Skip to content

Hardware explained

Components on PCBA

Front side Back side
  1. CMOS
  2. Sysytem on Chip
  3. RAM
  4. SPI NOR Flash
  5. Ethernet PHY
  6. Quartz
  7. Ethernet transformer

Other components are R, L, C and some ICs (DC-DC convertors for example).

Typical module requires 12v input (power consumption ~200mA).

Interfaces

Usually on the PCB you can find:

  • UART
  • 100Mbit ethernet
  • IR cut control (H-bridge for DC motor)
  • USB 2.0 host
  • Audio in
  • Audio out
  • Alarm in
  • Secondary UART (typically with convertor to RS232/RS485)

Software stack

Boot order:

  • Registers init
  • U-boot
  • Linux kernel
  • Rootfs

Fortunately these chips is very easy to run, comparing to something like MediaTek SoCs for android smartphones, where typically you will need 2-3 steps boot process. All modules comes with original vendor software, the best choice for beginners is to keep vendor`s u-boot bootloader (with registers init, that is mostly related to RAM chip installed on the PCB).