PHYTEC announces a new system-on-module (SOM) based on the new Sitara™ AM57x processor family from Texas instruments

Mainz, Germany – October 20, 2015
PHYTEC today announced the phyCORE-AM57x system-on-module (SOM), supporting the most powerful Sitara processor family featuring ARM Cortex-A15, multimedia acceleration and real-time processing, adding a powerful solution to PHYTEC’s high-performance line of modules. With the demand for powerful user experiences, innovation, new features, and shorter product life-cycles, there are significant challenges and design complexities for embedded systems product designers. PHYTEC SOMs are designed to accelerate product development cycles, while providing access to new technologies to successfully address these ever-increasing challenges.

The Sitara AM57x processors feature the outstanding capabilities of dual Cortex-A15 cores combined with dual TI’s state-of-the-art C66x digital signal processing (DSP) cores. With exceptional power efficiency, and ARM CPU performance capable of delivering up to 10,500 DMIPs with dual-cores running at 1.5 GHz per core, the AM57x processors are a high-performance engine delivering more than twice the performance of dual-core Cortex-A9 based application processors. With a level of performance seen in laptops, the latest PHYTEC phyCORE SOM supporting the AM57x processors is ideal for a wide range of embedded applications such as industrial human machine interface (HMI), factory automation, machine vision, building automation, networking, test and measurement, and medical imaging.

Bodo Huber, Chief Technology Officer of PHYTEC, commented “PHYTEC has a strategic commitment and decades of experience providing high-quality, high-reliability, and long product life-cycle solutions to OEMs. We are very pleased to collaborate with TI to make the AM57x processor family available to the general embedded market with our production-ready SOM”.

“TI’s Sitara AM57x processors offer a tremendous amount of opportunities for embedded developers to bring compelling products to market, while PHYTEC’s comprehensive SOM and customized support services will enable these designers to get their products to market quickly and efficiently,” said Carlos Betancourt, TI product marketing manager.

Key Features of the phyCORE-AM57x

The Sitara AM57x device family is the heart of the phyCORE-AM57x, offering a scalable heterogeneous solution across four product variants (Single core- AM5716/AM5718, Dual core- AM5726/AM5728).

AM57x Features:

  • Single or Dual ARM Cortex-A15 up to 1.5 GHz
  • Single or Dual C66x DSP up to 750 MHz
  • Single or Dual 3D Graphics Processing Unit (SGX544)
  • Single 2D Graphics Accelerator (GC320)
  • Quad-Core Programmable Real-Time Unit and Industrial Communication Sub-System (PRU-ICSS)
  • Dual ARM Cortex-M4 (general purpose usage) co-processors
  • 1080p encode/decode Video Acceleration
  • PCIe, SATA, HDMI, USB 3.0/2.0, Dual Gigabit Ethernet, and more

phyCORE-AM57x SOM Features:

  • Tiny form factor: 45 x55 mm
  • TexasInstruments Sitara™ AM57x
  • Up to 4 GB DDR3/3L (2 GB w/ECC)
  • Up to 2 GB NAND or 32 GB eMMC
  • EEPROM and QSPI NOR
  • 4x HS-MMC/SD/SDIO
  • 2x PCIe Gen 2
  • SATA/SATA2 up to 3Gbps
  • Serial: 8x UARTs, 5x I2C, 8xAudioPorts, 4x SPI, 2x CAN
  • USB: 1x USB 3.0 Dual Role and 1x USB 2.0 Dual Role
  • Ethernet: 2x Gigabit Ethernet Switch (1 PHY on SOM)
  • Display: 3x LCD outputs, 1x HDMI, 1080p Full HD (1920×1080)
  • Camera interface: 3x CPI
  • Wi-Fi®and Bluetooth®provided on SOM carrier board
  • Operating System: Linux™ (additional OS support coming later)

PHYTEC offers customized SOM features for low minimum order quantities so that OEMs get the features they need at an optimum price.

The phyCORE-AM57x SOM can be combined with modular digital imaging solutions from PHYTEC. The phyCAM product line supports several industrial grade image sensors with different characteristics. In addition, PHYTEC offers off-the-shelf adapter modules and HW reference designs supporting TI’s Wilink™ 8 family, enabling both Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® in phyCORE-AM57x applications.

The Rapid Development Kit

The phyCORE-AM57x RDK provides an immediate platform to accelerate product development based on AM57x. Embedded developers can use PHYTEC carrier board schematics as a reference design for a wide range of industrial use cases, while the PHYTEC software board support package (BSP) allows software engineers to maximize their productivity by focusing on the application rather than low level kernel and driver integration. The BSP includes the most current TI selected mainline long term stable (LTS) Linux™ kernel, Linaro™ tool chain and Yocto Project™ compatible file system. Additionally, PHYTEC provides exceptional local software and hardware technical support and design services.

Availability

Early access program sampling for the phyCORE-AM57x Linux RDK is planned for Q4 2015, with general availability expected in Q1 2016.

About PHYTEC

Founded in 1986, PHYTEC is a full solution provider in microprocessor-based solutions for the embedded market. Headquartered in Mainz, Germany, PHYTEC remains a majority family-owned enterprise, with operational divisions in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. PHYTEC products have been deployed in thousands of systems across a wide range of industries and applications; such as control and automation, medical, test and measurement, automotive, energy, transportation, and more. PHYTEC provides a complete set of turn-key solutions from systems integration, off-the-shelf hardware, design services, and manufacturing.

Sales Contact

Please contact your local PHYTEC Sales office