As one of best-selling products of Forlinx, FETMX6Q-C SoM has been recognized and selected by engineers from many fields and industries since its release. It plays an important rule in the core module of various terminal products, and exerts its strong performance.

To facilitate more engineers to have a clearer understanding of FETMX6Q-C SoM, the following will introduce its design, performance, interface resources, function evaluation and technical support one by one.

1, Design

Compact layout, PCB gold deposition process, superior design

The component layout adheres to the compact design principle. Only 2mm height of 4 combinations of 80PIN ultra-thin connectors. And a golden size of 40mm*70mm.

As shown below, the overall layout of Forlinx FETMX6Q-C SoM is compact, and the appearance is exquisite. Thus user design for the whole product is not limited by any mechanical structure.

Its design takes full account of electromagnetic compatibility and signal integrity. Besides, it adopts the 12-layer PCB gold deposition process design, the surface coating is flat and the deposition color is stable. It has the advantages of slowly rising temperature and strong anti-interference ability, which ensures the stable operation of system. As the core module of a product, its performance and stability are also of special concern to engineers.

2, Performance

Quality assurance of Automotive-grade CPU , powerful performance with 1GHz frequency

FETMX6Q-C SoM (industrial-grade) carries automotive-grade processor of NXP i.MX6Quad, which has passed strict temperature tests to ensure product stability in industrial application scenarios.

Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 architecture, main frequency 1GHz, meets the computing performance requirements of many application scenarios.

Now let’s test and see its performance. A simple benchmark method to test the CPU performance of FETMX6Q-C SoM.

# time echo “scale=5000; 4*a(1)” | bc -l -q

By timing the CPU calculate the value of 5000-bit π, the computing performance of the CPU is reflected by the time. As shown in the figure, from the test data, the computing performance has reached a high level of ARM architecture CPU.

In terms of memory selection, in order to cooperate with the system to run more smoothly, 1GB DDR3 is selected for ROM, and 8GB eMMc is selected for RAM. At the same time, FETMX6Q-C SoM support the CPU hardware compatibility of i.MX6DualLite and i.MX6Quad to meet the market demand for different performances.

Besides the requirements for CPU performance, whether it can bring out more functional interfaces is also an important part of the selection evaluation.

3, Interface

CPU interface resources are abundant, and FETMX6Q-C SoM leads out all the interfaces

As the flagship product of NXP's i.MX6 series, the i.MX6Quad processor has powerful performance and rich interface resources.

To meet the various interface requirements in product design, FETMX6Q-C SoM leads out all the CPU resources through 4 groups of 80P connectors with a total of 320 pins. Not only supports Gigabit Ethernet, DVP, MIPI camera, audio, SDHC and other interfaces, but also supports MIPI screen, EIM BUS 27-bit address, 32-bit data bus, etc., which can meet the function requirements of different products in various industries.

As shown in the sheet below, it has part of pin function specification: CPU ball number, pin name, function description and other detailed information corresponding to each pin, which is convenient for engineers to understand and follow-up secondary development.

The rich pin function resources partly meet the specific interface or function requirements of some products. But the product's requirements for core modules are much more than that. With the widespread application of human-computer interface in more and more products, the image & video processing technology has been gradually upgraded, and the requirements for the image processing function of the processor have become higher.

4, Image process

Support Video encode and decode, dual-screen same display and different display

Support a variety of display screen interfaces and image collectors, 1080p@60fps video encode and decode, H264 hardware video compression, 2D, 3D graphics acceleration and rich multimedia functions. Support dual-screen synchronous display, dual-screen asynchronous display. Based on Forlinx test, it supports various asynchronous display such as LVDS and LCD, HDMI and LVDS, HDMI and LCD, LVDS0 and LVDS1.

Take LVDS and LCD asynchronous display as an example: LVDS screen outputs QT main interface, which can be controlled and operated through the touch screen, while LCD screen decodes and plays HD video.

The test steps are as follows: log in by debug serial port, power on the development board again, click any key on the keyboard within 1 second, enter UBoot command line mode. With menu prompt, set the first screen display fb0 to LVDS, fb1 to LCD output, and lvds mode to sin1.

Use the command line to play HD video on the LCD screen through the gst-launch tool: # gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=file:///forlinx/video/xm.mp4 video-sink="imxv4l2sink device=/dev/ video18" &

A simple operation can complete the test of dual-screen asynchronous display. This is not only shows the function of FETMX6Q-C SoM, but also shows the support and adaptation ability of Forlinx tech team at the bottom layer of the core module.

5, Product Evaluation

Rich interfaces of matched carrier board, comprehensive tech support service

FETMX6Q-C SoM has full functions and strong stability. Ideal applied in industrial control, medical, security, vehicle, power, communication, charging pile, smart home and consumer electronics and other fields. To meet the selection and evaluation of products in the development stage in many application scenarios, Forlinx also supports SBC OKMX6Q-C. The SBC OKMX6Q-C leads out rich function interfaces, which is convenient for clients to conduct comprehensive evaluation and test of FETMX6Q-C SoM, according to their own product interface requirements.

Take serial port & adaptive gigabit network port as an example, log in SBC OKMX6Q-C through the debug serial port, configure the network port IP and other parameters in the command line mode, and finally use the ssh remote login method to perform the verification test of SBC OKMX6Q-C interface function and ssh service. Test steps as follows:

Use 'putty' to log in through the debug serial port

Use the ifconfig command to modify the IP of network port. IP, mask, gateway, DNS, etc. can be configured according to user own needs.

Modify the IP of the computer network port to be the same as the 1.X network segment, use the ‘putty’ tool, and set the parameters according to SBC OKMX6Q-C. Then user can login and test. The login account is root and no password.

In the verification test of interface function and service function , the test method can be changed according to the actual condition of product application. The basic test method is provided in the development manual, which can be flexibly matched.

Forlinx provides development manuals for software and hardware, with a clear structure, comprehensive introduction and complete description, also the matched built development environment, test drivers, application development examples, etc.