The 1GHz MCU i.MX RT1170 is available!?

[ali_asadzadeh]

Hi,
Today I take a look at the RT1170,
https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/arm-microcontrollers/i-mx-rt-crossover-mcus/i-mx-rt1170-crossover-mcu-family-first-ghz-mcu-with-arm-cortex-m7-and-cortex-m4-cores:i.MX-RT1170

And it seems NXP has finally released the docs and you can get the chip (Xmass gift ) , any Ideas or has one of you done something with it? what project would you use it for?

[martinribelotta]

The chips (ver 800MHz) is listed as non-stock for now:

https://www.digikey.com/short/4c7jdw

But is expect to turn as stocked in few days

[cgroen]

The chips (ver 800MHz) is listed as non-stock for now:

https://www.digikey.com/short/4c7jdw

But is expect to turn as stocked in few days

Mouser says Feb 12. The EVK is expected (Mouser) Feb 8, I already ordered both
Currently making library symbol for it...
Going to be exciting to see it. I though the users manual for the RT1064 was rather large at almost 3500 pages, not any more, the RT1170 UM is 6200+ pages 

[ehughes]

I can verify that it is very real.   I have an EVK in hand.

SDK & Parts are looking like late Feb.

[SiliconWizard]

Doesn't look bad. I haven't worked with NXP MCUs so far, so I can't make a specific comment.

But certainly I could see some applications. For instance, it looks beefy enough to be able to run some pretty nice audio effects/synthesizers while being a lot cheaper than the usual DSPs commonly used for that (especially for the dev tools!)

[phil from seattle]

Check out the PJRC audio stuff running on the Teensy 4.1 (iMXRT1062, 600 MHz) to get a sense of what is possible. PJRC is supposedly coming out with a Teensy 5.0 based on the 1170. I expect it to cost less than $30. pjrc.com

[ali_asadzadeh]

I think NXP should do something about A free Graphics library, probably buy embedded wizard or a similar company and make it free to attract more customers, also the price should be a bit lower, I hope we all could see a 1$ 1GHz MCU in a 1-2 years from now

Hopefully the new chip comes in 0.8mm BGA which can be done on a 4 layer @ JLCPCB, as I suggest them in the surveys

[cgroen]

I think NXP should do something about A free Graphics library, probably buy embedded wizard or a similar company and make it free to attract more customers, also the price should be a bit lower, I hope we all could see a 1$ 1GHz MCU in a 1-2 years from now

Hopefully the new chip comes in 0.8mm BGA which can be done on a 4 layer @ JLCPCB, as I suggest them in the surveys

It is (only) coming in a 289 pin 0.8mm pitch package (17x17 balls in a 14x14 mm package) according to datasheet..

I'm waiting for the schematic for the EVK before I can get on with the first design, there are a few of the signals around the DCDC/LDO stuff that are not exactly well described in the datasheet/hardware design manual. I have not been able to locate the schematics so far 

[newbrain]

I think NXP should do something about A free Graphics library, probably buy embedded wizard or a similar company and make it free to attract more customers

They already do!

[luiHS]

 
I find the new RT1024 more interesting, it is like the RT1020 (Cortex M7, 500Mhz) but with internal flash memory (4MB), and in LQFP144 format to be able to make designs with greater comfort.

One of these days I will try to make my first design with BGA, something that has a large pitch (0.8mm, 1mm), but still requires a 4 layer PCB which is quite expensive.

The only thing that caught my attention about the RT1070 is that it incorporates 2 and 4 lanes MIPI, interesting to be able to make designs with video screens, it remains to be seen if it supports hardware JPEG decoding. I already saw the datasheet and it seems that no, a pity, for now the only microcontroller I know with MIPI-DSI and hardware JPEG decoder is the STM32F769 / 779.

[cgroen]

I find the new RT1024 more interesting, it is like the RT1020 (Cortex M7, 500Mhz) but with internal flash memory (4MB), and in LQFP144 format to be able to make designs with greater comfort.

One of these days I will try to make my first design with BGA, something that has a large pitch (0.8mm, 1mm), but still requires a 4 layer PCB which is quite expensive.

The only thing that caught my attention about the RT1070 is that it incorporates 2 and 4 lanes MIPI, interesting to be able to make designs with video screens, it remains to be seen if it supports hardware JPEG decoding.

Luis,
according to the UM, it does not contain JPEG decoding in hardware (but a vector graphics engine is included)
Also agree that the MIPI is very nice, using LCD with traditional RGB interface steals a lot of I/O signals (so does SDRAM compared to HyperRAM)
A "funny" thing it contains 2 LCD controllers, the "traditional" one, and an extended one (with vector graphics etc).

[tmadness]

The issue I have with NXP are their dev boards. They are over featured and bring out too few pins. I wish they put out something like the STM32 nucleo series. The teensy series is the de-facto dev board for some of the NXP MCUs, but they don't bring out all the pins conveniently, nor do they have a debug interface.

[cgroen]

The issue I have with NXP are their dev boards. They are over featured and bring out too few pins. I wish they put out something like the STM32 nucleo series. The teensy series is the de-facto dev board for some of the NXP MCUs, but they don't bring out all the pins conveniently, nor do they have a debug interface.

I somewhat agree, there are a few that are ok, but it seems the 1170-EVK is on the heavy end....
For the RT106x (and LPC54628 etc) I usually make my own "eval" boards, it much easier that way.
I made a combined board for some of the processors I use the most, LPC1549, LPC824, LPC845 and LPC546xx. Also added a current monitor, a FTDI converter, 32 KHz osc and a few other things. Have helped me a lot on some of my designs where I needed to check some stuff before doing the final design....
I will do the same on the 1170 once that arrives.

[mac.6]

Doesn't look bad. I haven't worked with NXP MCUs so far, so I can't make a specific comment.

But certainly I could see some applications. For instance, it looks beefy enough to be able to run some pretty nice audio effects/synthesizers while being a lot cheaper than the usual DSPs commonly used for that (especially for the dev tools!)

For that there is i.mxRT600, but not user friendly (0.5mm BGA).

[ali_asadzadeh]

They already do!

If they are serious, No one would even take a look at ewmin, Because of it's outdated feel and look, ST has touchGFX, so NXP needs something better than that.

[JPortici]

they support lvgl in many of their demo boards. lvgl has also specific ports that use the graphic accelerators in some of the processors

[cgroen]

they support lvgl in many of their demo boards. lvgl has also specific ports that use the graphic accelerators in some of the processors

I have used emWin and now also lvgl. I like lvgl A LOT more to be honest, very good documentation, source available, good active community. Even made my first (personal) project with it some time ago (used the older version 6, newest versions are even better)
Embedded Wizard, TouchGFX, Crank Storyboard etc. all seems soo extremely bloated imho.

Anyway, looking forward to news on the RT1170

[ali_asadzadeh]

Embedded Wizard, TouchGFX, Crank Storyboard etc. all seems soo extremely bloated imho

The future is one of these babies, I personally use ST with Touch GFX for now, But if NXP provide some free  Modern Graphics, I will definitely switch to NXP.

[JPortici]

You also have Qt for microcontrollers on this family
At what cost i do not want to know.

In any case, re LVGL, i've began using it a month ago and i'm also liking it a lot over any other library i used in the past.. good documentation, lots of possibilities and customization and most important i can do great part of the development on my pc with the tft simulator. I don't know if any of the other libraries use SLD or a simillar mechanism for simulation/development but i love it.
What LVGL lacks though is a good graphics composer and style editor (i haven't been satisfied with what i saw)

[SiliconWizard]

Doesn't look bad. I haven't worked with NXP MCUs so far, so I can't make a specific comment.

But certainly I could see some applications. For instance, it looks beefy enough to be able to run some pretty nice audio effects/synthesizers while being a lot cheaper than the usual DSPs commonly used for that (especially for the dev tools!)

For that there is i.mxRT600, but not user friendly (0.5mm BGA).

Yeah, not the same approach at all though. The RT600 is an hybrid with a Cortex M33 core and a DSP core (completely different) from Cadence, this arrangement makes it a lot less convenient to develop for. And I also don't know how efficient this DSP @600 MHz is compared to a Cortex M7 @1 GHz with the proper extensions. OTOH, it seems cheaper. Overall, not what I would be looking for personally.

[cgroen]

Good news,
the EVK design files has just been released 

https://www.nxp.com/design/development-boards/i-mx-evaluation-and-development-boards/i-mx-rt1170-evaluation-kit:MIMXRT1170-EVK
Schematic is in PDF.
Design files (SCH, PCB) is for Orcad, if any of you guys can convert to Altium, I would be very happy

[asmi]

but still requires a 4 layer PCB which is quite expensive.

If 7$ for 5 boards 10x10 cm is expensive for you then I don't know how much cheaper it can really get...

[SiliconWizard]

One of these days I will try to make my first design with BGA, something that has a large pitch (0.8mm, 1mm), but still requires a 4 layer PCB which is quite expensive.

Just a couple thoughts. 4-layer PCBs are not that expensive anymore. Besides, for high-speed digital logic, I would certainly avoid using anything below 4 layers anyway.

And then, relative to BGAs in particular, the additional cost is not just PCBs. Unless your PCBs are huge, I guess the added cost will even be marginal compared to the additional equipment (and training) you will need to properly solder BGAs. Not that you'll have to spend a lot either, but if all you have is soldering iron, then you'll need to invest in some additional tools and learn how to use them.

[bson]

No reason not to get 4-layer boards anymore, and I only use 2 layers for adapters, test fixtures, and the simplest boards anymore.  Simply having fixed power and ground planes available almost anywhere is well worth the small incremental price.  They also have friendly design rules, so makes layout easier in many ways.

A large 0.5 pitch BGA on the other hand will almost certainly call for plugged blind vias with close to zero annulars (or microvias), which will begin to cost real money.  The usual CN prototype line ±2 mil drill precision just isn't going to cut it , and they won't do blind vias at all.

I haven't looked at the M7 or its cache implementations (which I assume is part of the ARM core), but for DSP it should probably be disabled, or if it's possible peg a portion to it to always map to an address range so it can be used as a fast buffer.  Otherwise it's not going to be any faster than the SRAM used.  (And in fact a normal associative cache will only get in the way and make it difficult to validate performance; so it gets disabled, and then if enabled the speed benefit is of no value since it can't be relied on.)  But if it's peggable, or some coloring scheme can be used, then that 800M/1GHz might make a difference!

[cgroen]

.
.
A large 0.5 pitch BGA on the other hand will almost certainly call for plugged blind vias with close to zero annulars (or microvias), which will begin to cost real money.  The usual CN prototype line ±2 mil drill precision just isn't going to cut it , and they won't do blind vias at all.
.

pcbway does both blind and buried vias (obviously at a higher cost than simple 4/6/8 layers, but still way lower than most western prices)

Ex:
6 layer, 5 pcs 100x100 mm, 6 layer, ENIG, 3/3 mil is $391,-
6 layer, 5 pcs 100x100 mm, 6 layer, ENIG, 3/3 mil and HDI Buried/Blind via is $458,-

[Marco]

So much processing power and no memory ... what's the point? Why don't these things have LPDDR4 interface?

[cgroen]

So much processing power and no memory ... what's the point? Why don't these things have LPDDR4 interface?

This sums it pretty much up:
(hint, it is not an "applications processor")

[Marco]

It's supposed to crossover, so it should be half of one. The lower interrupt latency seems to me the bigger feature than any crossover.

The cortex A5/A7 low power SiPs are actual crossovers.

[cgroen]

I "somewhat" managed to reconstruct the RT1170-EVK PCB file from the gerbers. The net names is of course not there and the polygons are a little "so-so".
But at least it gives some hints to the placement of caps on the back of the CPU etc....
But it would be super nice if we could get a true Altium version of the PCB (the schematics I have imported from their Orcad version, the PCB is in Allegro)

[tszaboo]

So much processing power and no memory ... what's the point? Why don't these things have LPDDR4 interface?

So you can run a PID controller with faster response time?
Or have a EtherCAT interface on a BLDC motor controller doing real time stuff?
Make a datalogger with more capabilities, like remote interface and touchscreen, without one lagging out the other?
It's entirely reasonable to work with this much memory. 

[SiliconWizard]

- It has 2MB of RAM, which is plenty for many applications.
- Processing power and available memory address two different needs.
- This is still a microcontroller, not a complex SOC made for mobile phones. It's easier to use, draws less power, has more peripherals, lower latency, etc.
- It has an SDRAM controller for more memory if required.

Cortex-A-based CPUs/SOCs target a completely different market, and they often come with annoying licensing issues, difficult and/or costly access to SDKs, etc.

This reminds me of another thread dealing with the idea of 1GHz+ MCUs. Apparently, 1GHz looks like some psychological threshold to some.

[tszaboo]

This reminds me of another thread dealing with the idea of 1GHz+ MCUs. Apparently, 1GHz looks like some psychological threshold to some.

Yes, it kind of feels like "too much power". I felt the same way, when I went to early PIC32 from small Atmels. 16MHz->80MHz was a large step, and it had soo much memory.
BTW, what's the situation with similar RISC-V MCUs. I know that technically, I could make a chip like that myself, but I just want to order "packaged chips from Digikey".

[SiliconWizard]

This reminds me of another thread dealing with the idea of 1GHz+ MCUs. Apparently, 1GHz looks like some psychological threshold to some.

Yes, it kind of feels like "too much power". I felt the same way, when I went to early PIC32 from small Atmeas. 16MHz->80MHz was a large step, and it had soo much memory.
BTW, what's the situation with similar RISC-V MCUs. I know that technically, I could make a chip like that myself, but I just want to order "packaged chips from Digikey".

Yeah, I was going to add, it was the same thing like 15 years ago with the idea of 100MHz+ MCUs. Many thought they were nonsense.

Not sure what your question is regarding RISC-V MCUs. Are you wondering about their availability? Currently there aren't many options, but a few. There are the SiFive MCUs, then a couple chinese companies (like GD) also offer RISC-V MCUs, then there is the Kendryte K210. You could start a dedicated thread for that BTW, in which people could list available off-the-shelf RISC-V CPUs/MCUs.

[cgroen]

Its pretty much the same as "you will never need more than 640 KByte" 
Seriously, it has 2 MByte SRAM inside, soon there will be a version with on-chip Flash memory (like the 1064), then you have a standalone CPU with 2 MByte of SRAM and (probably) 16 MByte of Flash. You only need a 4.7 uH inductor, two handfull of caps and a couple of resistors, and off you go!
At that is with a chip in the $10..$12 range !

[bson]

.
.
A large 0.5 pitch BGA on the other hand will almost certainly call for plugged blind vias with close to zero annulars (or microvias), which will begin to cost real money.  The usual CN prototype line ±2 mil drill precision just isn't going to cut it , and they won't do blind vias at all.
.

pcbway does both blind and buried vias (obviously at a higher cost than simple 4/6/8 layers, but still way lower than most western prices)

Ex:
6 layer, 5 pcs 100x100 mm, 6 layer, ENIG, 3/3 mil is $391,-
6 layer, 5 pcs 100x100 mm, 6 layer, ENIG, 3/3 mil and HDI Buried/Blind via is $458,-

Certainly not done on their cheap prototype lines...  Which is why it costs the same or slightly less than getting it done in the U.S. or Europe.
Although it's of course a prototype service.

[Silenos]

soon there will be a version with on-chip Flash memory

You say so? I was reading here and there in its RM and I found the "booting stage" just bleh.
Though its papers typesetting is meh, some diagrams aren't really readable, the "application" sections look really helpful.
And its USB, looks much more reasonable than stms' one.
Wondering what the errata will look like. Or are there some "interesting" issues like stm32h7 lifetime vs its temperature function - they gave an AN about it.

BTW: is HASL board with this bga289 0,8 mm viable? Or ENIG is must-have?

[cgroen]

soon there will be a version with on-chip Flash memory

You say so? I was reading here and there in its RM and I found the "booting stage" just bleh.
Though its papers typesetting is meh, some diagrams aren't really readable, the "application" sections look really helpful.
And its USB, looks much more reasonable than stms' one.
Wondering what the errata will look like. Or are there some "interesting" issues like stm32h7 lifetime vs its temperature function - they gave an AN about it.

BTW: is HASL board with this bga289 0,8 mm viable? Or ENIG is must-have?

Yes. According to the jungledrums there will be one with 8 MByte (just like the 1064 and 1024 has 4 MByte) with the flash chip internal. Not that it matter that much, its easy to have the flash sitting outside when its only a few pins (6 in total) that needs to be connected.
The Errata sheet is available, there is the "usual" stuff on M7 core and few NXP ones, not much worse that what we have been used to on NXP devices.
Interesting with the H7 and lifetime, I was not aware of that one, currently (soon) looking into the H747 for a possible project, thanks for the headsup!
Regarding HASL, I would guess that it could work if the HASL is very level, personally I always get ENIG on all I do, even simple 4 layer boards, I like gold 

[Silenos]

I had issues with finding the AN as it was hidden under such an innocent name "AN5337 STM32H7 Series lifetime estimates" which I actually associated with "life in production cycle" .
Anyway there are more with sthose h7s like ADCs performances, wonky SPI CS controls, annoying bugs in ethernet ip, rare qspi timing bug which crashes device or sth (there was even topic on this forum like a year ago) which pretty screwed me back in time as I had to redo that... that's why I became a bit... sceptical, especially with all those brand new giant semi-socs.
Known bugs > unknown bugs!

But yeah, they are totally usable, I don't even run those stms max freq, nor anything straining. They really stole my - or rather my boss' - soul  with their "value" series.  And I would really like to try out some other producers' inventions.
Those Mbs of flash on nxp device definitely will be expensive.   

[errorprone]

The imxrt1060 also has lifetime based on temperature and clock frequency.  Also seen that for the imx6 SOCs.  https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/nxp/application-notes/AN12253.pdf

[Marco]

- It has an SDRAM controller for more memory if required.

Which is just insult to injury, ancient expensive and powerhungry. It's strictly inferior to modern low power standards ... and it's not like the silicon to support the modern standard is significant on these things.

[bugnate]

Yes. According to the jungledrums there will be one with 8 MByte (just like the 1064 and 1024 has 4 MByte) with the flash chip internal. Not that it matter that much, its easy to have the flash sitting outside when its only a few pins (6 in total) that needs to be connected.

Yes, but I'd point out that an on-chip (or off-chip) QSPI flash is not going to be super-high performance and the internal flash in an H7 should run circles around it. I'd think so at least. I admit that maybe 80% of the time QSPI would be good enough as to have negligible impact. It is definitely impacts my work, at least, and the issue would make my short list. There does seem to be a real lack of I/O bandwidth in the on-chip QSPI flash case given all the horsepower in the core, IMO. (Of course there are things you can do e.g., copy to an external SDRAM but I'd rather not for cost and power reasons).

On the other hand, RT1170 has HyperBus options while only a few H7s do (which happen to not be the models I'm working with now ) which may close the gap or more, depending.

[JPortici]

What do they mean by "lifetime" exactly?

[Silenos]

Is executing from external flash even a thing? Put program in RAM, those chips have oceans of it.
I had just some sour experience with programming/booting external flash with ++20 yo flashless chips, that's why I am complaining about it.

[ali_asadzadeh]

I "somewhat" managed to reconstruct the RT1170-EVK PCB file from the gerbers. The net names is of course not there and the polygons are a little "so-so".
But at least it gives some hints to the placement of caps on the back of the CPU etc....
But it would be super nice if we could get a true Altium version of the PCB (the schematics I have imported from their Orcad version, the PCB is in Allegro)

Would you share your altium files

[cgroen]

I "somewhat" managed to reconstruct the RT1170-EVK PCB file from the gerbers. The net names is of course not there and the polygons are a little "so-so".
But at least it gives some hints to the placement of caps on the back of the CPU etc....
But it would be super nice if we could get a true Altium version of the PCB (the schematics I have imported from their Orcad version, the PCB is in Allegro)

Would you share your altium files

You got PM

[asmi]

BTW: is HASL board with this bga289 0,8 mm viable? Or ENIG is must-have?

Don't be such a cheap-ass! Electrons have rights for nice things too!

[bson]

Not that it matter that much, its easy to have the flash sitting outside when its only a few pins (6 in total) that needs to be connected.

But on the other hand you always need flash, even if it's only a boot loader, so you always start with two chips instead of one...

[bson]

Yes, but I'd point out that an on-chip (or off-chip) QSPI flash is not going to be super-high performance and the internal flash in an H7 should run circles around it.

The first thing you do is copy the part you need to RAM.  There are some complications here though, in particular you don't want PIC binaries, so the binary needs to have a portion designed to execute relocated to the external flash, copy the first small piece to RAM, like 128 bytes or something, and  jump to it; this prologue then copies the rest into RAM.  The parts running out of RAM need to be properly linked to do so, which means somewhat overly complex linker scripts to combine multiple relocations into a single flash binary.  And, the code needs to get addresses from the linker so it knows what the section sizes are for the copy.  If the flash also has pieces that don't need copying, such as rarely accessed data and various strings and such, then it's even more complicated (especially if the data is organized in any kind of pointer based graph like a tree).  It's not super complicated, just... unnecessary.

[SiliconWizard]

- It has an SDRAM controller for more memory if required.

Which is just insult to injury, ancient expensive and powerhungry. It's strictly inferior to modern low power standards ... and it's not like the silicon to support the modern standard is significant on these things.

That's just excessively opiniated and neither true not that well thought out. If you don't need the speed of LPDDR RAM (and data size, as LPDDR4 chips typically come in relatively large data sizes), you can certainly use SDRAM. SDRAM controllers are significantly simpler, themselves draw less power, and SDRAM is still developed, and available in low-power versions, such as this: https://www.winbond.com/hq/product/mobile-dram/low-power-sdr-sdram/?__locale=en

Looking at the datasheets, you can see that their typical power draw is favorable compared to typical LPDDR4.

As to cost, the product linked above is about $2.5 for a 512Mbits chip (Digikey pricing, so not the best). The cheapest LPDDR4 chip you can find (again Digikey source, for comparison) is $3, but zero stock, and likely hard to find anywhere else as well unless you are a big customer. The cheapest in stock part is about $10 (yes with much larger 4Gbits, but if you don't need that much memory, that's just more expensive and useless.) Just to give an idea of the situation.

Now that was just to explain why SDRAM was possibly not a bad choice here, for again what is still a MCU, and if you're still stuck on the idea that it is shit, you can always contact NXP.

[ali_asadzadeh]

You got PM

Thanks

[ali_asadzadeh]

cgroen How did you convert the files to Altium correctly? I have always problem converting OrCAD files to Altium

[cgroen]

The schematics I just used the import wizard in altium

[ali_asadzadeh]

What about the PCB?

[cgroen]

What about the PCB?

That was more complicated! I took the gerbers (top and bottom) and converted them to PCB (description here: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/173702/import-gerber-files-into-altium)
The silkscreens I exported as DXF and imported them (as DXF) in the PCB. I did the same with some of the inner power planes as I could not get Altium to play nice with all the polygons.
Took most of a day experimenting around

[ali_asadzadeh]

Thanks for sharing

[hansd]

they support lvgl in many of their demo boards. lvgl has also specific ports that use the graphic accelerators in some of the processors

I have used emWin and now also lvgl. I like lvgl A LOT more to be honest, very good documentation, source available, good active community. Even made my first (personal) project with it some time ago (used the older version 6, newest versions are even better)
Embedded Wizard, TouchGFX, Crank Storyboard etc. all seems soo extremely bloated imho.

Anyway, looking forward to news on the RT1170

I think you might like the below 
https://www.nxp.com/design/software/development-software/gui-guider:GUI-GUIDER

[cgroen]

they support lvgl in many of their demo boards. lvgl has also specific ports that use the graphic accelerators in some of the processors

I have used emWin and now also lvgl. I like lvgl A LOT more to be honest, very good documentation, source available, good active community. Even made my first (personal) project with it some time ago (used the older version 6, newest versions are even better)
Embedded Wizard, TouchGFX, Crank Storyboard etc. all seems soo extremely bloated imho.

Anyway, looking forward to news on the RT1170

I think you might like the below 
https://www.nxp.com/design/software/development-software/gui-guider:GUI-GUIDER

Thanks Hans,
but no thanks I already tried to installing the GUI Guider. It survived 1 hour and then it went out again Now, to be fair, I did maybe not have enough time with it, but I simply just hate tools that creates zillions of files, and I also hate the fact that it seems to be centered around MCUExpresso IDE (at least that was how it looked to me). I don't use MCUEXpresso IDE, to be honest, I hate it. I use Keil and have been doing that for almost 30 years now, first years the 8051 and since 20 years the ARM version, so that might play a big role in that
LVGL is not too bad to work with without a "builder", its pretty clever how you position controls dependent on other controls, you don't have to use absolute coordinates etc.

[brucehoult]

Check out the PJRC audio stuff running on the Teensy 4.1 (iMXRT1062, 600 MHz) to get a sense of what is possible. PJRC is supposedly coming out with a Teensy 5.0 based on the 1170. I expect it to cost less than $30. pjrc.com

I'd hope that would be a 4.2, for two reasons:

1) the base architecture and ISA flavour are the same.

2) Teensy V should be RISC-V :-) :-)

[Kerlin]

Check out the PJRC audio stuff running on the Teensy 4.1

Had a search around not sure I found what you are referring to, did find some 3.6 audio stuff but not 4.1
Can you please provide a link for me (us) so we can check it.

[cgroen]

Just a headsup, the SDK for the 117x are now available!
PCB laying here waiting for the actual chips

[ali_asadzadeh]

That's very good news, so it shows the chips should come out under 10 days

[mon2]

For the pcb production, consider the following. Met them in HK and they have great capabilities. We have used them for our via in pad designs and others with excellent results. Not much they cannot do.

The costs posted earlier in this thread appear to be high.

Wendy Zhao or Nicole Cai (our rep)
Senior PCB Sales Engineer
Fast Turn PCB
Skype: Wendyzhao-Fast Turn PCB
Tel: +86(20)-26220250 ext 309
Mobile(Wechat&What'sapp): (+86)13925170035
Website: www.fastturnpcbs.com

[cgroen]

For the pcb production, consider the following. Met them in HK and they have great capabilities. We have used them for our via in pad designs and others with excellent results. Not much they cannot do.

The costs posted earlier in this thread appear to be high.

Wendy Zhao or Nicole Cai (our rep)
Senior PCB Sales Engineer
Fast Turn PCB
Skype: Wendyzhao-Fast Turn PCB
Tel: +86(20)-26220250 ext 309
Mobile(Wechat&What'sapp): (+86)13925170035
Website: www.fastturnpcbs.com

Do you have any example of price to share, just to get an idea where they are ?
(Personally, for quick prototypes its sooo much easier those places that have an automatic system that just receives your gerber and gives you the price immediately instead of having to email back and forth....)

[mon2]

I would highly suggest that you share your gerbers with them for a proper quote. Also ask on how you can reduce your costs.

For a small comparison, our ice40ul1k wlcsp design that is about the size of a 8 pin dip (intentionally), we paid around $0.60 usd each in 1k pieces. This design has via in pad; 4L that were laser drilled. Many shops including Suntak turned us down on this complexity. We work with 5+ shops in China due to assorted capabilities. Often the online quick cart shops are too restrictive with their capabilities.

We have also used and met with Kingford PCB in Shenzhen with excellent quality. They build for AMD and others. They are medical certified. We have a number of FDA designs that we supply to Foxconn and others for box builds.

You can see our pcb from Fast Turns in the FPGA forum and search for ice40 keyword. Named this tiny board icepik.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/fpga/boot-ice40ul1k-from-nvcm/msg3269444/#msg3269444

Can share other names if required.

[ali_asadzadeh]

mon2 thanks for sharing, if you have other contacts please share, But please not that we need the prototyping prices to be low, for 1K units, we can get good prices. what was the prices of 5 samples for your design?

[mon2]

Hi. Here are some details and contacts of vendors we have used. For the referenced ICE40UL1K PCB, we designed for a 50-up panel shape due to the very small product. Our Yamaha SMT machine needs the proper panel size to allow for the automated assembly so we used 50-up with edge strips to shuttle in the PCB from the Erka SMT printer.

The best quality are from upper tier PCB manufacturers. But please note that they will not deal direct unless you are a large player. For example, Suntak turned down our business of a projected $500k USD per year purchasing. They said the volume is too low for them to take on the business as a direct account.

Enter the quality brokers which we usually frown upon but found an excellent contact (Terry) - see below. They work with the factory of your choice and have beaten the pricing we used to receive from Suntak when we were direct with them before they became a public firm. No MOQ.


JETPCB - Excellent quality (have met with them a few times @ Taitronics, Taipei - they have production in Taiwan and sales in USA):

Have used them for perfect quality for our rush prototypes (4L/6L) - No MOQ:

Frank Lin 
sales manager
sales@jetpcb.com  I  us.jetpcb.com  I  408-922-7278  I  844-JET-PCBS  I  San Jose USA



For PCBs from Suntak / ZHUHAI FOUNDER TECHNOLOGY MULTILAYER PCB CO LTD:
* Terry is an excellent contact who will work with the factory you specify
* 98% of our PCBs are from Suntak (have used Suntak for the past 10+ years)
* Yaxinda (his factory) can also offer lower cost PCBs but we are somewhat picky on the final product so pay a bit higher
to source from Suntak

Terry Guan
SHENZHEN YAXINDA TECHNOLOGY CO.LTD
---------------------------------------------------------
Factory Address: No.6-3-3, Central Industrial Zone, Central Village, Huicheng District, Huizhou.
Tel:+86 13145861850 | Email: pcb023@yaxindatech.com



For PCBs from Shenan Circuits (considered # 1 in China) / Founder PCB:

Shenan has full capabilities but will not deal direct with low volume customers
- they were the first to recognize Halogen Free laminates when demanded for our HP / Foxconn / Dell builds
- Henry can work with the factory on your behalf
- NB: Have met with other PCB suppliers who claimed that they build for Founder when Founder is too busy to take on small jobs
(not nice in our opinion)

Henry Gu（古正国）
Green Partner Technology Group Ltd. 
深圳市鸿翔莱科技有限公司
B1203-2,1ST Building,Longgang Tianan Cyber Park,
-No.441,Huangge Road,Longcheng Street,Longgang,Shenzhen,China
Web: www.green-partner.com.cn
Tel: +86-755-26451937
Mobile: +86-13824369566
Fax: +86-755-26067649
Email: henrygu@green-partner.com.cn
Skype: gsgtech


Excellent capabilities but have not yet tested their services (met with their agent in HK):
SHENZHEN BOMIN ELECTRONIC CO LTD

Met with Tim @ HK who reps BOMIN - the quality and capabilities are very high:

Tim Wong / Sales Excutive
Reada  PCB  Technology  Co,.Ltd
Tel:       +86-0755-2946 6072
Fax:      +86-0755-2314 0996
Mobile:  +86- 181 2651 2285
E-mail:   tim@readapcb.com 
Website: www.readapcb.com 
Skype:    readapcb

Our products :
Rigid PCBs(2-32L),AL Based PCBs, HDI pcbs, Fast Prototypes to Mass Production

Have had about 100 prototypes built with ChinaFastPrint - excellent company; some say better equipment than Suntak (2 mil space/trace); excellent pricing till they opened their USA office. We stopped using them. Fast forward a number of years and now we have contacts in Shenzhen (former employees who pinged us) - they can work with ChinaFastPrint (Shenzhen) and offer the 'China' pricing we used to receive.

Contact:
Christina Yang
Sales Engineer
QL PCB Co.,Ltd.
Phone: +(86) 755-2899-7214
Email: sales15@qlpcb.com
Website: www.qlpcb.com


Other PCB shops (not tested yet)

Specializing in protos:

Jet
Shenzhen Xinweisai Electronics co., LTD
Tel:    0755-28229416
Fax:   0755-28319255
Web: www.xws-pcb.cn E-mail: jet@xinweisai-pcb.com
Company Address:2/F, Building 1, Jiepai Science and Technology Park, Nianfeng Village, Pingdi Street, Longgang District, Shenzhen
Factory Address:Shangxing West Industrial Town, Shajing Street, Baoan District, Shenzhen City


List of PCB vendors & associated UL marks - have a gorgeous PCB from a factory you wish to use? Review the UL mark to locate the vendor:

https://iq1.ul.com/pwb/Trade.aspx

1) For simple PCBs - www.jlcpcb.com

2) BTW - pcbgogo and pcbway are the same company - met them in HK and they whispered the confirmation - same owner but different sales team. This is very common in Asia. We know of a semiconductor supplier in Wuhan and they have at least 3 different company names and different staff yet pitching the same goods.

[SiliconWizard]

Check out the PJRC audio stuff running on the Teensy 4.1

Had a search around not sure I found what you are referring to, did find some 3.6 audio stuff but not 4.1
Can you please provide a link for me (us) so we can check it.

I suppose he's talking about this: https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy41.html#audio
There's a GUI for building audio processing. And as far as I got it, the libraries are Arduino libraries, so available if you're using Arduino with the Teensy. Supports up to Teensy 4.1.

I'm more interested in programming it in C, "baremetal". I downloaded the docs and SDK from NXP, and ordered a Teensy 4.1. I'm going to see what is possible with it.

[ali_asadzadeh]

thanks mon2 for the feedback.

[gmb42]

Hi. Here are some details and contacts of vendors we have used.

IMHO this useful info should probably go on a sticky thread somewhere appropriate, not buried in a discussion about the RT1170.

[cgroen]

I just ordered the 1170 EVK plus the display for it at Farnell, they have a small stock now (arrived today I think).
Should be here on monday if all goes well.

[Evan.Cornell]

Does anyone have a date from NXP on when RT1176 chips would be available at Digikey/Mouser/etc? I do see eval board now at Digikey.

[nudge]

Embedded Artists have some boards up on their site as well: https://www.embeddedartists.com/products/imx-rt1176-ucom/

[SiliconWizard]

Embedded Artists have some boards up on their site as well: https://www.embeddedartists.com/products/imx-rt1176-ucom/

Cool, and it has 32MB SDRAM. Downside is, the board itself has some kind of high-density connectors and requires either using their dev motherboard, or designing your own.
The whole kit is 199€. Clearly not in the same league as the Teensy boards...

[tmadness]

There is a need for simple devboards. NXP's Dev board is over-featured and not generic enough. ST seems to get it, literally every subfamily has a nuclio board. And the embedded artists board is (1) EXPENSIVE (I don't even know if I'm interested, but she wants a ring), (2), the carrier board at least, irritating to interface.  The teensy formula is a winner here, other than JTAG/SWD they have the best form factor.

[profanum429]

There is a need for simple devboards. NXP's Dev board is over-featured and not generic enough. ST seems to get it, literally every subfamily has a nuclio board. And the embedded artists board is (1) EXPENSIVE (I don't even know if I'm interested, but she wants a ring), (2), the carrier board at least, irritating to interface.  The teensy formula is a winner here, other than JTAG/SWD they have the best form factor.

I do wish Embedded Artists would of stuck with their DDR2 form factor for the 1170 like the 1052/1062 ones. I've got a small carrier board designed and build already for the 1062 module and it works great. A respin based on the high density connectors wouldn't be too bad, but it'd of been nice if they'd stuck with the DDR2 slot. I imagine there was a reason, but looks like I'm sticking with the 1062 for a while now (besides, for my work it's plenty powerful enough).

[SiliconWizard]

There is a need for simple devboards. NXP's Dev board is over-featured and not generic enough. ST seems to get it, literally every subfamily has a nuclio board. And the embedded artists board is (1) EXPENSIVE (I don't even know if I'm interested, but she wants a ring), (2), the carrier board at least, irritating to interface.  The teensy formula is a winner here, other than JTAG/SWD they have the best form factor.

Agreed. Nucleo boards are great for that. No gadgets, cheap, and most IOs broken out. As I remember, TI did something similar with their MSP430 and MSP432 MCUs.

Teensy boards are almost that, but most of them have very few IOs broken out... The Teensy 4.1 has more and is great, but still, that's few IOs.

Buf when we say "there is a need", is this significant enough that vendors would bother? A few of us want boards like this, but I have witnessed countless times that even seasoned engineers tend to favor fancy boards with a lot of buttons and displays even when they actually don't need them or will use something completely different in the end. I dunno. Maybe it's just the kid that's still within us. Another factor is that engineers buying dev boards in the context of their employed jobs will tend to favor expensive stuff, as long as their management is OK with that, because it's not their own money. Conversely, engineers buying cheap devopment tools, even if those are perfectly fit for what they need, may sometimes face their management's opinion, like "are you sure? a $20 dev board? must be a toy!"

[tmadness]

I know, maybe I have a "Hack it together" mentality for prototypes, most career engineers want that over featured board when going through their employer. But I've experienced how this reverse mentality of buy the expensive dev board go south so many times. There are too many unknowns, I trust NXP but  not all their products are equal. Some of their products may not meet me at the level I want, the support could be iffy etc. Give me any opportunity to buy your product in a generic usable form. If I like it you will hear back from me.

[ali_asadzadeh]

Any luck with buying the parts? it seems they are not in stock months after months

[cgroen]

Any luck with buying the parts? it seems they are not in stock months after months

Still waiting for chips. A funny thing is I ordered EVK's from both Mouser and Farnell.
I got the one from Mouser some weeks ago, the ones at Farnell is listed as "on stock" (22 currently). They have been that for the past several weeks, but I get updates from them that my order is postponed because they are NOT on stock, so far the delivery time is pushed to week 17 (did move from week 15 to 17 in the last 2 mails from them)
I have asked their customer "support" whats up with that, they have promised me every time to get back, nothing heard 
So far, I'm satisfied with my board from Mouser 

[ali_asadzadeh]

Are you satisfied with the MCU? is it worth it?