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

[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).