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I wish more OSHW boards featuring the imx6 gained momentum. It's a lovely processor to work with, and NXP's documentation puts most vendors' manuals to shame.

I wish more OSHW boards featuring the imx6 gained momentum. It's a lovely processor to work with, and NXP's documentation puts most vendors' manuals to shame. Plus, if you ever ship at scale, it's pretty easy to get your hands on a large quantity of them!

joezydeco 8y ago
I've been developing on i.MX6 for the past 6-7 years and it's been the easiest Linux processor to work with out of the lot (looking at you, Renesas!) And there's no shame with using a processor/RAM/eMMC combo on a SOM, either. Doing the high speed DDR layout on 6 or 8 layers of PCB is not a task for novices. Saving the low-speed interface work for a larger 2-layer carrier PCB makes the project go really smoothly (just watch the EMI off those right angle card-edge connectors!) There are plenty of companies selling the IMX in all kinds of configurations for really decent volume prices. TechNexion and Boundary have been my favorites so far.
- fest 8y ago
  I concur. i.MX6 not the fastest nor least expensive nor most power efficient SoC but the documentation and wide variety of SOMs make it competitive for lots of products. I've designed it in a thermal imaging product, where it's 20 bit wide DVP support came in very handy.
- stusmall 8y ago
  I remember having a lot of problems with their Android BSP for it. It came along with some pretty questionable patches to the framework, but I never had any issues with the actual Linux kernel.
monocasa 8y ago
It was Freescale. NXP has been trying to make their docs harder to get. I was in the process of writing a BSP for their Sabre boards during the acquisition, and they went as far as deleting previously free resources off their site and asking me to pay for a support contract to get them back. NXP's stance is probably what made others shy away from the chips.
- cushychicken 8y ago
  That hasn't been my experience with NXP, but that's a bummer.
  - joezydeco 8y ago
    Yeah, mine either. I will say that NXP did a fair job of screwing up Freescale's web resources, though.
    - cushychicken 8y ago
      That, I agree with. It's also annoying that many of the resources that used to be freely available (datasheet, reference manual, other docs) now require a login to download. Minor hassle, however.

joezydeco 8y ago

I've been developing on i.MX6 for the past 6-7 years and it's been the easiest Linux processor to work with out of the lot (looking at you, Renesas!) And there's no shame with using a processor/RAM/eMMC combo on a SOM, either. Doing the high speed DDR layout on 6 or 8 layers of PCB is not a task for novices. Saving the low-speed interface work for a larger 2-layer carrier PCB makes the project go really smoothly (just watch the EMI off those right angle card-edge connectors!) There are plenty of companies selling the IMX in all kinds of configurations for really decent volume prices. TechNexion and Boundary have been my favorites so far.

fest 8y ago
I concur. i.MX6 not the fastest nor least expensive nor most power efficient SoC but the documentation and wide variety of SOMs make it competitive for lots of products. I've designed it in a thermal imaging product, where it's 20 bit wide DVP support came in very handy.
stusmall 8y ago
I remember having a lot of problems with their Android BSP for it. It came along with some pretty questionable patches to the framework, but I never had any issues with the actual Linux kernel.

monocasa 8y ago

It was Freescale. NXP has been trying to make their docs harder to get. I was in the process of writing a BSP for their Sabre boards during the acquisition, and they went as far as deleting previously free resources off their site and asking me to pay for a support contract to get them back. NXP's stance is probably what made others shy away from the chips.

cushychicken 8y ago
That hasn't been my experience with NXP, but that's a bummer.
- joezydeco 8y ago
  Yeah, mine either. I will say that NXP did a fair job of screwing up Freescale's web resources, though.
  - cushychicken 8y ago
    That, I agree with. It's also annoying that many of the resources that used to be freely available (datasheet, reference manual, other docs) now require a login to download. Minor hassle, however.