Getting Started Guide for Leopard Board DM355 (Under construction)
From Texas Instruments Embedded Processors Wiki
Contents |
Overview
Leopard Board is an Open Source hardware project, a full featured, ultra low cost, small form factor, high performance development system which includes a TMS320DM355 Processor board and a VGA camera board to provide VGA-resolution video capture. The board itself includes the basic capabilities for multimedia applications that doesn't requires a high performance processing such as DSP applications.
The board is manufactured by Leopard Imaging.
Differences between Leopard Board DM355 and Leopard Board DM365
The following table contains the main differences between Leopard Board DM355 and Leopard Board DM365.
| Feature | Leopard Board DM355 | Leopard Board DM365 |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | TMS320DM355 | TMS320DM365 |
| Video output | Composite TV Output | Composite TV/Component HD TV Output |
| Video codecs | MPEG4, JPEG | H.264, VC1, MPEG2, MPEG4, JPEG |
| Audio codecs | MP3, AAC, WMA | MP3, AAC, WMA and Audio Echo Canceller |
| Camera sensors | Support wide range of video resolutions from VGA, 1.3M, 2M, 3M to 5 Mega-pixel CMOS Sensors | Support wide range of video resolutions from VGA, 1.3M, 2M, 3M to 5 Mega-pixel CMOS Sensors |
Hardware
This section shows a brief explanation of the LeopardBoard's hardware, for a little more deep reference you can see the LeopardBoard DM355 hardware Guide
Basically, the LeopardBoard DM355 is an evaluation board that allows the access all the resources of the TI's TMS320DM355 SoC, oriented principally to multimedia applications.
Components
In the following figures is shown the top and bottom view of the LeopardBoard DM355 with its main hardware components indicated with numbers.
The following table describes the main hardware components of the LeopardBoard DM355.
| ID | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Expansion port | Supports SD/MMC, I2C, UART, McBSP, GPIO ans 3.3V power supply. |
| 2 | JTAG port | Is's a 14 pin JTAG port to allows the software debbuger. |
| 3 | Reset Button | Resets the system. |
| 4 | UART serial output | A RS-232 serial port is provided by a 2.5mm stereo audio jack. |
| 5 | Audio input | A 2.5mm standard stereo audio jack to receive stereo audio input to the TLV320AIC3104 CODEC chip. |
| 6 | Network interface | A standard RJ-45 connector for 10/100 Mbps Ethernet networks. |
| 7 | DC Power input | The boards provides a 2.1mm power jack for +5VDC power supply with a power consumption less than 2W (see Hardware Guide for more detail). The power also can be supplied by the USB port. |
| 8 | SD card slot | It is provided as a mean of expansion and also as a interface for this kind of devices. |
| 9 | LCD/DVI interface | A 50-pin connector fully compatible with DM355EVM expansion connector and with support for LCD or DVI daughters card. |
| 10 | Composite video output | The LeopardBoard provides a RCA-type video output connector fully compatible with NTSC or PAL format. It's default at NTSC format but is easily switched by software. |
| 11 | Camera module interface | This interface supports a wide range of camera modules, from 1.3M to 5 Mega-pixel CMOS sensors. |
| 12 | Audio output jack | This is a 2.5mm standard stereo jack which provides a stereo audio signal from the CODEC chip. |
| 13 | USB OTG port | The LeopardBoard DM355 supports both, device and host USB modes, through a mini-B USB port. By default the board is working on USB device mode in which it can receives its power from the USB port. |
| 14 | TMS320DM355 Processor | The TMS320DM355 processor is an ARM9-based system-on-chip oriented to basic low cost video processing applications like IP cameras or digital photo frames. It combines MPEG4 HD codecs and JPEG codec up to 50M pixels per second. Its core is conformed by and ARM926EJ-S processor. For a deep description of the processor characteristics you can see the TMS320DM355 DataSheet. |
| 15 | Flash Memory | LeopardBoard DM355 includes a Micron Flash Memory with 256M x 8-bit, 2Gb SLC NAND Flash compatible with 1Gb NAND Flash. |
| 16 | DDR2 SDRAM | This Micron DDR2 SDRAM have 8M x 16 x 8 banks, 1Gb DDR2 SDRAM. |
| 17 | Boot up control switch | This dip switch allows the user to select the boot mode, that is from where the LeopardBoard will start the system. |
| 18 | Power Management | The board includes a powerful 5-Channel power Management IC TPS65053 which servers all powers on the board. |
Camera module
There are many camera modules that are compatible with the LeopardBoard DM355. In this section you will find a description table of this camera modules, for more information you can see the LeopardBoard DM355 Hardware User Guide.
| Name | Part Number | Description | Image |
|---|---|---|---|
| VGA camera board
(Included on the LeopardBoard | LI-LBCMVGA |
| 
|
| 1.3 Mega-pixel camera board | LI-LBCM1M1 |
| 
|
| 2 Mega-pixel camera board | LI-LBCM2M1 |
| 
|
| 3 Mega-pixel camera board | LI-LBCM3M1 |
| 
|
| 5 Mega-pixel camera board | LI-LBCM5M1 |
| 
|
Video module
There is also an additional video function module that can be attached to the LeopardBoard DM355 in order to increase its capabilities. The following is a table with a basic description of this module.
| Name | Part Number | Description | Image |
|---|---|---|---|
| DVI board | LI-DVI1 |
| 
|
Schematic
Due to the LeopardBoard is an Open Source project, there is available all the schematics and information about it.
You can get the LeopardBoard DM355 board schematic from the LeopardBoard Home Page in either pdf or specific formats.
Also you can get the camera board schematic.
For more information you can visit the LeopardBoard Home Page.
Layout
You can also get a PDF format file of the LeopardBoard DM355's layout and also in Gerber format.
- PDF format: LeopardBoard DM355 layout (PDF)
- Gerber format: Leopard Board DM355 layout (Gerber)
Clocking
The ARM9 processor included on the TMS320DM355 SoC can works at 135MHz, 216MHz or 270MHz according with the model of the chip. Although these are the processor's full speed it is possible to set its clock to different values by using the internal PLLs.
Availability
Where to purchase your Leopard Board DM355?
What to do in case your country is not on the list of shipping countries?
How to select the shipping method?
Adapters
In this section it will be explained a little about the adapters that you could or must use with the LeopardBoard DM355. For a quite detailed information about the LeopardBoard hardware and its adapters you can refers to the LeopardBoard DM355 Hardware User Guide [[1]].
Serial cable adapter
As it was mentioned at the Hardware section, the LeopardBoard DM355 has a serial interface available through a 2.5mm standard stereo jack. In order to get access to this port through a device with a DB9 serial connector is necessary a serial cable adapter such as the showed in the Figure 4. This adapter converts from 2.5mm stereo plug to female DB9 connector.
Where to buy: LeopardImaging.com
Power adapter
The power adapter is a +5VDC 2.5A switching power supply with an universal AC input. It works either at 50Hz or at 60Hz frequency. The connector is a conventional 2.1mm AC plug polarized with the positive in the center. In the following figure is shown a power adapter for the LeopardBoard DM355.
Where to buy: LeopardImaging.com
USB adapter
As the LeopardBoard DM365 has a mini-USB port, it is necessary to use a USB cable adapter in order to connect the LeopardBoard to a device with a conventional USB connector. In the Figure 6 is showed this USB adapter used for the LeopardBoard DM355.
Where to buy: LeopardImaging.com
Composite video cable
There is a composite video cable for the LeopardBoard DM355. The following figure shows this composite video cable.
BootRom
The LeopardBoard DM355 is able to switch between four different boot modes according with the user needs. Those boot modes are selectable by the boot up control switch allocated on the board. In the following table is is shown each boot mode with its corresponding switch combination.
| Switch 1 | Swicth 2 | Boot mode |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | NAND/SPI Boot |
| 0 | 1 | AEMIF Boot |
| 1 | 0 | MMC/SD Boot |
| 1 | 1 | UART Boot |
Next it will be explained a little these boot modes, for a more deep explanation you could refer to the TMS320DM355 datasheet.
NAND/SPI Boot Mode
In this mode, the TMS320DM355 processor allocated on the LeopardBoard DM355 tries to load the system images from the SPI memory and if it fails, it tries to load it from the NAND flash memory. In both cases, the system doesn't support a full firmware boot, instead, it loads a second stage of the UBL (User Boot Loader) into the ARM internal RAM (AIM) and then transfers the control to the user software.
AEMIF Boot Mode
This is an uncommon boot mode in the LeopardBoard DM355. It allows to boot from the OneNand using the Asynchronous EMIF interface.
MMC/SD Card Boot Mode
It is possible also to start up the board from an external MCC/SD card. In the same way that in the previous boot modes, a second stage of the UBL is loaded into the AIM and then the control is transfered to the user software.
You can read about it in the following link SD card boot and flashing tool for DM355 and DM365.
UART Boot Mode
The TMS320DM355 SoC allows to load a small program (UBL) directly from the serial port to its internal RAM.
Code
Binaries
Source
RidgeRun Evaluation SDK for Leopard Board DM355
Compiler
ARM
Board recovery
It is likely that you will want/need to restore or flash the bootloader on your Leopard Board. For detailed instructions on how to do this please see the Restoring/Flashing the bootloader page.
Beginners guide
You just received your Leopard Board, what do you have to do now? Please review the Beginners guide for Leopard Board DM355.
FAQ
For Leopard Board frequently asked questions (FAQ) see Leopard Board DM355 FAQ
Links
- Leopard Board official web site
- Purchase Leopard Board from Leopard Imaging
- Download RidgeRun's free SDK for Leopard Board
- RidgeRun's LeopardBoard SDK Hints
Leopard Board Community
- Leopard Board official forum
- Leopard Board mailing list
- LeopardBoard IRC Channel: join #leopardboard on irc.freenode.net
| For technical support please post your questions at http://e2e.ti.com. Please post only comments about the article Getting Started Guide for Leopard Board DM355 (Under construction) here. |
