is capable of...

[sfx2000]

As some in this community also have feet in the MCU space with ESP32...

 

https://hackaday.com/2019/07/09/new-part-day-the-15-esp32-with-cellular/

 

Only downside I can see is that the SIM800 is 2G only, so kinda limits things there - but check out the github, it's an open project...

 

https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/TTGO-T-Call

 

 

[TonyMac32]

Very cool, I saw that earlier today. My understanding was 2G was being retired though, I'll have to check.

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