ORCA SOM - i.MX8M Plus

Yes. ORCA SOM and the i.MX8M Plus family is included in the Longevity program by NXP.
DAVE Embedded Systems is committed to provide its products at least for the same period declared by the silicon vendor.
DAVE Embedded Systems manages the components' obsolescence and components through a PCN program according to JEDEC standard (where possible) which may require the customer's support. See this page for further information.

You can download ORCA SOM brochure by clicking here.

To get a quote you can contact DAVE Embedded Systems by clicking here.

The ORCA SOM product is based on the i.MX8M Plus processor from our technology partner NXP. The i.MX 8M Plus family focuses on machine learning and vision, advanced multimedia and industrial IoT with high reliability.

Yes. ORCA SOM Evaluation Kit includes a SOM and all necessary for the fast and easy evaluation.

Here you can find the video of the unboxing of the ORCA SOM’s Evaluation Kit that shows you how the Evaluation Kit is composed and how to unbox and connect it to your development platform.

Yes. ORCA SOM is built to meet the needs of Industry 4.0 applications.

Yes. ORCA SOM is built to meet the needs of Smart Home, Building and City.

Yes. A Neural Processing Unit can be easily integrated on ORCA SOM through a ready-to-use board thanks to DAVE Embedded Systems' wide knowledge on Machine Learning applications.

Yes. DAVE Embedded Systems offers a main customization that includes Machine Learning NPU ready-to-use boards, security features, asymmetric multi-processing definition and board optimization for vision cameras.
Also, DAVE Embedded Systems is available to optimize the SOM according to your needs and the specific project you are involved to.

Here you can find ORCA SOM’s 3D model.

Here you can find ORCA SOM’s block diagram.

Here you can find ORCA SOM’s hardware manual.

On this page you can find all the ORCA SOM’s marketing documentation available.

ORCA SOM module part number is identified by the digit-code table that you can find here.

DAVE Embedded Systems' goal is to grant the production continuity to its customer including the possibility to redesign its products in order to maintain the product continuity.

Yes. ORCA SOM has multiple SAI interfaces. For example, in ORCA Evaluation Kit the SAI2 interface signals can be used to connect and external I2S codec for using the native audio interface. In addition, in this Application Note we describe how to simply add another audio interface using a standard Bluetooth to audio adapter like the Avantree DG80 USB to audio transmitter.

Yes. From the ORCA SOM design comes ORCA Single Board Computer, also based on the NXP i.MX8 Plus processor.

ORCA SOM is designed using DAVE Embedded Systems’ Secure Boot integration competences and the EdgeLock SE050 chip integrated on board.

This product family of Plug & Trust devices offers enhanced Common Criteria EAL 6+ based security, for unprecedented protection against the latest attack scenarios. This ready-to-use secure element for IoT devices provides a root of trust at the IC level and delivers real end-to-end security – from edge to cloud – without the need to write security code.

Yes. ORCA SOM’s board is optimized for vision cameras thanks to the dual ISP cameras and the dual Gigabit ethernet interfaces with TSM integration.

Here you can find the DAVE Embedded Systems' Return Material Authorization form.

ORCA SOM’s processor and memory subsystem are composed by the following components:

• i.MX8M Plus SoC application processor
• Power supply unit
• LPDDR4 memory bank
• eMMC or NAND flash banks
• Connectors:
  • 1 x 260 pins SO-DIMM edge connector with interfaces signals

Here you can find a short description of the main ORCA components.

Yes. The PCB version is copper printed on PCB itself and the serial number is printed on a white label (please see here for further information).
Also, a ConfigID is used by software running on the board for the identification of the product model/hardware configuration.

Here you can find the connectors and pinout description of the ORCA module.

ORCA SOM supports the following peripherals:

• Audio
• CAN
• Ethernet
• HDMI
• LVDS
• MIPI
• IPS
• SDIO
• SPI
• I2C
• UART
• USB
• PCI Express
• GPIOs
• Real Time Clock
• Watchdog
• Secure Element
• NPU

Implementing correct power-up sequence for iMX8M Plus processors is not a trivial task because several power rails are involved. ORCA SOM simplifies this task by embedding all the needed circuitry.
Here you can find a simplified block diagram of PSU/voltage monitoring circuitry.

The PSU is composed of two main blocks: 1) the power management integrated circuit and 2) additional generic power management circuitry that completes PMIC functionalities.

The PSU generates the proper power-up sequence required by the SOC processor, surrounding memories and peripherals and synchronizes the powering up of carrier board in order to prevent back power.

The typical power-up sequence is the following:

1. 3.3VIN main power supply rail is powered
2. SNVS domain signals are pulled-up (unless carrier board circuitry keeps this signal low for any reason)
3. CPU_PORn (active-low) is driven low by PMIC
4. RTC_RESET_B are internally released after 200ms
5. PMIC initiates power-up sequence needed by iMX8M processor
6. BOARD_PGOOD goes up when NVCC_3V3 (CPU I/O power rail) is ready
7. CPU_PORn is deasserted after the last regulator to bring the processor out of reset

Here you can find a block diagram of reset scheme and voltage monitoring.

The boot process begins at Power On Reset (POR) where the hardware reset logic forces the ARM core to begin execution starting from the on-chip boot ROM.

The boot ROM:

• determines whether the boot is secure or non-secure
• performs some initialization of the system and clean-ups
• reads the mode pins to determine the primary boot device
• once it is satisfied, it executes the boot code

Many options are available related for ORCA SOM System boot. For further information, please check out more by clicking here.

Here you can find ORCA SOM’s maximum ratings, recommended ratings and power consumption.

The ORCA SOM is designed to support the maximum available temperature range declared by the manufacturer. The customer shall define and conduct a reasonable number of tests and verification in order to qualify the DUT capabilities to manage the heat dissipation and any heatsink, fan etc shall be defined case by case.

Here you can find the mechanical characteristics of the ORCA module.

JTAG signals are routed to the J1 primary connector of the ORCA PCB.

See the pinout section for more details.

Yes. DAVE Embedded Software Kit Linux (DESK-MX8M-L in short) provides all the necessary components required to set up the developing environment to:

• build the bootloader (U-Boot)
• build the Linux operating system
• build Linux applications that will run on the target
• build the Yocto BSP

Click here for further information about DESK-MX8M-L.