xcore.ai Evaluation Kit

The XMOS xcore.ai Evaluation Kit (XK-EVK-XU316) is an evaluation board for the xcore.ai multi-core microcontroller from XMOS.

Fig. 2 xcore.ai Evaluation Kit

The XK-EVK-XU316 allows testing in multiple application scenarios and provides a good general software development board for simple tests and demos. The XK-EVK-XU316 comprises an xcore.ai processor with a set of I/O devices and connectors arranged around it, as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3 xcore.ai Evaluation Kit block diagram

External hardware features board include, four general purpose LEDs, two general purpose push-button switches, a PDM microphone connector, audio codec with line-in and line-out jack, QSPI flash memory, LPDDR1 external memory 58 GPIO connections from tile 0 and 1, micro USB for power and host connection, MIPI connector for a MIPI camera, integrated xTAG debug adapter and a reset switch with LED to indicate running.

For full details regarding the hardware please refer to XK-EVK-XU316 xcore.ai Evaluation Kit Manual.

Warning

The xcore.ai Evaluation Kit is a general purpose evaluation platform and should be considered an “example” rather than a fully fledged reference design.

Analogue Audio Input & Output

A stereo CODEC (TLV320AIC3204), connected to the xcore.ai device via an I²S interface, provides analogue input/output functionality at line level.

The audio CODEC is are configured by the xcore.ai device via an I²C bus.

Audio Clocking

xcore.ai devices are equipped with a secondary (or application) PLL which is used to generate the audio clocks for the CODEC.

LEDs, Buttons and Other IO

Four green LED’s and two push buttons are provided for general purpose user interfacing.

The LEDs are connected to PORT 4C and the buttons are connected to bits [0:1] of PORT 4D.

All spare I/O is brought out and made available on 0.1” headers for easy connection of expansion boards etc.

Power

The XK-EVK-XU316 requires a 5V power source that is normally provided through the micro-USB cable J3. The voltage is converted by on-board regulators to the 0V9, 1V8 and 3V3 supplies used by the components.

The board should therefore be configured to present itself as a bus powered device when connected to an active USB host.

Debug

For convenience the board includes an on-board xTAG4 for debugging via JTAG/xSCOPE. This is accessed via the USB (micro-B) receptacle marked DEBUG.