BeagleBoard Community

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

=Events=
 * October 1-3, 2008, San Francisco, California: MontaVista Vision 2008 Embedded Linux Developers Conference
 * October 7-9, 2008, Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, Calif., USA: ARM Developers' Conference
 * October 26 - October 30, 2008, Hynes Convention Center, Boston: Embedded Systems Conference Boston 2008 is hosting a BeagleBoard Build Your Own Embedded System Track

=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 it 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? and LinuxDevices article for more details.

The videos Beagle Board Beginnings and Beagle Board 3D, Angstrom, and Ubuntu give you a good intro about what BeagleBoard is about and it's capabilities.

Components
Top view:


 * Board size: 3" x 3"
 * Currently 6 layer PCB; target: 4 layer

Bottom:



See jadonk's photostream for some more detailed BeagleBoard pictures.

Manual
See BeagleBoard HW Reference Manual (rev. B4).

Schematic
Schematic of BeagleBoard Rev. B is available as part of BeagleBoard HW Reference Manual (rev. B4) or from BeagleBoard.org design page. Please make sure that you read, understand and agree Jason's mail before using this.

Layout
Layout of BeagleBoard Rev. B is available as part of BeagleBoard HW Reference Manual (rev. B4) or from BeagleBoard.org design page. Please make sure that you read, understand and agree Jason's mail before using this.

Errata

 * 1) Boards revision A only: 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.) See Koen's Beagleboard powermod picture with short descriptions, too.
 * 2) Boards revision < A5 only: 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) Boards revision A only: 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) Boards revision < A5 only: 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.
 * 5) Boards revision A and B: USB HOST (EHCI) failures. See issue 15 and USB host test reproduce. This is a hardware defect. Most probably Rev. B board will be without the EHCI USB connector mounted and in a few weeks having a different SKU for the Rev. C boards with the EHCI USB fixed. Won't be fixed for Rev. A and Rev. B boards. Needs different PHY. Workaround: Use OTG port with something like mini A to USB A adapter instead.
 * 6) Boards revision A and < B4: Plugging in a USB OTG cable will prevent Beagle from booting (with git kernel), see issue #19, too. This is due to missing filtering capacitor at USB OTG VBUS. When the kernel driver detects that a USB OTG cable is inserted it enables the charge pump to generate VBUS. With no filtering VBUS looks like any switching regulator output with no filtering -- a huge voltage spike when the switch is on, followed by a rapid decay to a low voltage until the next switch on period. The capacitor is there to store energy between the output switch ON and OFF time, the feedback loop in the regulator does sample the cap voltage. Fix is to piggy-back solder a 0603 2.2uF ceramic capacitor to D3, see VBUS modification D3 picture. Revision B4 boards and newer have this fix applied. Thanks to Steve for debugging this!

For additional (software) issues and enhancement requests see Beagle board open point list & issue tracker, too.

Clocking
Some notes about (ARM processor) clock rates at BeagleBoard:


 * ARM processor at BeagleBoard currently uses 500MHz
 * 500MHz is the default used because it is a balance of performance and longevity
 * For OMAP35x 600MHz is max recommended
 * At 600MHz OMAP35x is considered to be 'overdrive' and it does not have the same life expectancy
 * Higher than 600MHz is out of spec and no guarantee it will work at all (or not damage itself)
 * Also keep in mind that if you go higher you probably want to increase the core voltage. Some of this is mentioned in table 3-3 of the OMAP3530 data sheet. Some numbers:


 * There is a thermal monitor in the core, you could use to scale frequency up and down

See Mans' hack to configure clock in U-Boot (V1) to 600MHz.

=Availability=

BeagleBoards, currently Rev. B boards, are available from Digi-Key with part number 296-23428-ND.

These Rev. B boards will not have support for the USB EHCI port (see hardware errata #5) and are not yet fully supported by the linux-omap git tree. These boards are being targeted only for early adopter developers. Rev. C boards (see below) will be available later under a different part number.

See below for hardware differences of the revisions. There are no software differences.

Revision A
There are some limited early revision Ax prototypes out there used by some hackers hanging around at #beagle channel on irc.freenode.net. See errata for limitations.

Revision B
Revision B is same as revision A, except Still has USB HOST (EHCI) failures. USB HOST (EHCI) connector isn't mounted.
 * fix for shorted LEDs 0/1
 * fix for wrong power jack pinout

Revision C
Revision C is same as revision B except:
 * USB HOST (EHCI) will be operation on revision C.
 * We are looking at replacing the HDMI connector with a DVI connector on revision C.

Note: Revision C is expected earliest at November 2008.

Beagle cases
Some nice cases for your BeagleBoard are available from Special Computing.

=Adapters=

For quite detailed information about all BeagleBoard peripherals see BeagleBoard HW Reference Manual (rev. B4).

See BeagleBoard peripherals and adapters page for useful add ons for Beagle Board.

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. See BeagleBoardJTAG for more information.

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 Serial Boot 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.

See USB recovery section how to use USB boot for board recovery.

NAND boot
See NAND boot article.

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

Please see OMAP3 MMC Boot Format.

Dual partition card
You can create a dual-partition card, booting from a FAT partition that can be read by the OMAP3 ROM bootloader and Windows, then utilizing an ext2 partition for the Linux root file system.

To mount second ext2 partition as root file system (e.g. containing contents of rd-ext2.bin) use kernel boot arguments (e.g. in uboot using setenv bootargs):

console=ttyS2,115200n8 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw rootdelay=1

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 various parts of Beagle software stack there are gitrepositories available.

X-loader
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

U-Boot
Currently, Beagle community is working at getting U-Boot patches upstream to mainline U-Boot. While doing this, Steve set up a Beagle U-Boot git repository. Get it by:

git clone git://www.sakoman.net/git/u-boot-omap3.git u-boot_beagle cd u-boot_beagle/ git checkout -b beagle test

Build:

make distclean make omap3530beagle_config make

Result will be a ~150k sized u-boot.bin in main directory.

Linux kernel
Git repository of OMAP Linux kernel contains Beagle support. Get it by:

git clone git://source.mvista.com/git/linux-omap-2.6.git

Build:

make distclean make omap3_beagle_defconfig make uImage

The result will be a uImage in arch/arm/boot/ directory.

Experimental kernel patches and hacks
Some beagle developers maintain their own kernel experimental patches and hacks not ready for upstream:


 * Koen's collection of kernels patches for OE and the list of relevant patches
 * Steve's kernel tree, a clone of main OMAP git with additional patches, mainly beagle audio (ASOC) related.
 * Mans' kernel tree, a clone of main OMAP git with additional patches, mainly display & framebuffer related.

Tested boot
From Koen's Beagleboard demo images:

Koen's demo image include e17 as window manager, the abiword word processor, the gnumeric spreadsheet application, a NEON accelerated mplayer and the popular NEON accelerated omapfbplay which gives you fullscreen 720p decoding.

The www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beagleboard directory should contain all the files you need:


 * u-boot.bin
 * MLO
 * uImage (rename to uImage, updated version with MPU timer enabled to workaround serial hang issue)
 * rootfs

See the beagle wiki on how to setup your SD card to use all this goodness.

=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 and 2008q1-126 as strange. He has been using 2007q3-53 for a couple of months now.

Note: CodeSourcery [http://groups.google.com/group/beagleboard/msg/63163389873902c3? 2008q1] has the following issues:


 * Vectorization + NEON is broken
 * building static binaries with cortex-a8 flag (or any ARMv7a core) is broken
 * some armv6 compilations end in ICE.

Note: CodeSourcery 2007q3 has an issue with -Os option. There is a fix (needs recompilation)

ARM NEON
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.

For NEON optimized libraries see ARM Releases AAC, MP3, MPEG-4, H.264 and FFT OpenMAX DL Libraries, Highly Optimized for Cortex-A8/NEON and ARM11 Processors. Note: Read the EULA.

C64x+ DSP
A free C64x DSP compiler is available as Linux hosted C6x Code Generation Tools (TMS320C6000 C/C++ CODE GENERATION TOOLS 6.1.3 July 2008).

Note: my.TI account required. You may create an account here

Note: Old c6000 Linux compiler available on TI FTP site. Does NOT support c64x+ core in OMAP3 devices. Not recommended.

You can also utilize the full-CCS free evaluation tools for 120 days, but they currently require purchase to upgrade to service release 9 to support full JTAG debugging with supported JTAG hardware.

=Board recovery=

If you played e.g. with the contents of the NAND, it might happen that the Board doesn't boot any more (without pressing user button) due to broken NAND content. See BeagleBoard recovery article how to fix this.

=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 BeagleBoard and OpenEmbedded Git and 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. There, Angstrom-console* images don't include an X server, you can still use a e.g. DVI-D screen with console, but you won't have a GUI. Angstrom-x11* images contain X server resulting in something like this.

Eclipse
The Eclipse C Development Tools Project provides a "fully functional C and C++ Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the Eclipse platform". The Eclipse DSDP Target Managment Project provides a "Remote System Explorer" (RSE) plugin that simplifies downloading files to the BeagleBoard and editing files on the BeagleBoard within the Eclipse IDE. A Linux Target Agent is available as part of the Target Communications Framework (TCF) component. Info on how RSE is used for e.g. Gumstix development is described in this post.

=Software hints=

This section collects hints, tips & tricks for various software components running on beagle.

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

lmbench
Avik posted a detailed step-by-step procedure to run lmbench on Beagle.

Mediaplayer (FFmpeg)
There is a thread how to get a mediaplayer with NEON optimization (FFmpeg) to run on Beagle. Includes compiler hints and patches.

Java
When using the OpenEmbedded-based Angstrom image you have the following options of Java support:
 * JamVM + GNU Classpath (small vm, fast interpreter, J2SE-like)
 * Cacao + GNU Classpath (JIT compiler, J2SE-like)
 * PhoneME Advanced Foundation (JIT compiler, CDC)

Java support in OpenEmbedded/Angstrom (details) is provided voluntarily through Jalimo.

See a post at mailing list, too.

=Graphics accelerator=

OMAP3530 used on BeagleBoard contains a graphics accelerator (SGX) based on the SGX core from Imagination Technologies. PowerVR SGX530 is a new generation of programmable PowerVR graphics and video IP cores. Linux drivers haven't yet been released publicly. We expect the drivers to be publicly available by the end of 2008. Only the kernel portions will be open source. The PowerVR folks will provide binary user-space libraries. Some videos:


 * OpenGL ES 2.0 shader effects on OMAP3
 * 3D User Interface on OMAP3 Platform
 * 3D Mapping using OpenGL ES 2.0 on OMAP3 Platform
 * Video blending in hardware

=Links=
 * beagleboard.org (beagle board home)
 * Using Google you can search beagleboard.org (including IRC logs) using site:beagleboard.org 
 * BeagleBoard HW Reference Manual:
 * BeagleBoard HW Reference Manual (rev. A5)
 * BeagleBoard HW Reference Manual (rev. B4)
 * OMAP3530 processor description and manuals
 * Beagle at code.google.com
 * 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 archive
 * TI open source page
 * TI E2E (Engineer-to-Engineer) Community
 * 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
 * Verified peripherals for BeagleBoard
 * OMAP3430 Linux Power Management presentation
 * LinuxDevices article about Beagle
 * LinuxDevices article about Digi-Key launch
 * Past Beagle events:
 * TIDC, February 26-28, 2008: Slides from TI developer conference (TIDC) open source session, covering also beagle board
 * LUG RADIO Live USA 2008, April 12-13, 2008: TI/Beagle Presentation and video
 * LinuxTag, May 28-31, 2008: picture 1 and picture 2
 * LugRadio Live UK 2008, July 19 - July 20, 2008: Koen's pictures showing e.g. Big Buck BUNNY playing at Beagle. Interview with Linux Outlaws (52:06) and the video
 * OSScamp Bengaluru Mobile 2008, July 19, 2008
 * LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, August 4 - August 7, 2008: pictures with living beagle and from Linux Journal's photostream
 * BeagleBoard.org event at Jillian's during LinuxWorldExpo, August 5, 2008, 5:30-7:30 pm
 * BarCamp Houston 3, August 9, 2008, 9:00 A.M.: pictures
 * Other Beagle wiki pages:
 * BeagleBoard and OpenEmbedded Git installation guide
 * BeagleBoard recovery about fixing boards not booting any more because of broken NAND content
 * BeagleBoard JTAG about JTAG on BeagleBoard
 * BeagleBoard NAND boot about how to boot BeagleBoard from NAND flash
 * BeagleBoard peripherals and adapters page about useful BeagleBoard add ons.
 * code.google.com BeagleBoard wiki
 * Beagle photos:
 * Beagle board pictures at flickr
 * Beagle board and USRP
 * Modify SDP3430 QUART cable for beagle
 * MythTV on Beagle
 * Beagle videos:
 * Beagle Board Beginnings
 * Beagle Board 3D, Angstrom, and Ubuntu
 * testsprite with beagleboard
 * Beagleboard LED demo
 * LCD2USB attached to a beagleboard
 * Video blending in hardware
 * Not on Beagle OMAP3530: Ubuntu 7.04 on on OMAP3430 SDP

=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)
 * OMAP3 OMAP3430 based Software Development Platform (SDP)