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SOQuartz full documentation


The SOQuartz

The SOQuartz is a RK3566 based compute module and parts of Quartz64 series.


Software

Releases

note

The images are provided by the PINE64 community, not by Pine Store Ltd. Most community projects currently aim at getting mainline Linux running on the board, not some vendor provided kernel that will never be receiving updates. A mainline-first approach allows for the boards to continue receiving important updates, such as security updates, for years to come, as well as have higher quality code in the kernel as it underwent independent review, but does mean that not all aspects of the hardware work right out of the gate.

DietPi

DietPi is a lightweight, yet easy to setup and feature-rich Linux distribution, based on Debian. To find out more about DietPi, please visit the official documentation. Discuss the Quartz64 builds on the PINE64 forum thread.

Download:

Default credentials
Root userroot/dietpi

Manjaro ARM

Manjaro ARM is a user friendly rolling release distribution, based on Arch Linux ARM.

WiFI, Bluetooth, Ethernet, HDMI USB etc. works, others are not tested.

Currently the image is built for Raspberry Pi CM4 - IO board, so to get it working with other base board like pine64 Soquartz model A base board then follow this steps:

  • Flash the image to a SD card/ EMMC.
  • Go to Boot partition.
  • Then change the DTB listed in /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf to -model-a.dtb instead of -cm4.dtb.
  • Now put the SD card/ EMMC to the preferred base board and boot.
  • First boot will take time as the user partition will resize to take whole storage size.

For headless installation, simply enter “root” at the login: prompt and complete setup.

Plebian

Plebian stands for PINE64 **Live Debian** and aims to be a fairly vanilla live Debian image for Quartz64 and SOQuartz devices, based on Debian Bookworm. It supports both of PINE64’s officially released SOQuartz base boards.

To flash, run (replace /dev/sdX with your target block device):

$ xzcat imagename.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M oflag=dsync status=progress

Check Plebian’s flashing instructions for instructions on how to flash from e.g. Windows.

Some quick notes:

  • You will be asked to change your password on first login (for what the default login is, read the instructions!)
  • Root file system is grown to take up the entire space of your boot device
  • NetworkManager is used instead of Debian’s interfaces config to be more flexible with what adapters are plugged in and working
  • An sshd is started on port 22 with freshly generated keys
  • Please flash the correct image for your SOQuartz baseboard!

Android SDK

Android 11 SDK for Quartz64 model A SBC

Download:

Notes:

BSP Linux SDK

BSP Linux SDK ver 4.19 for Quartz64 model A SBC

Download:

Notes:

  • MD5 (TAR-GZip file): 24554419aec29700add97167a3a4c9ed
  • File size: 32.67 GB

Making your own

Making your own image/installation of Linux for SOQuartz is relatively easy, as all major components are mainlined. You will need:

  • A build of mainline U-Boot ≥ v2023.10. Flash this to sector 64 (sector size 512, so byte 32768) of your image for SD or eMMC. It’s prudent to “protect” it by making a small (~16MiB) partition at this offset.
  • A mainline Linux kernel ≥ v6.2. See Quartz64/Development#Linux Kernel Config Options for the device specific kernel configuration options.
  • The root filesystem of the distribution of your choice. This can be on the same filesystem as your kernel and device tree if using extlinux.conf.

You can either boot the kernel through U-Boot’s EFI booting, in which case it gets its device tree from U-Boot, or mark the partition containing your kernel and device tree with the legacy bootable flag and write an extlinux/extlinux.conf as explained in the U-Boot documentation.


Pins


Heatsinks

The SOQuartz SoM does not have a lot of copper to sink heat into. Therefore, it’s recommended you use a heatsink such as the Waveshare CM4 Heatsink, the other Waveshare CM4 Heatsink, or the PINE64 Small Fan Type Heatsink. Please be aware that the Waveshare heatsinks may interfere with any eMMC module, unless you use very thick (2-3 mm?) thermal pads. Local resellers may sell CM4 heatsinks or small stick-on heatsinks, so there’s no need to order them from abroad unless it’s cheaper.

Alternatively, or in addition to this, a rectangle-shaped piece of 1 mm thick thermal pad can be sandwiched between the SoM and the carrier board. This allows the SoM to more efficiently sink heat into the larger mass of the base board.


Baseboards

SOQuartz BLADE Baseboard

SOQuartz BLADE Baseboard

  • SOQuartz BLADE Baseboard Dimensions: 200mm x 40mm x 15mm
  • Input Power:
    • DC 5V @ 3A 3.5OD/1.35ID (IEC 60130-10 Type H) Barrel DC Jack connector
    • PoE

Storage

  • microSD - bootable, support SDHC and SDXC, storage up to 2TB
  • USB - USB2.0 Host port (with header for setting OTG ID pin)

Expansion Ports

  • 2x20 pins “Pi2” GPIO Header
  • M.2 slot
  • PWM fan header

Jumpers

  • OTG ID jumper
  • GPIO voltage, select 3.3V or 1.8V
  • PoE Enable

SOQuartz Model-A Baseboard

SOQuartz Model-A Baseboard

  • Model "A" Baseboard Dimensions: 133mm x 80mm x 19mm

  • Input Power: DC 5V @ 3A 3.5OD/1.35ID (IEC 60130-10 Type H) Barrel DC Jack connector

Storage

  • microSD - bootable, support SDHC and SDXC, storage up to 2TB

  • USB - 2 USB2.0 Host port

Expansion Ports

  • MiPi-CSI - 1x 2 lanes, 1x 4 lanes

  • MiPi-DSI - 1x 2 lanes, 1x 4 lanes

  • 2x20 pins "Pi2" GPIO Header

  • PCIe 1x open ended slot

  • 1x5 pin USB Expansion Header (J15)

GPIO Pins

Attention! GPIOs are 3.3V!

Interesting alternate pin configurations are listed in [brackets].

Assigned ToPin no.Pin no.Assigned To

3.3 V

1

2

5 V

[I2C2_SDA_M1] GPIO4_B4_3V3 a

3

4

5 V

[I2C2_SCL_M1] GPIO4_B5_3V3 a

5

6

GND

[GPCLK0] GPIO4_A4_3V3

7

8

GPIO0_D1_3V3 [UART2_TX_M0]

GND

9

10

GPIO0_D0_3V3 [UART2_RX_M0]

[I2S1_MCLK_M1] GPIO3_C6_3V3

11

12

GPIO3_C7_3V3 [I2S1_SCLK_M1]

GPIO4_A0_3V3

13

14

GND

GPIO4_A2_3V3

15

16

GPIO4_A3_3V3

3.3V

17

18

GPIO4_A1_3V3

[SPI3_MOSI_M0] GPIO4_B2_3V3

19

20

GND

[SPI3_MISO_M0] GPIO4_B0_3V3

21

22

GPIO4_B1_3V3

[SPI3_CLK_M0] GPIO4_B3_3V3

23

24

GPIO4_A6_3V3 [SPI3_CS0_M0]

GND

25

26

GPIO4_A7_3V3 [SPI3_CS1_M0]

[I2C3_SDA_M0] GPIO1_A0_3V3 a

27

28

GPIO1_A1_3V3 [I2C3_SCL_M0] a

GPIO3_A5_3V3

29

30

GND

GPIO3_D4_3V3

31

32

GPIO3_D6_3V3

GPIO3_D7_3V3

33

34

GND

[I2S1_LRCK_M1] GPIO3_D0_3V3

35

36

GPIO3_D5_3V3

GPIO3_D3_3V3

37

38

GPIO3_D2_3V3 [I2S1_SDI_M1]

GND

39

40

GPIO3_D1_3V3 [I2S1_SDO_M1]

Notes

a pulled high to 3.3V through 2.2kOhm resistor

Source: Page 11 of the board schematics.

USB Expansion Header

Pin noAssigned To

1

USB2_HOST_5V

2

HOST_DM3

3

HOST_DP3

4

GND

5

GND

Source: Page 10 of the board schematics.

Various CM4 carrier boards

SOQuartz with DF Robot CM4 Carrier Board

SOQuartz with Waveshare CM4 Carrier Board

SOQuartz with Waveshare CM4 PoE Board


Further information

Datasheets

Rockchip RK3566 SoC information:

Rockchip PMU (Power Management Unit) Information:

DDR4 information:

eMMC information:

Ethernet PHY information:

WiFi/BT module info:

i2C to PWM Controller user in BLADE info:

PoE DC/DC Controller user in BLADE info:

Schematics and certifications

SOQuartz Module Schematic:

SOQuartz Model “A” Baseboard Schematic and PCB Board Resource:

SOQuartz_BLADE_3D_Print_1U_half_width_server_rack

SOQuartz BLADE 3D Print 1U full width server rack

SOQuartz Blade Baseboard Schematic and PCB Board Resource:

width=400

SOQuartz module certifications:

Specifications

The SOQuartz is based on the Rockchip RK3566.

CPU Architecture

  • Quad-core ARM Cortex-A55@1.8GHz
  • AArch32 for full backwards compatibility with ARMv7
  • ARM Neon Advanced SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) support for accelerated media and signal processing computation
  • Includes VFP hardware to support single and double-precision operations
  • ARMv8 Cryptography Extensions
  • Integrated 32KB L1 instruction cache and 32KB L1 data cache per core
  • 512KB unified system L3 cache

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) Capabilities

  • Mali-G52 2EE Bifrost GPU@800MHz
  • 4x Multi-Sampling Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) with minimal performance drop
  • 128KB L2 Cache configurations
  • Supports OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0, and 3.2
  • Supports Vulkan 1.0 and 1.1
  • Supports OpenCL 2.0 Full Profile
  • Supports 1600 Mpix/s fill rate when at 800MHz clock frequency
  • Supports 38.4 GLOP/s when at 800MHz clock frequency

Neural Process Unit NPU Capability

  • Neural network acceleration engine with processing performance of up to 0.8 TOPS
  • Supports integer 8 and integer 16 convolution operations
  • Supports the following deep learning frameworks: TensorFlow, TF-lite, Pytorch, Caffe, ONNX, MXNet, Keras, Darknet

System Memory

  • RAM Memory Variants: 2GB, 4GB, 8GB LPDDR4.
  • Storage Memory: optional 128Mb SPI Flash and optional eMMC module from 8GB up to 128GB

Network

  • 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet
  • WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac with Bluetooth 5.0

Displays / Cameras

  • 1x HDMI
  • 2x DSI
  • 1x eDP (Instead of HDMI1)
  • 1x LVDS (not available when dual-mode DSI)
  • 1x CSI 4-line

Connectivity

  • 1x Ethernet (1Gbit)
  • 1x USB 2.0 OTG
  • 1x SD Card (SD)
  • 1x PCIe 1-Line
  • 28x GPIO (TBD)