The SAMA5D3 Xplained board is built around the integration of a Cortex ®-A5-based microcontroller (BGA 324 package) with external memory, dual Ethernet physical layer transceiver, two SD/MMC interfaces, two host USB ports and one device USB port, one 24-bit RGB LCD interface and one debug interface. Eight headers, compatible with Arduino R3, are available for various shield connections.

Overview

The SAMA5D3 Xplained board is built around the integration of a Cortex ®-A5-based microcontroller (BGA 324 package)
with external memory, dual Ethernet physical layer transceiver, two SD/MMC interfaces, two host USB ports and one
device USB port, one 24-bit RGB LCD interface and one debug interface.
Eight headers, compatible with Arduino R3, are available for various shield connections.

Processor

The SAMA5D3 Xplained board is built around the SAMA5D36, a Cortex-A5 application processor which combines high-performance computing device with low-power consumption and a wide range of communication peripherals. It features a combination of user interface functionalities and high data rate IOs, including LCD controller, touchscreen, camera interface, Gigabit and 10/100 Ethernet ports, high-speed USB and SDIO.
The ARM Cortex-A5 supports the latest generation of DDR2 and NAND Flash memory interfaces for program and data storage. An internal 166-MHz multi-layer bus architecture associated with 24 DMA channels and two 64-Kbyte SRAM blocks, sustains the high bandwidth required by the processor and the high-speed peripherals.

Board features

Characteristics	Specifications
PCB characteristics	125 x 75 x 20mm (10-layers)
Processor	SAMA5D36 (324-ball BGA package) ARM Cortex-A5 Processor with ARM v7-A Thumb2® instruction set, core frequency up to 536 MHz.
Processor clock sources	12-MHz crystal oscillator 32.768-kHz crystal oscillator
Memory	2x 1Gb DDR2 (16M x 16 bits x 8 banks) 1x 2Gb SLC NAND Flash (256M x 8 bits)
Optional on-board memory	One Serial EEPROM SPI One 1-Wire EEPROM
SD/MMC	One 8-bit SD card connector One optional 4-bit Micro-SD card connector
USB	Two USB Hosts with power switch One Micro-AB USB device
Display interface	One LCD interface connector, LCD TFT Controller with overlay, alpha-blending, rotation, scaling and color space conversion
Ethernet	One Gigabit Ethernet PHY (GRMII 10/100/1000) One Ethernet PHY (RMII 10/100)
Debug port	One JTAG interface connector One serial DBGU interface (3.3V level)
Expansion connectors	Arduino R3 compatible set of headers The SAMA5D36 GPIO,TWI, SPI, USART, UART, Audio and ISI interfaces are accessible through these headers.
Board supply voltage	5V from USB or power jack or Arduino shield On-board power regulation is performed by a Power Management Unit (PMU)
Battery	On-board optional power Cap for CMOS backup
User interface	Reset, wakeup and free user pushbutton One red user/power LED and one blue user LED

Hardware

The SAMA5D3 Xplained board is equipped with the following interface connectors:

• J2: Main power supply
• J6: USB A device, that supports USB device using a Micro-AB connector
• J7 (upper): USB B Host, that supports USB host using a type A connector
• J7 (lower): USB C Host, that supports USB host using a type A connector
• J23: Serial DBGU 3.3V level
• J24: JTAG, 20-pin IDC connector
• J11: Micro-SD connector
• J10: SD/MMC connector
• J12: Gigabit Ethernet ETH0
• J13: Ethernet ETH1
• J22: Expansion connector with all LCD controller signals for display module connection (QTouch ®, TFT LCD display with Touch Screen and backlight
• C41: Optional SuperCap
• J14 to J21: Seven expansion connectors with Arduino R3 compatible PIO signals Various test points located throughout the board

Evluation Kit Architecture

 

Software

The SAMA5D3 Xplained board comes with a free of charge Linux distribution including Linux Kernel 3.10 (LTS), Linux Mainline and Yocto 1.5.1 support.

 

Technical Documents

Learning Center

Type	Description
User Guide	Atmel: User Guide for SAMA5D3 Xplained
Quick Start Guide	Atmel: Quick Started Guide for SAMA5D3 Xplained
Datasheet	Atmel: Datasheet for SAMA5D3 Series Microcontroller
Application Note	Atmel: Application Note for SAMA5D3 Series Microcontroller Schematic Checklist
Application Note	Atmel: Application Note for Migrating from SAM9x5-based to SAMA5D3x-based Applications

 

Design Elements

Type	Description
Software	Linux4SAM Linux-based Embedded Operating System
Schematic	Atmel: Schematics for SAMA5D3 Xplained Board
Layout	Atmel: Layout for SAMA5D3 Xplained Board
BOM	Atmel: BOM for SAMA5D3 Xplained Board
Simulation Model	Atmel: BSDL files for SAMA5D3
Simulation Model	Atmel: IBIS models for SAMA5D3

Contact
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Support:	support@embest-tech.com
Web:	http://www.embest-tech.com/product/evaluation-boards/sama5d3-xplained.html