BeagleBoard Community

This page collects information about TI's ARM based OMAP3 Beagle Board.

=Hardware=

The Beagle Board is a low-cost, fan-less single-board computer based on TIs OMAP3 device family, with all of the expandability of today's desktop machines, but without the bulk, expense, or noise (from beagleboard.org). It uses a TI OMAP3530 processor (ARM Cortex-A8 Core ~600MHz + TMS320C64x+ DSP ~430MHz + Imagination SGX 2D/3D graphics processor). See OMAP3530 features for more processor features. Target price is US-$149. The design goal was to make is as simple and cheap as possible, e.g. not having a LCD added, but letting you connect all add-ons available as cheap external components. See What is Beagle? page for more details.

Top view:




 * 1: OMAP3530 processor + 128MB DDR + 256MB NAND (PoP: Package-On-Package implementation for Memory Stacking)
 * 2: DVI chip
 * 3: DVI-D
 * 4: 14-pin JTAG
 * 5: Expansion connector: I2C, I2S, SPI, MMC/SD
 * 6: User button (boot select)
 * 7: Reset button
 * 8: USB 2.0 EHCI HS
 * 9: SD/MMC+
 * 10: RS-232 serial
 * 11: Alternate power (normally powered by USB) (unmounted on REV Ax boards, see errata)
 * 12: USB 2.0 HS OTG (Power)
 * 13: Stereo In
 * 14: Stereo Out
 * 15: S-Video
 * Board size: 3" x 3"
 * Currently 6 layer PCB; target: 4 layer

Bottom:



=Errata=

Hardware

 * 1) The DC power jack pinout is incorrect on the PCB layout. DC_5V and GND are switched on PCB layout. Normally, the power jack has DC_5V on the center pin and GND on the sleeve (see Figure 20 of Beagle HW manual). But on revision Ax boards the PCB layout has GND on center and DC_5V on sleeve. For this reason it is currently removed. It will be back on the Rev B board. Workaround is to remove wire connecting the two power pins on revision Ax boards and use external power supply with switched connector (do not connect anything to the “?” terminal. USB power will be permanently disabled and the board can only be powered from the 5V.) (Note: This modification has now been tested.)
 * 2) There is excess voltage drop across R6 which is used to measure the current consumption on the board. This needs to be a .1 ohm instead of a 1 ohm resistor (SMD 0805). All revision A5 boards have been updated to .1. You can also just solder in a jumper to J2 bypassing the current read point. This issue can cause issues with the USB host port as the voltage supplied to that port can be too low.
 * 3) User LEDS 0 and 1 are shorted on the layout preventing them from being controlled individually. You need to control both GPIO_149 and GPIO_150 to turn on or off both LEDS. This is fixed in the Rev B boards.
 * 4) There is an issue where on some boards the 1.8V has excessive noise on it. This is the result of two incorrect parts L1 and L3 being installed on the board. The inductors that were initially installed in the switchers are 100uH and need to be 1uH. This change will require that the board be returned for update. To check for correct parts, have a look to bottom of BeagleBoard. L1 - L3 are the larger parts there. They all have to be labeled with "102" (== 1uH). If any of these three inductors are labeled with "104" (== 100uH) they are wrong and have to be exchanged.

Software

 * 1) Current SW doesn't enable L2 cache. This was removed from Linux kernel because it is Cortex-A8 specific and not ARMv7 generic. Current plan is to enable it in Beagle specific U-Boot bootloader and not in kernel any more. This is safe because L2 cache doesn't need special handling (e.g. flushing etc.). Workaround is to add something like in above link locally.

=Availability=

Currently it is planned that BeagleBoards will be available starting at June 2008 for target price $149 + shipping through beagleboard.org.

There are already some limited early revision Ax prototypes out there (see errata above) used by some hackers hanging around at #beagle channel on irc.freenode.net.

=Adapters=

For quite detailed information about all BeagleBoard peripherals see BeagleBoard HW Reference Manual (rev. A5).

JTAG
Depending on your JTAG tool, you'd need a 14-pin to 20-pin adapter to use an ARM debugger. The 14-pin TI JTAG connector is used on BeagleBoard and is supported by a large number of JTAG emulation products.

Note: JTAG on BeagleBoard uses 1.8V!

OpenOCD currently doesn't support BeagleBoard Cortex-A8, only Cortex-M3. If this support is added and the JTAG scan chain for OMAP3 is known, Flyswatter from tincan TOOLS for ~ $50 would be an ideal JTAG choice. It supports 1.8V and additionally has a RS232 interface.

OpenOCD JTAG bring up

On IRC it was discussed what will be necessary to get OpenOCD working with OMAP3 on BeagleBoard:


 * OpenOCD compatible JTAG hardware interface with FTDI's FT2232 chip, e.g. Flyswatter. The JTAG interface has to support 1.8V and 14 pin JTAG connector. For JTAG pin out see section 8.17 of BeagleBoard HW Reference Manual (rev. A5)
 * Get latest OpenOCD source
 * Add Cortex-A8 CPU ID. Currently only Cortex-M3 is supported. Take this as example. Once you connect to target you should get error message expect cpuid of xxxxxx but got yyyyyy which should contain Cortex-A8 CPU ID.
 * Take CPU scan lengths from OMAP3530 CCS config.
 * Pull-down the EMU0/EMU1 pins on BeagleBoard. Jumper P3 can be used to pull-down EMU0. There is no jumper for EMU1, though. Unsure if EMU1 has to be pulled-down, too. If so, modify HW to pull down EMU1 using pin 14 of JTAG connector P2 or via R15.

TI DaVinci OpenOCD configuration can be used as example for above.

If above basics work, additionally MMU, cache support and some include files for A8 might be added to OpenOCD.

Note: If you made some progress regarding BeagleBoard OpenOCD support, please send a short note to BeagleBoard ML.

RS232
The pinout on the beagle board is "AT/Everex" or "IDC10". You can buy IDC10 to DB9M adapters in many places as they are commonly used for old PCs. Depending on your local configuration, you may need a 9-Pin NullModem cable to connect BeagleBoard to serial port of your PC.

USB
There are two USB ports on the BeagleBoard, one with an EHCI controller and another with an OTG controller.

EHCI
The HS (HighSpeed) USB ECHI controller on OMAP3 on BeagleBoard supports high-speed only. This simplifies the logic on the device. FS/LS (FullSpeed/LowSpeed) devices, such as keyboards and mice, require going through a HS hub.

OTG
The HS USB OTG (OnTheGo) controller on OMAP3 on the BeagleBoard does have support for all the USB 2.0 speeds (LS/FS/HS) and can act as either a host or a gadget/device. The HS USB OTG port is used as the default power input for the BeagleBoard. It is possible to boot the BeagleBoard using this USB port.

DVI
DVI-D connection on BeagleBoard uses a HDMI connector:

''HDMI is backward-compatible with the single-link Digital Visual Interface carrying digital video (DVI-D or DVI-I, but not DVI-A) used on modern computer monitors and graphics cards. This means that a DVI-D source can drive a HDMI monitor, or vice versa, by means of a suitable adapter or cable, but the audio and remote control features of HDMI will not be available.''

BeagleBoard can be connected to a DVI monitor using HDMI female to DVI male cable.

=BootRom=

OMAP3 on BeagleBoard contains a BootRom. With this, BeagleBoard can boot without any code in permanent storage (NAND) or from peripherals. This is useful for first board bring up or if your BeagleBoard is bricked. For more information about BootRom booting see SPRUFD6.

User button
With user button on BeagleBoard you can configure boot order. Depending on this button, the order used to scan boot devices is changed. The boot order is (the first is the default boot source):


 * User button not pressed: NAND -> USB -> UART -> MMC
 * User button is pressed: USB -> UART -> MMC -> NAND

Technically speaking, the user button configures pin SYS.BOOT[5]. See SPRUFD6 for more details.

Serial boot
To boot from USB or UART, you need a PC tool which talks with OMAP BootRom and speaks the correct protocol to download ARM target code to BeagleBoard. Currently there are two (experimental) tools for UART boot:


 * PC perl script
 * Linux C utility (not working yet with below target code)

See USB and serial download target code for some example target code to be downloaded to OMAP3 on BeagleBoard.

USB boot
For USB boot, there is currently one (experimental) tool to boot BeagleBoard over USB:


 * Linux C utility

See USB and serial download target code for some example target code to be downloaded to OMAP3 on BeagleBoard.

MMC/SD boot
Currently, boot the BeagleBoard with MMC/SD is the only working way for first board bring up.

MMC/SD formatting
As described in above MMC/SD boot description, you have to create a bootable partition on MMC/SD Card. This can be done using e.g. Windows or Linux tools.

Windows

See HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.0.6 description on boot the BeagleBoard with MMC/SD page.

Linux

tbd. The correct fdisk and mkfs.vat options are not known yet.

U-Boot booting
If your MMC/SD card formatting is correct and you put MLO, u-boot.bin and uImage on the card you should get a u-boot prompt after booting beagle board. E.g. (output from terminal program with 115200 8N1):

...40T.........XH.H.U�..Instruments X-Loader 1.41 Starting on with MMC Reading boot sector 717948 Bytes Read from MMC Starting OS Bootloader from MMC... U-Boot 1.1.4 (Apr 2 2008 - 13:42:13) OMAP3430-GP rev 2, CPU-OPP2 L3-133MHz TI 3430Beagle 2.0 Version + mDDR (Boot ONND) DRAM: 128 MB Flash:  0 kB NAND:256 MiB In:   serial Out:  serial Err:  serial Audio Tone on Speakers ... complete OMAP3 beagleboard.org #

Using this u-boot prompt, you now can start kernel uImage stored on MMC card manually:

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # mmcinit OMAP3 beagleboard.org # fatload mmc 0:1 0x80000000 uimage OMAP3 beagleboard.org # bootm

If you like to make that happen every boot:

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # set bootcmd 'mmcinit ; fatload mmc 0:1 0x80000000 uimage ; bootm' ; saveenv

=Code=

Code and binaries for BeagleBoard are available at various places.

Complete source and binaries
BeagleBoard pre-built binaries and source code can be found at Beagle source code and downloads page. Recent patches should go as fast as possible
 * to OMAP community for kernel.
 * to U-Boot community for U-Boot.

Additional source and binary images from OE project can be found on Koen's page.

Git
Besides above binary and source images, for X-loader there is a temporary git repository. Clone this using:

git-clone http://www.beagleboard.org/x-load.git xload-git

Note: Only http:// protocol works, git:// was never set up and port is still closed.

Note: This x-loader git repository for BeagleBoard is temporary. It is planned to move to http://source.mvista.com/git/?p=xloader.git;a=summary

Patches
Additionally to above code and binaries, there are some patches against recent upstream git repositories available:

Kernel: U-Boot:
 * Recent OMAP git kernel has basic BeagleBoard support.
 * Preliminary U-Boot patches on BeagleBoard ML

Tested boot
Known working combination of above code/binaries:
 * MLO binary from Beagle source code page
 * u-boot.bin from Beagle source code page
 * OMAP git kernel
 * rd-ext2.bin from Beagle source code page

This combination is known to boot using MMC/SD boot.

=Compiler=

TI OMAP3530 processor on BeagleBoard contains an ARM Cortex-A8 general purpose processor and a TMS320C64x+ DSP.

Cortex A8 ARM
CodeSourcery's ARM GNU/Linux tool chain is recommended.

Note: A user reports that he found the use of CodeSourcery tool chain version 2007q1-21 as strange. He has been using 2007q3-53 for a couple of months now.

ARM NEON documentation

ARM Cortex A8 used in OMAP3 on BeagleBoard supports NEON instruction set. Some information about this can be found in ARM's RealView Compilation Tools Assembler Guide and from GCC's ARM NEON Intrinsics

C64x+ DSP
Currently there is no free C64x+ DSP compiler available. DSP compiler is only available with DVSPB or CCS license.

However, there is some talk to make C64x+ DSP CGT (CodeGenerationTool) available easier/cheaper.

Note: There seems to be an old/limited (no code compressor?) C64x Linux compiler available on TI FTP site.

=Development environments=

Instead of just using compiler + editor, you can use complete image create "development tool chains" which integrate compiler, build system, packaging tools etc. in one tool chain.

OpenEmbedded
For OpenEmbedded (OE), there are some hints how to start with OE for BeagleBoard. See OpenEmbedded getting started as well.

In the OE getting started document, for BeagleBoard replace MACHINE = "om-gta01" by MACHINE = "beagleboard". After confirming bitbake nano works, try bitbake console-image. The first time you run bitbake OE will download all the needed source and build the tool chain. This will take several hours. After all went fine, the output is in ${OE_ROOT}/tmp/deploy/glibc/images/beagleboard.

Note: Koen has some BeagleBoard source and binary images built with OE.

=Linux hints=

See BeagleBoard Google wiki Linux hints page (for Linux WTBU (Wireless TI Business Unit) kernel 2.6.22). Currently featuring:


 * Switching video output between DVI-D and S-Video
 * Disabling framebuffer blanking
 * Listing USB devices

=Links=
 * beagleboard.org (beagle board home)
 * Using Google you can search beagleboard.org (including IRC logs) using site:beagleboard.org 
 * BeagleBoard HW Reference Manual (rev. A5)
 * OMAP3530 processor description and manuals
 * Beagle board memory map and flashing
 * OMAP3530/25 CBB BSDL Model
 * Beagle board discussion list
 * Beagle board open point list & issue tracker
 * Beagle board blog
 * Beagle board RSS feed
 * Chat:
 * Beagle Board chat on Pibb.com
 * IRC: #beagle channel on irc.freenode.net
 * IRC/Pibb.com archive
 * Slides from TI developer conference (TIDC) open source session, covering also beagle board
 * TI/Beagle Presentation and video at LUG RADIO Live USA 2008
 * TI open source page
 * DSP Bridge driver for OMAP3 platform
 * ARMv7 Oprofile support
 * OMAP34xx Wireless Technical Reference Manual (swpu114g.pdf, 47 MB)
 * Koen's (OpenEmbeded) BeagleBoard source and binaries
 * Beagle photos:
 * Beagle board pictures at flickr
 * Beagle board and USRP
 * Modify SDP3430 QUART cable for beagle

=Other OMAP boards=


 * OMAP1 OMAP5912 (ARM9 + C5x DSP) based OSK board.
 * OMAP3 OMAP3430 based Zoom MDK
 * OMAP3 OMAP3530 based Pandora
 * OMAP3 OMAP35x based EVM from Mistral and TI (both are the same)