QNX 7 BSP available for Toradex Colibri iMX8X SoC modules
Article By : Nitin Dahad
A new board support package (BSP) from Direct Insight allows the use of QNX 7.0 with the Toradex Colibri iMX8X computer-on-module.
A new board support package (BSP) from Direct Insight allows the use of QNX 7.0 with the Toradex Colibri iMX8X computer-on-module.
The BSP contains all the basic features required to run the OS on the board. Included are drivers for various interfaces including Ethernet, Watchdog timer, I2C, SPI, USB, SD Card, UART. A display driver is also planned. The BSP is free to download as a demo system, and the source code can be licensed on a per-project basis for a fee. Direct Insight also offers enhancements to the BSP, including additional drivers and production-hardening and testing, as an additional services engagement.
Toradex Colibri iMX8X modules feature the NXP i.MX 8X family of embedded SoCs, including the top-tier i.MX 8QuadXPlus (i.MX 8QXP) which features four Cortex-A35 cores – currently ARM’s most efficient ARM v8 core as the main processor cluster. The SoCs provide full 64-bit ARM v8-A support while maintaining seamless backward compatibility with 32-bit Armv7-A software. The main cores run at up to 1.2GHz.
The combination of a feature-rich OS like QNX 7 featuring real-time capability and supporting mission-critical systems, with the Arm core processor is suitable for applications such as medical devices, navigation, industrial automation, HMIs (human machine interfaces), avionics, data acquisition, and robotics. David Pashley, Direct Insight’s managing director, said, “The BSP unlocks the full benefits of the QNX OS on the power-efficient Toradex modules. QNX is perfect for real time, safety critical applications, and the BSP created by Direct Insight provides a great starting point for high-availability industrial designs.”
Daniel Lang, CMO at Toradex, added, “We design products for applications that demand high reliability, safety and security, such as medical devices. The QNX offering from Direct Insight further strengthens this positioning and allows our customers to use QNX while lowering the project risk and shortening the time-to-market.”
This article was originally published on Embedded.
Nitin Dahad is a correspondent for EE Times, EE Times Europe and also Editor-in-Chief of embedded.com. With 35 years in the electronics industry, he’s had many different roles: from engineer to journalist, and from entrepreneur to startup mentor and government advisor. He was part of the startup team that launched 32-bit microprocessor company ARC International in the US in the late 1990s and took it public, and co-founder of The Chilli, which influenced much of the tech startup scene in the early 2000s. He’s also worked with many of the big names—including National Semiconductor, GEC Plessey Semiconductors, Dialog Semiconductor and Marconi Instruments.
