Ultra96-V2 SBC adds Certified Wi-Fi and Industrial Temp Support

By Eric Brown

Avnet has unveiled a minor upgrade to its open-spec, 96Boards CE form-factor Ultra96 SBC. The Ultra96-V2 retains the $249 price and core features of the Ultra96, including the Arm/FPGA hybrid Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC, but it also makes a few key additions.

The biggest touted improvement is a new Microchip wireless module with the same 802.11n Wi-Fi capability, but with Bluetooth improving to 5.0 BLE. The major advantage here is that the module is said to be pre-certified in 75 countries.

 
Ultra96-V2 (left) and Ultra96-V1
(click images to enlarge)Avnet has also “updated all components on the Ultra96-V2 to allow industrial temperature grade options so that the board can operate in harsh industrial applications.” We saw no details, however, on the specifics of the standard and industrial options. The term “industrial temperature” usually refers to -40 to 85°C.

Other new features include an Infineon power management IC (PMIC) and dedicated headers for UART and JTAG. The product page suggests that the previous I2C header has been removed, with I2C now being available only on the 40-pin low-speed header, but the block diagram indicates otherwise. There also appear to be four new LEDs.

Like the original, the Ultra96-V2 runs PetaLinux on the Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC with a 1.5GHz quad-core, Cortex-A53 CPU block, a Mali-400 MP2 GPU, and a ZU3EG A484 FPGA — one of the lower-end UltraScale+ FPGA options. The SoC also features 2x 600MHz Cortex-R5 MCUs with vector FPUs and memory protection units for improved real-time processing. Avnet recently released a MSC SM2S-ZUSP module billed as the world’s first Zynq UltraScale+ based SMARC module.

Ultra96-V2 block diagram
(click image to enlarge)As before, the SBC provides 2GB of Micron LPDDR4, and boots from a 16GB Delkin microSD card pre-loaded with Xilinx’s PetaLinux. Major ports include mini-DP, 2x USB 3.0, and single USB 2.0 host and micro-USB 3.0 ports.

Specifications listed for the Ultra96-V2 include:

• Processor — Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ZU3EG A484 (4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz); FPGA with 154K logic cells, 141K flip-flops, and 70K LUTs; Mali-400 MP2 GPU; 2x Cortex-R5 MCUs
• Memory/storage:
  • 2GB LPDDR4 RAM (“512M x 32” Micron).
  • MicroSD slot with 16GB Delkin card pre-loaded with PetaLinux
• Wireless — Microchip 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 5 BLE (certified in 75 countries)
• Other I/O:
  • Mini-DisplayPort
  • 2x USB 3.0 host ports
  • USB 2.0 host port
  • Micro-USB 3.0 “upstream” port
  • I2C, UART, and JTAG headers
  • 40-pin low-speed connector
  • 60-pin high-speed connector
• Other features — 4x LEDs; optional USB-to-JTAG/UART pod
• Operating temperature — industrial temp version available
• Power — 12V input; Infineon PMIC
• Dimensions — 85 x 54mm; 96Boards CE
• Operating system — PetaLinux; voucher for Xilinx SDSoC license

Further information

The Ultra96-V2 is available for pre-order at $249, with shipments due by May, according to the announcement and June 4 per the shopping page. More information may be found on Avnet’s Ultra96-V2 product page.

This article originally appeared on LinuxGizmos.com on March 27.

Avent | www.avnet.com

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