Quantum Tiny Linux Development Kit – With SoM and Expansion Board

Background

Seeed strives to provide professional manufacturing services and advice to support makers share their ideas with the world, from prototyping, mass production to selling to a global audience. Seeed Studio provided Zhihui with a complete service from PCBA prototyping, customization and consignment services, bring the product from idea to market. Meet this open-source, 35 x 40mm Linux Development Kit with SoM and Expansion Board that runs Ubuntu Core on a quad-core Allwinner H3

Note：

Quantum has now been updated with a new version, which adjusts the antenna type for better wireless performance compared to the old one. In addition to this, it also optimizes the PCB layout by moving the fan solder joints to the top. The Uboot and Recovery buttons have also been removed.

About the designer

Zhihui, a full-time AI algorithm engineer and an enthusiastic maker, likes to share videos of his creations in his spare time. He has more than half-million fans on the BiliBili, video sharing platform, and his most popular video surpassed 4 million views. Seeed was impressed by his outstanding ideas, so our team reached him out and came to a cooperation agreement of Project Quantum. Seeed provides him with a full range of services, such as engineering design, mass production, product operation, and product promotion.

Features

• Ultra-small (31mmx22mm) and highly integrated Quad-core Cortex-A7 Linux SoM (System on Module)
• Expansion board (40mmx35mm) with rich peripherals and interfaces: Microphone, Gyroscope, Accelerometer,4 x Buttons (GPIO-KEY, Uboot, Recovery, Reset) and a TFT display
• Integrates a complete ARM-Linux system for advanced development
• Ability to design your own baseboard due to the M.2 interface
• Wide range of applications such as a personal server, intelligent voice assistant, and robotic development.

Description

Quantum Tiny Linux Dev. Kit is possibly the smallest Linux development board on the market, a highly integrated kit with a quad-core CPU that can run Linux at only 40mm x 35mm, which also includes network connectivity. It is suitable for scenarios such as a personal server, intelligent voice assistant, and for robotic development. And Now Quantum has updated a new version, which adjusts the antenna type for better wireless performance compared to the old one. In addition to this, it also optimizes the PCB layout by moving the fan solder joints to the top. The Uboot and Recovery buttons have also been removed.

The SoM is called Quark-N, based on Allwinner H3, Quad-core Cortex-A7, and ARM Mali400 MP2 GPU. The 6-layer high-density gold PCB design integrates a complete ARM-Linux system (CPU, DDR, eMMC) in a 2x3cm space. Also, most of the GPIO is led out by the board through the M.2 Key-A golden finger interface to minimize the bottom board design difficulty. You can easily design your own base plate with two-layer boards to realize your interesting ideas.

The carrier board is called Atom-N, and Quark-N is connected to Atom-N through the M.2 interface. Atom-N leads out a row of golden finger pins to realize I/O expansion, expand SPI, I2C, UART, GPIO, and other interfaces to facilitate the completion of your own design. Also, it is equipped with a microphone, MPU6050 motion sensor (accelerometer and gyroscope), onboard 4 buttons (GPIO-KEY, Uboot, Recovery, Reset), IPS display, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connectivity which greatly expands the possibilities with this product.

Specifications

Specification Details Quark-N SoM CPU Allwinner H3, Quad-core Cortex-A7 @ 1GHz GPU ARM Mali400 MP2 GPU Memory 512MB LPDDR3 RAM Storage 16GB eMMC Interfaces Ethernet, SPI, I2C, UART, Reusable GPIO, MIC, LINEOUT GPIO 2.0mm pitch 26 pin-header, include USB OTG, USB-Serial, I2C, UART, SPI, I2S, GPIO PCB 6-layer high-density immersion gold design Working temperature 0-80°C Size 31mmx22mm Atom-N Expansion Board Slot M.2 interface for Quark-N USB USB 2.0×2 USB Type-C×1 Wireless connectivity RTL8723BU:
Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n @2.4GHz
Bluetooth: BT V2.1/ BT V3.0/ BT V4.0 Onboard Peripherals 1 x Microphone
1 x MPU6050 motion sensor (gyroscope + accelerometer)
4 x Buttons (GPIO-KEY, Uboot, Recovery, Reset)
1 x TFT display External Storage Micro-SD card slot Size 40mm*35mm

Applications

• Microcomputer
• Personal website server
• Programming learning such as Python
• Image processing
• Robotics
• Voice assistant
• Smart home hub

Hardware Overview

Part List

1 x Quantum Tiny Linux Development Kit – With SoM and Expansion Board

Note

If you are looking for open source SBC for commercial and industrial needs. Seeed provides customization service based on BeagleBone series boards. Seeed Studio BeagleBone® Green(BBG) and Seeed Studio BeagleBone® Green Wireless (BBGW) provide more stable industrial deployment scenarios.

Design and manufacture at Seeed, Bring ideas to the marketplace

With over 12 years of product development expertise, Seeed’s mature electronic design and production team provided Zhihui with professional Design for Manufacture (DFM) advice, minimizing production risks and maximizing yield, quality, and efficiency.

Zhihui's Quark-N and Atom-N projects are being cooked up in Seeed’s own production facilities, including parts procurement, pick and place, reflow, testing, and quality inspection. Throughout the journey, Zhihui’s dedicated account manager has been walking him through every step of the process and will continue to provide after-sales service long into the future. Learn more.

If you have a design with great potential and think others would be interested in it, you can start with Seeed Fusion Marketplace. Seeed Fusion Marketplace is a great platform to make your PCBA product available to a worldwide audience without handling production and order processing. It can help you scout out the interest in your design and gauge its real market potential. It only takes 3 easy steps, check it out here!