SGET team SDT.01 announces final specification SMARC 2.0

All participating companies in the SDT.01 workgroup have recognized the need for an update of the SMARC specification 1.1, which was published in December 2012, more than 3 years ago. “The terms of reference included the task to create a new Version 2.0 of the specification with an enhanced feature set, keep compatibility with the V1.1 pinout to the extent possible and re-purpose selected V1.1 pins that are currently under-used for new interfaces”, says Martin Unverdorben, Chairman of the SDT 01 workgroup. “The team followed the principal that there should be no damage if a V1.1 compliant Module is placed into a V2.0 compliant Carrier, or if a V2.0 compliant Module is placed into a V1.1 compliant Carrier.”

In SMARC specification 2.0 the following interfaces are added: 2nd channel LVDS, a 2nd Ethernet port, IEEE1588 Trigger Signals, a 4th PCI Express Lane, extra USB ports (now 6x USB 2.0 + 2x USB 3.0 superspeed signals), x86 power management signals, eSPI and DP++. “The summary is, that SMARC 2.0 is now perfectly suited for interfaces supplied by X86 as well as ARM processors and it offers more multimedia interfaces, too”, explains Martin Unverdorben. Up to three digital displays will be supported: As primary display 2x 24 bit LVDS or eDP (4 channels) or MIPI DSI (4 channels) can be used, the secondary display can either be HDMI or DP++, and the third display can be DP++.

Some interfaces which were rarely used or seen as outdated soon were removed from the specification: Parallel Camera Interface, Parallel Display Interface, PCI Express Presence and Clock Request signals, Alternate Function Block, SPDIF, one I2S (out of 3) and eMMC.

First products compliant to the SMARC specification 2.0 are expected to be made soon available by member companies of SGET e.V.

Other companies in the embedded computing industry are invited to join SGET e.V. and contribute their ideas. Apart from embedded computing manufacturers on board and system level, also chip and connector manufacturers, research and educational institutions as well as embedded system integrators, OEM solution providers and industrial users are most welcome.