Allwinner_H616_Devboard

A minimalistic development board designed for the Cortex-A53 Allwinner H616 SoC using KiCad

Overview

The goal of this project, based on the schematics of Orange Pi Zero 2 and Orange Pi Zero 3, was to create a minimalistic development board for the H616 SoC with a functional DDR3/LPDDR4 topology and power supply. This allows it to be used as a basic design that can be modified for specific applications.

Hardware

Both versions of the board are powered by the 64-bit 1.5GHz Quad-Core Cortex-A53 Allwinner H616 SoC, supporting either Allwinner H616 or its pin-to-pin compatible successor, Allwinner H618. The primary difference between these chips is the increased L2 cache size in the H618 model.

DDR3 Version:

The DDR3 variant features a compact design optimized for simplicity and ease of learning. Key components include:

• Memory: Up to 8 Gbit (1 GB) of BGA-96 16x DDR3 RAM
• Power Management: X-Powers AXP305 PMIC
• Connectivity: Micro SD slot, USB HS Host connector
• Communication: Integrated CP2102 USB-UART converter

LPDDR4 Version:

The LPDDR4 variant offers enhanced capabilities tailored for my specific application, while also remaining suitable for educational use:

• Memory: Up to 32 Gbit (4 GB) of BGA-200 32x LPDDR4 RAM
• Power Management: X-Powers AXP313A PMIC
• Storage: Integrated SD2.0 Flash Memory chip and MicroSD slot for flexible storage options
• Auxiliary Processing: Cortex-M4 STM32 microcontroller for additional processing tasks
• Communication: Integrated CP2102 USB-UART converter

To power the board via USB and connect external devices, a custom USB board adapter is available.

Manufacturing specifications:

• Layers: 4-layer design
• Trace/Space: 3.5/3.5 mil
• Via Sizes: 0.35/0.15 mm
• Prepreg: 80u

There are PDF documents available for both DDR3 and LPDDR4 versions.

Software

Building from Mainline:

Arm Trusted Firmware (TF-A):

• Source: here

make CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- PLAT=sun50i_h616 RESET_TO_BL31=1

After building, copy the bl31.bin file to the U-Boot sources directory.

U-Boot:

• Source: here

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- orangepi_zero2_defconfig
make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- BL31=bl31.bin

Linux Kernel:

• Source: www.kernel.org

make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- defconfig
make ARCH=arm64 CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- Image modules dtbs

Rootfs:

Example sources for arm64 rootfs:

• rcn-ee.com
• Linaro.org

Preparing SD Card:

1. Create two partitions: a small fat32 for boot files and an ext4 for rootfs.
2. Write U-Boot to the card:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1k count=1023 seek=1
sudo dd if=u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1024 seek=8

3. Copy dtb and kernel image to the first partition, then unpack rootfs to the second.

If you prefer to load U-Boot into RAM and execute it directly over USB without using an SD card, you can use the sunxi-fel utility:

sudo sunxi-fel uboot u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin

This method is useful for testing or when bypassing the SD card for some reason.

Booting from U-Boot:

Enter these commands in the U-Boot console:

setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw rootwait
setenv bootcmd "mmc rescan; fatload mmc 0:1 0x46000000 Image; fatload mmc 0:1 0x49000000 sun50i-h616-orangepi-zero2.dtb; booti 0x46000000 - 0x49000000"

Use a boot.scr file for automatic booting.

Using Buildroot:

For LPDDR4 version:

make orangepi_zero3_defconfig

For DDR3 versions, modify the config:

BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_INTREE_DTS_NAME="allwinner/sun50i-h616-orangepi-zero2.dts"
BR2_TARGET_UBOOT_BOARD_DEFCONFIG="orangepi_zero2"

Download sources with make source, then build.

License

• The Hardware in this project is licensed under the CERN Open Hardware Licence Permissive (CERN OHL-P).