Category Archives: Capability Test

Board Design with TMS320DM8148 processor

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We start to create a board design similar to TMDXEVM8148 board which is distributed by Texas Instruments. Some of the feature set of the board are listed below:

  1. Dual 32bit DDR3 controller of TMS320DM8148 interfaced to a DDR3 Memory of 1GB
  2. 256MB NAND Flash Memory placed in 48 pin TSOP socket
  3. 256-Kb I2C Serial EEPROM to store the board ID information
  4. 32Mb SPI Flash provided on the EVM for optional booting
  5. On Board Audio Codec AIC31066 “Ultra low power microcontroller MSP430 used for power monitoring using the current shunt & power monitor devices INA220
  6. Expansion connectors supporting plug-in application boards
  7. Two USB-OTG ports with integrated 2.0 PHY
  8. Supports analog video output such as, Composite video and S-video
  9. 1080p HDMI Video Output with ESD Protection
  10. On board Audio Input (Line in and Mic) and Audio Output (Line Out and Headphone)
  11. 4-bit SD/MMC interface
  12. Two Gigabit Ethernet port with onboard Ethernet PHY’s using RGMII ports
  13. Dedicated UART port for Debug and MSP430
  14. IR Receiver interface
  15. JTAG for DM814x and MSP430
  16. PCIeX1 lane support on PCIe-x4 connector
  17. SATA 3Gbps direct Interface to HDD with onboard HDD power connector
  18. DC supply 12V +/- 5%, 5A Max through Power adapter
  19. On-Board Clocks for DM814x and for SATA/PCIe
  20. Reset and power on/off switches for controlling the DM814x EVM
  21. Boot switches for various boot configuration selection
  22. Expansion IO Boards
    1. 512 MBit NOR Flash memory
    2. 3 axis smart digital output accelerometer
    3. 256-Kb I2C CMOS Serial EEPROM to store the board ID information
    4. WLAN Daughter card provides IEEE802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN, Bluetooth v3, including Bluetooth low energy (BLE) connectivity
    5. SPDIF interface through TOSLINK & RCA jack Analog SD IN (S-Video & composite video) digitized using TVP5147M1 decoder
    6. Analog HD IN (RGB & VGA) using triple high-performance analog-to-digital (A/D) converter TVP7002
    7. Digital HD Video capture using DVI Receiver (SiI1161)
    8. LCD connector for interfacing LCD adapter board Serial camera interface through CSI
    9. 12- Bit parallel camera interface
    10. UART
    11. Dual DCAN Bus interface

Circuit-tree has been able to take in these complex board requirements and has been able to generate a complete schematic. 

Thanks for reading the post.

Short Introduction to Circuit tree

Circuit-tree is an online EDA application having the intelligence of a hardware engineer to create embedded hardware designs. It features more than 1000+ processors and controllers along with extended hardware peripheral library.

A short introduction to Circuit Tree:

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Evaluation of circuit tree with a stm32f407 microcontroller board

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Here is another capability test we wanted to conduct with the latest set of features. These tests help us check the limits to which we can test our engine check in addition to check the usability of the application.

We choose a stm32f407 reference design from STMicroelectronics for comparison as it is a complex board and our guess is that it has taken several week to design the board.

We quickly pulled in the design which we have created in our example library and selected components such as usb3317 from the usb library as our ulpi transceiver. We let circuit tree design remaining combinations for us. This is the what our design looked like in requirement editor.

STM32f407_Board_Requirement

Circuit tree quickly generated the design for us by doing all the complex tasks behind the scenes.

Let us compare the results. The table below shows what circuit tree could achieve in comparison with the board and what it could not.

Comparison chart

Comparison chart of features supported by the two boards

I am glad to report following findings:
1. Circuit tree did not connect two peripherals in parallel. For instance MicroSD connector and RS232 connectors. It also did not do create connections where audio port is shares pin with MicroSd port ON ST boards. Here are the list of pins allocated by the circuit tree versus the application board.
2. Some of the features we don’t support at the moment but we have capability to do so and extending our capability every day.
3. Finding processor pins for the peripherals, component selection for peripherals, power clock reset, optimisation, decision circuit configuration , schematic generation and check is all done in a shortest span of time. We like to keep things simple and easily understandable for our users which is reflected in our final output.
4. The application schematic generated can still be downloaded in a popular PCB design tool and used for further customisation.
5. The best part is that I can quickly go back to the requirement editor and change
a). The ethernet transceiver to Microchip lan8710 and
b). The CAN transceiver to TI SN65HVD230D and
c). Change zigbee module to Zigbee Internation XB24C module.
d). change input voltage to 9V.

The design file [containing Eagle and Altium] Schematic and the bill of material  is ready by the time i write this.

TIP: You could also go back to the board requirement menu ,delete the processor and add any other processor and still generate the design.

 

Short Introduction to Circuit tree

Circuit Tree is an online EDA application having the intelligence of a hardware engineer to create embedded hardware designs. It features more than 1000+ processors and controllers along with extended hardware peripheral library.

Here is an introduction video to Circuit tree:

Evaluation of circuit tree generated schematic design with a AM3352 SOM EVB Board

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We would be running a capability test with a circuit tree processor library part am3352 processors and a olimex based design which is an open-source hardware board listed at

Olimex SOM EVB

and

Olimex Am3352 SOM

The purpose of the test is to check the following

  1. Components selected by circuit tree and its comparison with the various peripherals selected by olimex Board.
  2. Pin Mux connections from the circuit tree versus the board.
  3.  Power, clocks, and reset component selection and strategies by circuit tree engine to generate the design.

The processor lies on a system on module which connects with a baseboard where other peripherals are listed out. Our first goal is to create a board with similar peripherals connected by the olimex design.

We entered the requirements in the requirements editor as shown below in the picture and then generated the design. For more details of how to enter a requirements, you can refer our post Guide for creating a fresh design

Am3352 board requirement

Am3352 board requirement

For a more detailed overview of the requirements addition process, we have covered it in our next blog.

The design generated by the circuit tree matches the am3352 design in terms of peripheral connectivity. There were differences in some parts which can be seen in the table below.

olimex

Circuit tree engine is able to generate a complex board design/schematic in a minute’s time after all the requirements are entered. We understand the pain of generating an embedded design and allowed the tool to simplify the complete design generation.

Circuit tree now supports close to 1000 processors and a number of peripherals components. Generate instant schematic design and much-awaited PCB placement in few minutes to bring your product closer to completion using the application.

Login to our server to check out the online EDA application. 

Thanks

Team Circuit tree

Short Introduction to Circuit tree

Circuit Tree is an online EDA application having the intelligence of a hardware engineer to create embedded hardware designs. It features more than 1000+ processors and controllers along with extended hardware peripheral library.

Here is an introduction video to Circuit Tree: