Microcross is shipping an embedded Linux toolkit for a tiny single-board computer (SBC) module from Cogent. The Microcross GX-Linux Platform includes a MIPS-powered CSB655 SBC, along with a 2.6.11 Linux kernel, BSP, filesystem utilities, and tools. It targets industrial automation, telematics, medical applications, and set-top boxes.

(Click for larger view of Cogent CSB655)

The board

Cogent's CSB655 measures 1.75 x 2.5 x 0.36 (44.5 x 63.5mm x 9mm). The board is based on an AMD Au1550 processor, which features a MIPS4Kc core clocked at 500MHz, 16KB each of instruction and data cache, and 3DES crypto acceleration.

Cogent CSB655 block diagram
(Click to enlarge)
The CSB655 also features 8MB of onboard Strata Flash, 64MB of 32-bit wide DDR266 SDRAM, and NAND interface attached to the CPU via a direct address/data bus.

Additional features include:

• Optional 66MHz PCI 2.2 bus
• RS232
• Three additional UARTS (TTL only)
• Four programmable serial controllers available via extension connectors
  • SPI, I2C, AC'97, and I2S
• Dual 10/100 Ethernet controller with DMA
  • Dual 10/100 PHY
• RTC with external battery input
• Bus expansion
  • 32-Bit PCI 2.2 Bus plus 20-Bit Address/16-Bit Data CPU Bus
• 40+ GPIO (actual amount depends on Peripheral use)
• USB V1.1 Device Port and USB V1.1 Host port available via Expansion Connector
• AC'97 and I2S Interfaces via PSC's (requires external Codec)
• Compact Flash Interface via expansion connectors
• Standard ARM JTAG signals via expansion connectors
• On-board 5V to 35V input, 3.3V regulator provides up to 3A to user board
• uMON MicroMonitor Boot ROM

The kit

Microcross says the CSB655 uSBC (ultra-small SBC), combined with its GX-Linux Platform, can free developers from “the risky task of designing with Micro-BGA, Blind Via and 5 mil track technology.”

The GX-Linux Platform includes Microcross's Visual X-Tools IDE and GNU X-Tools, a suite of commercially supported GNU toolchains for embedded Linux development. Additional components include:

• Visual GDB and GDB Server
  
• Linux v2.6.11 kernel and BSP
  
• uClibc shared and static library for embedded development
  
• ROM, USB (pendrive) or remote NFS Filesystem
  
• BusyBox utilities
  
• Linux Drivers
  • I2C
  • Serial I/O
  • SD / MMC
  • TCP/Ethernet
  • Compact Flash
  • USB (to be added)

Microcross President James Calvin said, “GX-Linux development kits are available under various free licenses and copyrights. Most important of all, software created that executes on the target processor will not place undue restrictions on embedded applications. In other words, Linux applications are under the Lesser GPL restrictions with GX-Linux. Developers and commercial companies are not required to 'open-source' their proprietary applications when linking with uClibc modules.”

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