Hi Tomek,

Thank you very much! I think for now we can keep it at
https://github.com/NuttX/nuttx_hardware since there is no significant
advantage to move to ASF infra, there is no hw test there.

The initial idea is to have a BB compatible with many SOMs with different
MCUs each, but you can create a single BB with many SOM slots to connect
multiple MCUs at the same time.

I think having a single slot in the BB is the most common usage, people
will have to manually exchange from a MCU SOM to another to test different
MCUs.

The BB will have few peripherals (and expansion connector to MikroBUS,
etc), so it will not be expensive, then for testing purposes people can
have many BBs.

In fact your idea of having a BB with multiples SOM is nice if we could
activate (power ON/OFF) a SOM by time and use the same USB/UART and
JTAG/SWD to collect the logs, but it will require some power control
(and/or MUX) to automate this SOM transition. Let's start with the basics
and evolve to improve it and achieve something more advanced like adding
many SOMs in a single BB.

Something that I will add is the DEBUG+ITM TRACE connector, this way at
least for ARM chips we can have tracing using the ORBTrace Mini and
Orbuculum (https://github.com/orbcode/orbuculum).

I was thinking we should get these boards done for the NuttX Workshop last
year, but it is moving more slowly than I imagined, unfortunately. So let's
solidify the spec now and design the boards.

BR,

Alan

On Sat, Feb 28, 2026 at 8:06 PM Tomek CEDRO <[email protected]> wrote:

> Very nice thank you Alan! :-)
>
> Do you need a dedicated git repo for that project like nuttx-hw or
> something like that? :-)
>
> One idea that came to my mind is to have a dedicated base board with
> many different modules (SOM) with different MCU/SoC for NXDART build
> and runtime testing maybe with some USB-UART converters or USB hub
> onboard to it could be attached to a TestNode with only one USB cable.
> That would save some space for many different separate devkits and
> create kind of standard test environment. What do you think? :-)
>
> Do you plan to have debug interface and/or usb-to-uart on the SOM or
> just raw uart on some selected pins and the usb-to-uart / debug
> interface would be placed on the BB? :-)
>
> --
> CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info
>
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2026 at 9:19 PM Alan C. Assis <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Everyone,
> >
> > Please review the document describing the initial specification for our
> SOM
> > and BB boards:
> >
> > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TyhSpZAtRyn2qT9Ix8BGUwJuKZuSkLFX
> >
> > The next step will be adding all the signals to be present in the SOM.
> >
> > During the discussion phase Lucas Zampar suggested we add the Ethernet in
> > the SOM itself to avoid issues with the signal's impedance. So although
> > initially the Ethernet and RJ45 connector will be in the SOM (although
> its
> > signal will still available in the SOM connector), but in the future
> > version it will be moved to the Base Board.
> >
> > BR,
> >
> > Alan
>

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