Mikrobus

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Revision as of 10:12, 25 March 2020 by Jkridner (talk | contribs) (Usage of mikroBUS compatible add-on boards today)
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mikroBUS is a standard specification by MikroElektronika that can be freely used by anyone following the guidelines. It includes SPI, I2C, UART, PWM, ADC, reset, interrupt, and power (3.3V and 5V) connections to common embedded peripherals.

This page is meant to foster discussion within the embedded Linux community on usage of mikroBUS compatible add-on boards, adding mikroBUS sockets to embedded Linux systems, and ways to improve both Linux support for mikroBUS and the mikroBUS standard.

Usage of mikroBUS compatible add-on boards today

Device tree overlays loaded at boot time

Example overlay: https://github.com/beagleboard/bb.org-overlays/blob/master/src/arm/PB-I2C2-MPU-9DOF-CLICK.dts

Using Greybus simulator to enable software hotplug support

Implementation of a mikroBUS socket on an embedded Linux system

Improving Linux support for mikroBUS

Motivation for supporting software hotplug

Creation of a mikroBUS bus driver in the Linux kernel

Improving the mikroBUS standard for better Linux support

Identifier

Specifics on power function

Comparisons to other popular embedded add-on form-factors

The purpose of this page is to advance the development of mikroBUS support in Linux. Some distractions may be introduced to either illustrate the effort cannot be sufficiently limited in scope to tackle or that focus should be elsewhere. I'm not assuming these would be introduced with any ill-will, they are just natural concerns that need to be addressed up-front.

Form-factor Size Comments
mikroBUS XxY Example
Feather/Wing 0.9" x 2.0" De-facto standard based on implementation pin-out. Could benefit from some of the efforts for mikroBUS support, but not as cleanly defined with a limited and focused scope. Not as easy to make an impact on the majority of existing designs.
Arduino/Shield XxY Too irregular to make useful as an embedded system bus.
BeagleBone/Cape XxY Far to flexible for a standard outside of the Beagle ecosystem.

Why should mikroBUS be a bus in the kernel even if these other interfaces aren't?

Why aren't we opening pandora's box by adding this as a bus in the kernel?