OLIMEX A10-OLINUXINO-LIME-4GB User manual

A10-OLINUXINO-LIME
and
A10-OLINUXINO-LIME-4GB
Open-source single-board Android/Linu mini-computer
USER’S MANUAL
Document revision I, December 2015
Designed by OLIMEX Ltd, 2015
All boards produced by Olimex LTD are ROHS compliant

OLIMEX© 015 A10-OLinuXino-LIME user's manual
DISCLAIME
© 015 Olimex Ltd. Olimex®, logo and combinations thereof, are registered trademarks of Olimex Ltd. Other product
names may be trademarks of others and the rights belong to their respective owners.
The information in this document is provided in connection with Olimex products. No license, express or implied
or otherwise, to any intellectual property right is granted by this document or in connection with the sale of
Olimex products.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of
this license, visit http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.
This hardware design by Olimex LTD is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
License.
The software is released under GPL.
It is possible that the pictures in this manual differ from the latest revision of the board.
The product described in this document is subject to continuous development and improvements. All particulars of the
product and its use contained in this document are given by OLIMEX in good faith. However all warranties implied or
expressed including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for purpose are excluded. This
document is intended only to assist the reader in the use of the product. OLIMEX Ltd. shall not be liable for any loss or
damage arising from the use of any information in this document or any error or omission in such information or any
incorrect use of the product.
This evaluation board/kit is intended for use for engineering development, demonstration, or evaluation purposes only
and is not considered by OLIMEX to be a finished end-product fit for general consumer use. Persons handling the
product must have electronics training and observe good engineering practice standards. As such, the goods being
provided are not intended to be complete in terms of required design-, marketing-, and/or manufacturing-related
protective considerations, including product safety and environmental measures typically found in end products that
incorporate such semiconductor components or circuit boards.
Olimex currently deals with a variety of customers for products, and therefore our arrangement with the user is not
exclusive. Olimex assumes no liability for applications assistance, customer product design, software performance, or
infringement of patents or services described herein.
THE E IS NO WA ANTY FO THE DESIGN MATE IALS AND THE COMPONENTS
USED TO C EATE A10-OLINUXINO-LIME AND A10-OLINUXINO-LIME-4GB. THEY
A E CONSIDE ED SUITABLE ONLY FO , ESPECTIVELY, A10-OLINUXINO-LIME
O A10-OLINUXINO-LIME-4GB.
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Table of Contents
DISCLAIMER ............................................................................................................. 2
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW ........................................................................................ 5
1. Introduction to the chapter ....................................................................................................... 5
1.1 Features ..................................................................................................................................... 5
1.2 Target market and purpose of the board ............................................................................... 6
1.3 Board variants .......................................................................................................................... 6
1.4 Board version used in the manual .......................................................................................... 6
1.5 Document organization ........................................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER 2: SETTING UP THE OLINUXINO BOARD ..................................... 8
2. Introduction to the chapter ....................................................................................................... 8
2.1 Electrostatic and electrical polarity warning ........................................................................ 8
2.2 equirements ........................................................................................................................... 8
2.3 Powering the board ................................................................................................................ 10
2.4 Button functions ..................................................................................................................... 11
2.5 Changing the default image resolution ................................................................................ 11
2.6 Connecting and calibrating a display ................................................................................... 12
2.6.1 Android calibration ...................................................................................................................................... 13
2.6.2 Debian calibration ........................................................................................................................................ 13
2.7 GPIO under Debian ............................................................................................................... 13
2.8 I2C and SPI under Debian .................................................................................................... 14
2.9 Software support .................................................................................................................... 15
CHAPTER 3: A10-OLINUXINO-LIME BOARD DESCRIPTION ..................... 16
3. Introduction to the chapter ..................................................................................................... 16
3.1 Layout (top view) ................................................................................................................... 16
3.2 Layout (bottom view) ............................................................................................................. 17
CHAPTER 4: THE ALLWINNER A10 MICROCONTROLLER ....................... 18
4. Introduction to the chapter ..................................................................................................... 18
4.1 The processor ......................................................................................................................... 18
CHAPTER 5: CONTROL CIRCUITY ................................................................... 20
5. Introduction to the chapter ..................................................................................................... 20
5.1 eset ........................................................................................................................................ 20
5.2 Clocks ...................................................................................................................................... 20
5.3 Power supply circuit .............................................................................................................. 20
CHAPTER 6: CONNECTORS AND PINOUT ...................................................... 21
6. Introduction to the chapter ..................................................................................................... 21
6.1 Communication with LIME .................................................................................................. 21
6.1.1 UART0 interface ........................................................................................................................................... 21
6.2 MicroSD card connector ....................................................................................................... 22
6.2.1 SD/MMC1 slot .............................................................................................................................................. 22
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6.3 PW jack ................................................................................................................................ 23
6.4 USB_OTG connector ............................................................................................................. 24
6.5 USB_HOST connectors ......................................................................................................... 26
6.6 Ethernet .................................................................................................................................. 26
6.7 HDMI connector .................................................................................................................... 29
6.8 SATA connector and power ................................................................................................... 30
6.9 GPIO ports ............................................................................................................................. 31
6.9.1 GPIO-1 (General Purpose Input/Output) 40pin connector ..................................................................... 31
6.9.2 GPIO-2 (General Purpose Input/Output) 40pin connector ..................................................................... 33
6.9.3 GPIO-3 (General Purpose Input/Output) 40pin connector ..................................................................... 34
6.9.4 GPIO-4 (General Purpose Input/Output) 20pin connector ..................................................................... 34
6.10 LCD_CON 40pin connector ................................................................................................ 35
6.11 Jumper description .............................................................................................................. 36
6.12 Additional hardware components ...................................................................................... 37
CHAPTER 7: SCHEMATICS .................................................................................. 38
7. Introduction to the chapter ..................................................................................................... 38
7.1 Eagle schematic ...................................................................................................................... 38
7.2 Physical dimensions ............................................................................................................... 39
CHAPTER 8: REVISION HISTORY AND SUPPORT ........................................ 40
8. Introduction to the chapter ..................................................................................................... 40
8.1 Document revision ................................................................................................................. 40
8.2 Board revision ........................................................................................................................ 41
8.3 Useful web links and purchase codes ................................................................................... 42
8.4 Frequently asked questions ................................................................................................... 43
8.5 Product support ..................................................................................................................... 46
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CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW
1. Introduction to the chapter
Thank you for choosing this OLinuXino single board computer from Olimex! This document
provides a user’s guide for the Olimex A10 LIME board. As an overview, this chapter gives the
scope of this document and lists the board’s features. The document’s organization is then detailed.
The A10-OLinuXino-LIME development board enables code development of applications running
on the A10 microcontroller, manufactured by Allwinner Technology from China.
OLinuXino is an open-source, open-hardware project and all documentation is available to the
customer.
1.1 Features
The board has the following set of features:
•A10 Cortex-A8 CPU 1GHz and Mali 400 GPU
•51 MB DDR3 RAM memory
•4GB NAND FLASH memory (available only on the 4GB version of the board)
•SATA connector with 5V SATA power jack
•Capable of HD (7 0p) video playback
•Native HDMI connector
• x USB High-speed host with power control and current limiter
•USB-OTG with power control and current limiter
•100MBit native Ethernet
•Battery connector with battery-charging capabilities
•LCD row of pins (0.05'' step)
•160 GPIOs on four GPIO rows of pins (0.05'' step)
•MicroSD card connector
•DEBUG-UART connector for console debug with USB-SERIAL-CABLE-F
•GPIO LED
•Battery charge status LED
•5V input power supply, noise immune design
•Power LED
•KB EEPROM for MAC address storage and more
•3 BUTTONS with ANDROID functionality + RESET button
•4 mount holes
•PCB dimensions: (3005× 345) mils ~ (76×59) mm
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1.2 Target market and purpose of the board
The boards from the OLinuXino family are easy to setup and powerful. It is possible to use them in
almost any application as a host board. They are suitable for embedded programming enthusiasts,
Linux and Android gadget fans (they can just use the board as a media center or fully functional
Linux-PC, for instance) and also professionals (since its low cost makes it very good solution for
application-orientated embedded systems). The main usage of the board is software embedded
development without the urge of understanding perfectly the hardware.
The LIME boards are a special kind of OLinuXino boards – they are as small as possible while
maintaining a remarkable stand-alone functionality. The strong points of the boards are the
processor speed, the small form factor and the low price-to-productivity ratio.
Customers have full access to the technical documentation of the board. The software is released
under General Purpose License and the board is considered open-hardware – all schematics and
board design files are available to the customer under the Creative Commons Attribution-
ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
1.3 Board variants
There are two major board variants named: A10-OLinuXino-LIME and A10-OLinuXino-LIME-
4GB. The 4GB version has a built-in NAND memory that allows the storage of an operating system
without the need of a SD card.
The A 0-OLinuXino-LIME and A 0-OLinuXino-LIME-4GB boards are almost identical to,
respectively, A10-OLinuXino-LIME and A10-OLinuXino-LIME-4GB with the only difference
being the processor mounted. This brings different processor speed and productivity. The A10 has a
single Cortex A8 core. The A 0 has a dual-core Cortex A7. This makes the A 0 boards more
powerful and suitable for heavier computational tasks, but more power-hungry. The processor swap
is possible since the A10 and A 0 processors are pin-to-pin compatible.
The A 0-OLinuXino-LIME (note the “ ”) board is similar to A 0-OLinuXino-LIME and A10-
OLinuXino-LIME but it has Gigabit Ethernet and double the RAM memory (1GB compared to
51 MB).
1.4 Board version used in the manual
Revision C boards and resources were used while writing this document. It is possible that they are
outdated so it is always recommended to download the latest sources from the GitHub page of the
board (https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/tree/master/HARDWARE).
Please note that A10-OLinuXino-LIME design is almost identical to the design of its predecessor
A 0-OLinuXino-LIME – the only difference being the processor. Even then the processors are pin-
to-pin compatible. Some documents or software may be suitable for both the A10 and the A 0
LIME boards but it is generally advised to use resources for the specific board.
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1.5 Document organization
Each section in this document covers a separate topic, organized as follows:
–Chapter 1 is an overview of the board usage and features
–Chapter provides a guide for quickly setting up the board and software notes
–Chapter 3 contains the general board diagram and layout
–Chapter 4 describes the component that is the heart of the board: the A10 – Allwinner
processor
–Chapter 5 is an explanation of the control circuitry associated with the microcontroller
–Chapter 6 covers the connector pinout, peripherals and jumper description
–Chapter 7 provides the schematics and the dimensions of the board
–Chapter 8 contains the revision history, useful links and support information
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CHAPTER 2: SETTING UP THE OLINUXINO BOARD
2. Introduction to the chapter
This section helps you set up the OLinuXino development board for the first time. Please consider
first the electrostatic warning to avoid damaging the board, then discover the hardware and software
required to operate the board.
The procedure to power up the board is given, and a description of the default board behavior is
detailed.
2.1 Electrostatic and electrical polarity warning
OLinuXino is shipped in a protective anti-static package. The board must not be exposed to high
electrostatic potentials. A grounding strap or similar protective device should be worn when
handling the board. Avoid touching the component pins or any other metallic element.
Ensure that your development board gets attached to properly working hardware. For example, it is
common for cheap HDMI monitors to lack grounding. Avoid TVs which have no grounding on their
power supply cable! If you can’t avoid them try to add the grounding yourself, if this is not possible
please use USB-ISO to save your development board from potential over voltage.
If you connect other electrical devices to the LIME board make sure that they have equal electrical
polarity. For example, when you connect an HDMI cable between a TV and the board it is a good
idea to have them both connected to the same electrical source (to the same utility power socket).
This might be said for a serial cable connected between a PC and the board's DEBUG port.
In rare cases different polarity might cause hardware damage to the board.
2.2 Requirements
In order to set up the A10-OLinuXino-LIME optimally one or more additional items may be used.
They might be generally placed in three categories:
equired – items that are needed in order to achieve minimum functionality;
ecommended – items that is good to have in order to be able to interact with the most important
of the features of the board;
Additional – items that provide access to additional features or expand the features of the board.
equired items:
- USB type A to USB mini cable – to connect to a personal computer; used for powering the board
and uploading new Android image to the NAND memory (if your board has 4GB NAND)
- Input device – either a mouse/keyboard or touchscreen LCD
- Output device – either HDMI cable + native HDMI monitor/screen/projector; or USB-SERIAL-
CABLE-F + personal computer (for Linux and/or Android debugging)
- SD card with compatible image – if you have the board version with NO additional NAND
memory you will need it to use one of the images available.
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ecommended items:
- External USB hub – to split the USB_HOST mounted on the board; you need that to connect more
USB devices
- External power supply unit – 5V DC, 5W required – for optimal power
- A10-OLinuXino-LIME-BOX – an aesthetic box specially made for the board that protects it from
dust and accidental short-circuits
- USB-SERIAL-CABLE-F – for Android/Linux debugging on UART0
Additional items include:
- A10-OlinuXino-LIME-UEXT and CABLE-IDC40-15cm and CABLE-40-40-10CM – an adapter
board and two cables suitable for Olimex LCD connection
- Small heatsink for the processor – during long video playbacks the A10 processor might heat up
- External .5'' SATA hard disk drive (proper cables sold)
- Ethernet cable for wired Ethernet
- Back-up Li-Po battery with a proper connector
Important note on requirements:
The board works with .5'' SATA hard disks that can be powered by 5V source from the board! For
the 3.5'' hard disks you would probably need to provide external 1 V supply.
It is a very good idea to have a USB-SERIAL-CABLE or similar cable since it allows you to:
1. Change display output settings for Debian easily
. Debug the board via any personal computer even if there are problems with the video output
Some of the above-suggested items can be purchased by Olimex, for instance:
SY0605E – reliable power supply adapter 50Hz (for EU) 5V/1A for A10-OLinuXino-LIME
SY0605E-CHINA – cheaper power supply adapter 50Hz (for EU) 5V/1A for A10-OLinuXino-
LIME
A10-Android-SD – a tested class 10 micro SD card with the latest (by the time of leaving the
Olimex facilities) official Android release
A10-Debian-SD – a tested class 10 micro SD card with the latest (by the time of leaving Olimex
facilities) official Debian Linux release
USB-SE IAL-CABLE-F – female USB serial console cable
A10-OLINUXINO-LIME-UEXT – GPIO adapter which makes LIME GPIOs available in
breadboard friendly 0.1" step connectors, needed if you want to connect an older Olimex-made
display to the board (newer displays listed below have 0.05'' step connector)
CABLE-40-40-10CM – 0.05'' step cable for connecting a new display to the board
LCD-OLINUXINO-4.3TS – low-cost 4.3'' LCD display with touchscreen component – 480× 7
LCD-OLINUXINO-7TS – low-cost 7'' LCD display with optional touchscreen component –
800×480
LCD-OLINUXINO-10TS – low-cost 10'' LCD display with optional touchscreen component –
10 4×600
CABLE-IDC40-15cm – 0.1'' step cable for connecting an LCD to A10-OLinuXino-LIME-UEXT
SATA-HDD-2.5-500GB – 5GB .5'' SATA hard disk
SATA-CABLE-SET – cables that allow the connection of a .5'' hard disk to the board
ALUMINIUM-HEATSINK-20×20×6MM – heatsink radiator for better processor heat dissipation
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2.3 Powering the board
There are three possible ways of powering A10-OLinuXino-LIME – via external supply providing
5V DC at the power jack, from 5V USB port via USB_OTG connector or from 3.7V Li-Po battery
via the LIPO_BAT. Note that the board might consume up to 650mA of current at 5V when there
are no peripherals connected to the USB hosts. Make sure your power supply is able to provide at
least 1A before. Depending on your preferred way of powering you might need additional hardware.
Important: Not all USB ports would be able to provide enough power for the board. Try using
another USB port/USB hub or a cable of higher quality.
If you have an LCD display connected to the board or external .5'' hard disk then the USB will
NOT be sufficient source of power.
The best practice is to never count on the mini USB-OTG as a single source of power for the board!
The preferred way of powering the board is via the PWR jack with 5V DC. This would make the
board fully powered and able to power all the peripherals connected to it.
Note that when powering the board from the USB_OTG, the current provided might be insufficient
to also power a bigger LCD connected to the LCD_con. However, this power option is capable of
driving the board when using external display connected to the HDMI connector.
The typical consumption of A10-OLinuXino-LIME is between 400mA and 750mA depending on
the current load.
If the board has entered power-down state you can bring it back without restart using the
PWR_BUT. The PWR_BUT is also used to start the board when powered from a Li-Po battery on
the battery connector.
Sometimes when starting Android it is possible the board to enter battery save mode even before
booting fully. Especially, if you have turned off the board without quick boot mode enabled. In this
case you should press the PWR button for at least 5 seconds which would allow the board to start.
For the European customers we sell two power supply adapters, please check chapter . . We also
sell USB OTG to USB type A cables if you lack such.
The default username/password combination for the default Linux image on the SD card (if
purchased) is: root/olimex.
Note that it is normal that when the board is powered some integrated circuits might appear hotter
than others. This is perfectly normal for some chips – for instance – voltage regulators and the main
processor.
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2.4 Button functions
The bellow three buttons usually are supported under both Android and Debian:
PW – used to perform software turn off, software turn on; used to turn on board when powered by
battery – has to be held down for at least 5 seconds to perform each action
ESET – used for hardware reset of the board – it is not recommended
ECOVE Y – used to wake up the board from sleep
It is recommended to always make a soft “turn off” of the board. If that is not possible then please
hold PWR button down for a few seconds to “turn off the board”. Then you are free to remove the
power supply. If you disconnect the power supply (either the USB, the battery or the power jack)
before turning off the board you may corrupt your SD card. If you have placed NAND memory you
can corrupt the image on the NAND memory.
2.5 Changing the default image resolution
Depending on the display or the screen you want to use with the A10-OlinuXino-LIME, you might
need to apply software changes to the prebuilt Android or Linux image.
Generally, this means that you would need to edit the configuration file script.bin and edit the
settings inside. This file is usually located in Script.bin can't be opened in the binary format so you
would need to convert it to .fex file format first. There are ready-to-use tools that convert script.bin
<-> script.fex. Note that script.bin/fex contains configuration settings and definitions not only for
the video output but also for the pin descriptions and names; power setting and much more. If you
really want to modify and customize the default images (to change port functions, port names, to
disable specific peripherals) you would need to be able to edit the script files. Please refer to the
following web page for more information: http://linux-sunxi.org/Fex_Guide
The typical OlinuXino user would not need to edit the files, however.
To ease the process of changing the resolution we have compiled a number of Android images for
the Android users (with hard-coded video output settings). Alternatively, for Debian Linux users, we
have provided a shell script that can be executed in order to set preferred video output and
resolution.
For Android that you boot from the NAND memory you would need an image suitable for the
specific resolution. Download locations to such images might be found at the wiki article for the
A10 board here: https://www.olimex.com/wiki/A10-OLinuXino-LIME.
For Linux Debian you would need to execute a shell script to be able to change the resolution. It is
very good idea to use a serial cable for connection to the board from a personal computer since in
this case you are dependent on a video resolution (a cable like USB-SERIAL-CABLE-F). When the
board boots type:
./change_display*
or
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./change_display_A10_lime.sh
and choose the resolution and the interface (LCD, HDMI or VGA).
The supported resolutions are listed below.
For LCD:
1. 4.3" (480× 7 )
. 7" (800×480)
3. 10" (10 4×600)
For HDMI:
0. 480i
1. 576i
. 480p
3. 576p
4. 7 0p50
5. 7 0p60
6. 1080i50
7. 1080i60
8. 1080p 4
9. 1080p50
10. 1080p60
For VGA (please note that the VGA lacks a connector – more instructions on the VGA signals
might be found in the chapter 6):
0. 1680×1050
1. 1440×900
. 1360×768
3. 1 80×10 4
4. 10 4×768
5. 800×600
6. 640×480
7. 19 0×1080
8. 1 80×7 0
2.6 Connecting and calibrating a display
One of the ways to interact with the board is via an external display (with or without touchscreen
component). If you want to use a display for video output from the LIME board the best way is to
use the LCD_CON row of pins.
Note that unlike other OLinuXino boards A10-OlinuXino-LIME the row of pins that allows the user
to connect a display has smaller step (0.05''). The corresponding connectors in previous OLinuXino
boards had a step of 0.1''. This means that if you use a display made by OLIMEX, you would need
additional hardware to adapt the pin-step accordingly. You can either make such adapter (or cable)
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yourself, following the schematics of the display and the board or purchase it from us.
With newer Olimex-made displays you can use a single cable with 0.05'' step. The new revsions of
displays have both 0.1'' step connector and 0.05'' step connectors.
If your Olimex-made display has only a single 0.01'' step connector you would need two 40 pin
cables (CABLE-40-40-10CM and CABLE-IDC40-15cm) that connect to a small adapter board
called A10-OLinuXino-LIME-UEXT. I recommend you to take a look at the pages of the adapter
and the cables even if you decide to make it yourself – there are schematics available for download.
2.6.1 Android calibration
Calibrating a display under Android is pretty straightforward from the Android application.
Important: initially the boards are calibrated for a specific display and resolution. If you re-write the
image (no matter whether the SD card or the NAND memory) you might need to use a mouse to
calibrate the display initially. It might be impossible to calibrate it via touching the display.
2.6.2 Debian calibration
The command that allows calibrating in Debian Linux is:
ts_calibrate
The default Debian setup is made with settings for HDMI 7 0p/60Hz. If you want to change some
other LCD, VGA or HDMI resolution then you have to start script file in /root directory.
If the problem is under Debian Linux make sure you are properly logged in the XFCE interface!
Else applying calibration would not happen for the current user – if you are calibrating from the X
graphical interface make sure that you are logged as user “olimex” (if calibrating without the X, the
user is “root”).
#su olimex
enter the password: olimex
calibrate the touch screen and reboot the board
#sudo reboot
2.7 GPIO under Debian
You can read data from a given GPIO port. The logical ranges are usually as follows:
0V-1V for LOW (or 0)
.4V-3.3V for HIGH (or 1)
All voltages are measured against ground (GND).
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If the input signal is to high, you will at least destroy the port!
The algorithms for writing a value to a GPIO port and reading such a value are pretty similar. The
usage of GPIO ports follows the algorithm (we would use GPIO #49 for demonstration purposes):
1. Export GPIO 49:
echo 49 > /sys/class/gpio/export
Note that you can export GPIOs in range with:
for i in `seq 1 1 230`; do echo $i > /sys/class/gpio/export; done
. Set input/output GPIO 49
.1 Set input:
echo "in" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio49 ph9/direction
. Set output:
echo "out" > /sys/class/gpio/gpio49 ph9/direction
3. Set value or read value GPIO 49
3.1 Set value:
echo 0 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio49 ph9/value
echo 1 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio49 ph9/value
3. Read input:
cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio49 ph9/value
4. Unexport GPIO 49 when finished
echo 49 > /sys/class/gpio/unexport
A very good document on GPIO usage might be found here:
http://www.py6zgp.com/download/A 0-GPIO.pdf – the document was created by Dr. Guido Pelz.
2.8 I2C and SPI under Debian
I C and SPI are both supported in the latest Debian releases. There is respective kernel support for
both. There is a python module called pyA10Lime might be found here:
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyA10Lime
At the same web address you would also find a set of examples on how module is used.
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2.9 Software support
We maintain Linux and Android images for SD card which might be downloaded for free and
modified as the user wishes. The latest images and updates are featured at the wiki article of the
device: https://www.olimex.com/wiki/A10-OLinuXino-LIME.
We usually try to provide details on how to build the Linux and the Android images at our
wordpress page: http://olimex.wordpress.com/.
Another useful place is the Olimex forums where a lot of people share their experience and advice:
https://www.olimex.com/forum/.
Additional Android and Linux support and features are added overtime. The Linux support is a
work-in-progress and you should not expect full Linux support after the initial volume of such
boards have become available on the market. If you are in a hurry consider the older OLinuXino
designs (which have almost everything supported, have examples available and so on).
You are more than welcome to send or share your suggestions and ideas at our e-mail, the public
forums or irc channel. We would attempt to help in almost every case. We listen to the feedback and
if the majority of users suggest a software change or update we try to implement such. Customer
feedback is very important for the overall state of the software support. However, do not expect full
Linux or Android software support.
We can share our experience. We can give you full details for things we have tried. We can point
you to a resource or a guide. We can give you general directions to solving a specific problem or
places to look for more information. However, we won’t install a piece of software for you or write
custom program for you. We won't provide a specific software solution to a specific software
problem.
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CHAPTER 3: A10-OLINUXINO-LIME BOARD DESCRIPTION
3. Introduction to the chapter
Here you get acquainted with the main parts of the board. Note the names used on the board might
differ from the names used below to describe them. For the actual names check the A10-
OLinuXino-LIME board itself.
3.1 Layout (top view)
The picture below shows the top side of the board and highlights the most important parts:
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OLIMEX© 015 A10-OLinuXino-LIME user's manual
3.2 Layout (bottom view)
At the bottom are located mainly the buttons and microSD card connector.
You should be careful of the surface that you use to place the board.
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OLIMEX© 015 A10-OLinuXino-LIME user's manual
CHAPTER 4: THE ALLWINNER A10 MICROCONTROLLER
4. Introduction to the chapter
In this chapter is located the information about the heart of OLinuXino – its microcontroller. The
information is a modified version of the datasheet provided by its manufacturers.
4.1 The processor
The features of the A10 processor according to the manufacturer Allwinner:
CPU
ARM Cortex™-A8
3 KB I-Cache
3 KB D-Cache
56KB L Cache
GPU
ARM Mali-400
VIDEO
UHD 160P video decoding
3D video decoding
Support various video decoding formats, including VP8, AVS, H. 64 MVC, VC-1,
MPEG-1, ,4, etc
H. 64 HP video encoding up to 1080p @ 30 fps or dual-channel 7 0p @ 30 fps
DISPLAY
Multi-channel HD display
Integrated HDMI 1.4
YPbPr, CVBS, VGA
Multiple LCD interfaces, including CPU, RGB, LVDS up to Full HD
MEMORY
3 -bit DDR /DDR3 with memory capacity up to 16G bits
SLC/MLC/TLC/DDR NAND
- 8 flash chips, 64-bit ECC
- Memory capacity up to 64GB
- Support NAND of 5xnm, 4xnm, 3xnm, xnm, etc
- Support NAND of Samsung, Toshiba, Hynix, etc
BOOT
NAND Flash
SPI NOR Flash
SD Card
USB
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OLIMEX© 015 A10-OLinuXino-LIME user's manual
More information can be found on Allwinner's web site at the following web-address:
http://www.allwinnertech.com/en/product/A10.html.
A good source of information on the processor is the linux sunxi wiki article: http://linux-
sunxi.org/A10.
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OLIMEX© 015 A10-OLinuXino-LIME user's manual
CHAPTER 5: CONTROL CIRCUITY
5. Introduction to the chapter
Here you can find information about reset circuit and quartz crystals locations, the power supply
circuit is also briefly discussed.
5.1 Reset
The board has hardware reset controlled by the AXP 09 power system management IC.
It is a good practice to perform software reset of the board. Performing reset by disconnecting the
power supply might lead to software corruption of the operating system of choice.
5.2 Clocks
5 MHz quartz crystal Q1 is connected to pins X1 and X of the RTL8 01CP Ethernet controller.
3 768 Hz (RTC) quartz crystal Q is found at pins F1 and F of the A10 microcontroller.
4 MHz quartz crystal Q3 is found at pins N and N 3 of the A10 microcontroller.
5.3 Power supply circuit
The power supply is handled mainly by AXP 09 power management system, an Allwinner chip that
goes together with the A10 processor. It is mounted on the board but since it is relatively hard to
find we also sell it separately.
The power supply circuit of A10-OLinuXino-LIME requires input supply of 5V. The minimum
wattage is .5W, and this threshold may raise if using a lot of devices on the USB-HOST (via
external hub), a lot of GPIOs or you have a display connected to the LCD_CON or a hard disk
powered from the 5V_SATA_PWR connector. If a discharged Li-Po battery is connected to the
respective connector the power consumption of the whole LIME board might rise enormously, since
the built-in battery charger would attempt to recharge it.
For more info on how to power the board refer to chapter “ .3 Powering the board”.
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