ORCA SOM/ORCA Hardware/General Information/Processor and memory subsystem

History
Version	Issue Date	Notes
1.0.0	Feb 2021	First release

Contents

Processor and memory subsystemEdit

The heart of ORCA module is composed by the following components:

• i.MX8M Plus SoC application processor
• Power supply unit
• LPDDR4 memory bank
• eMMC or NAND flash banks
• Connectors:
  • 1 x 260 pins SO-DIMM edge connector with interfaces signals

This chapter shortly describes the main ORCA components.

Processor InfoEdit

Table: i.MX8M Plus models comparison

Processor	i.MX8M Plus Dual	i.MX8M Plus Quad
# Cores	2x Arm® Cortex®-A53 1x Arm® Cortex®-M7 1x Hi-Fi4 DSP	4x Arm® Cortex®-A53 1x Arm® Cortex®-M7 1x Hi-Fi4 DSP
Clock	1.8 GHz
L2 Cache	512 KB
LPDDR4	32 bit @ 2000 MHz (LPDDR4-4000)
GPU	3D: Vivante GC 7000UL (2 Shader) 2D: Vivante GC520L OpenGL ES 3.1 Vulkan Open VG 1.1 Open CL 1.2
VPU	1080p60 H.265, H.264, VP9, VP8 decoder 1080p60 H.265, H.264 encoder
NPU	2.25 TOP/s Neural Processing Unit
Display Controller	Dual Channel LVDS up to 1080p60
Video Output	1x HDMI 2.0a 1x MIPI-DSI (4-lanes)
Camera Input	2x MIPI CSI (4-lanes each) 2x ISP
Ethernet	2x 10/100/1000 Mbit/s controller with AVB and IEEE1588
PCIe	1x PCIe 3 (1-lane)
USB	2x USB 2.0/3.0

RAM memory bankEdit

LPDD4 SDRAM memory bank is composed by 1x 32-bit width chip. The following table reports the SDRAM specifications:

CPU connection	Multi-mode DDR controller (MMDC)
Size max	8 GB
Width	32 bit
Speed	2000 MHz

eMMC flash bankEdit

On board main storage memory eMMC is connected to the SDIO3 interface and it can act as boot peripheral. The following table reports the eMMC flash specifications:

CPU connection	SDIO3
Size min	4 GB
Size max	64 GB
Bootable	Yes

NAND flash bankEdit

Section not completed yet

Alternative option for main storage memory can be a 8-bit wide NAND flash connected to the CPU's Raw NAND flash controller. It can act as boot peripheral. The following table reports the NAND flash specifications:

CPU connection	Raw NAND flash controller
Page size	TBD
Size min	TBD
Size max	TBD
Width	8 bit
Chip select	TBD
Bootable	Yes

Memory mapEdit

For detailed information, please refer to chapter 2 “Memory Maps” of the i.MX8M Plus Applications Processor Reference Manual

Power supply unitEdit

ORCA embeds all the elements required for powering the unit, therefore power sequencing is self-contained and simplified. Nevertheless, power must be provided from carrier board, and therefore users should be aware of the ranges power supply can assume as well as all other parameters.

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