Digi-Key at embedded world 2023 with BeagleBoard.org

15th March 2023

Kiera Sowery

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At embedded world 2023, on the Digi-Key booth, Paige West speaks with Jason Kridner, President & Co-Founder of the board, beagleboard.org Foundation and Robert Nelson, Apps Engineering, Digi-Key Electronics about BeaglePlay.

The beagleboard.org foundation is a non-profit corporation existing to provide education in and collaboration around the design and use of open-source software and hardware in embedded computing. Beagleboard.org provides a forum for the owners and developers of open-source software and hardware to exchange ideas, knowledge and experience.

At embedded world 2023, BeagleBoard.org is showcasing BeaglePlay which makes Linux computing simple and fun. The BeaglePlay boasts the broadest array of connectivity options yet seen on a Beagleboard.org design.

The BeaglePlay board is based around a Texas Instruments AM625 system-on-chip, which includes four Arm Cortex-A53 cores running at up to 1.5GHz, a Cortex-M4F microcontroller core running at up to 400MHz, and a Cortex-R5F real-time core, a 3D-capable graphics processor supporting resolutions up to 2048×1080 at 60 frames per second (FPU) with OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan 1.2 support, 2GB of DDR4 RAM, and of 16GB eMMC storage.

With compatibility with 1,000s of off-the-shelf add-ons and a customised Debian Linux image, BeaglePlay makes expansion and customisation easy, and the possibilities are endless. Applications include air quality monitoring, early failure analysis, or taking control of household appliances.

“Anybody can be a maker. We really want to engage people at the university level, and make sure there are no barriers for people who want to go into production. That’s why we do everything as open hardware.

“There’s no limit to what you can do with the board,” states Jason Kridner.

Does open hardware matter?

Kridner explains: “I think it’s significant. People don’t understand how important it is that we put individuals in control. As a professional, it’s super important that you can take control of supply chain.

“The last couple of years everybody has had a lot of supply chain challenges, and by us publishing our schematics, we’ve worked hard to provide a steady supply, but people can take control of it themselves.

“For us, it’s both ethical and important that we get the open hardware certifications and make sure everything we do is open hardware.”