OLIMEX© 2015
A20-SOM user's manual
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW
1. Introduction to the chapter
Thank you for choosing this single board computer from Olimex! This document provides a user’s
guide for the A20-SOM board. As an overview, this chapter gives the scope of this document and
lists the board’s features. The document’s organization is then detailed.
The A20-SOM development board enables code development of applications running on the A20
microcontroller, manufactured by Allwinner Technology from China.
The A20-SOM is typically used together with A20-SOM-EVB which features most of the
peripherals and connectors needed for full evaluation and utilization of the A20 processor.
The hardware design of A20-SOM development board is considered intellectual property to
Olimex. The hardware design files are considered copyright material and would not be distributed.
A20-SOM-EVB board is an open-source, open-hardware project and all documentation is available
to the customer.
The software support for both boards is open-source and released under GPL license.
1.1 Introduction to SOM (System-On-a-Module)
OLIMEX System-on-Module (SOM) boards are powerful Linux-capable boards. They follow a
low-cost modular design which allows rapid product development. Each of these boards has two
parts – a main part which nests the processor, the memory and the power control unit and the
peripheral part which contains the USB ports, the video output and most of the connectors. SOM
designs are targeted at customers who want to apply custom modifications and own solutions based
on a specific processor without having to deal with multi layer PCBs with controlled impedance and
BGA assembly. This makes it possible to create simple boards (that might be manufactured by your
local board manufacturer) containing only the peripherals you need with the dimensions and shape
suitable for your specific solution.
Both the main part and the peripheral part of the SOM system have support in the official Android
and Debian images distributed by Olimex and maintained by Olimex and the Linux community.
These images are typically available at the wiki articles of the boards.
The peripheral part of the SOM design is considered Open Source HardWare (OSHW) and the
customer has access to the board source files that we used to manufacture it. The part of the design
that has the main microcontroller is considered proprietary design and design files would not be
shared. If you are looking for open source design of the processors used please check the
OLinuXino boards. OLinuXino board designs are fully open source but harder to implement in own
solutions and require more of a hardware experience to do so. Nevertheless, OLinuXino boards are
pretty good choice for evaluating the capabilities of the embedded processors.
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