Welcome back to the “Introduction to Codefair Semiconductor CFW32C7UL Series Product Applications” series. Through the previous issues introducing the CFW32C7UL series, we believe everyone has gained a comprehensive understanding of the CFW32C7UL series. During the online and offline communications, we found that many industry friends are particularly interested in the hardware design content of the CFW32C7UL series. Therefore, in this issue, we will introduce the evaluation board of the CFW32C7UL series.
▲ Overview of the evaluation board provided by Codefair Semiconductor
Hardware Resources on the Evaluation Board
Core Board
The core board is the central hardware module of the evaluation board, which can be separated from the baseboard and can form a minimal working system powered by 3.3V.① Contains the chip CFW32C7UL (LFBGA 10x10mm) and clock circuit;② 16MB FLASH with QSPI interface; power input and voltage conversion circuit.
Baseboard
The baseboard is designed with most peripheral interface unit circuits of the CFW32C7UL series products, which can be used to evaluate the chip’s peripheral resources in various application scenarios.
① 1 SSI flash interface with 8MB FLASH;MIPI Camera and DVP Camera;RGB interface LCD screen [resolution 800×480];
② 5V power input interface; 20-pin JTAG interface; SYS reset button, RTC reset button; LED power indicator, indicating the power supply status of 5V, 3.3V, and 2.5V;③ 1 USB interface; 1 audio input, 1 audio output; 1 MIC input; 3 UART interfaces; 2 I2C; several GPIOs.
▲ List of main components
Development Environment
System requirements: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Linux.Compilation environment: DS-5 (ARM Development Studio 5), Linux + gcc.On-chip systems: Linux, FreeRTOS, RT-Thread, uCOS, bare metal.Using DS-5 installed on Windows, you can complete tasks such as program editing, compilation, debugging, and downloading. You can also use gcc on Linux for program compilation. Currently supported on-chip systems: Linux and RT-Thread provide SDKs for Windows and Linux; FreeRTOS, uCOS, and bare metal provide SDKs for Windows.
Hardware Layout and Setup
The following diagram shows the connection relationship between the main chip and peripheral devices on the evaluation board.
▲ Hardware block diagramIn the evaluation board provided by Codefair Semiconductor, the main application areas of the CFW32C7UL series are highlighted, focusing on image input/output interfaces and audio input/output interfaces, facilitating scanning tests and human-computer interaction tests.Other conventional interfaces such as GPIO, UART, I2C, SSI, I2S, USB, etc., are also available for evaluation testing.
▲ Power section of the evaluation boardTo facilitate external power supply, the evaluation board uses a 5V power adapter or USB power input, which is converted to 3.3V through DCDC conversion. The power input interface is located at the edge of the baseboard. For the core board’s minimal system, it can also be powered directly by 3.3V.
Expandable Application Scenarios
The evaluation board provides some examples in the SDK for potential application scenarios of the chip, such as using the MIPI/DVP interface and LCDC interface drivers and routines provided by the SDK to synchronize the images captured by the image sensor to the LCD screen, while recognizing and decoding images (such as QR codes) and outputting the decoding results via UART or USB, and providing voice broadcast or buzzer prompts.For human-computer interaction scenarios, the SDK provides a touch screen GUI demonstration with a resolution of 800×480, showcasing curve drawing, game animations, file reading and writing, etc.Additionally, the SDK also provides secure boot, international standard encryption and decryption algorithms, national secret algorithms, and USB network card expansion for secure network access.Through the evaluation board provided by Codefair Semiconductor, developers can quickly familiarize themselves with the software and hardware environment of the CFW32C7UL series in a short time, allowing for early software research arrangements for projects, accelerating project development progress, and shortening the overall project development cycle.Through this issue’s introduction to the hardware of the Codefair Semiconductor CFW32C7UL series evaluation board, we believe you have gained a deeper understanding of it. If you want to learn more about the circuit details of the CFW32C7UL series evaluation board or details about the SDK and other hardware and software, please feel free to contact us through the contact information on the Codefair Semiconductor official website (www.codefairsemi.com). In the upcoming issues, we will explore and introduce specific application scenarios and solutions based on the CFW32C7UL series, hoping to expand the breadth and depth of the CFW32C7UL series application scenarios together with professionals in the application industry. That concludes today’s topic, see you next time!
