Release Notes v1.2.0

Introduction

Astra™ is Synaptics’ new compute platform designed for the IoT market. It features a series of high-performance, AI-native, multi-modal SoCs optimized for consumer, enterprise, and industrial IoT workloads. These SoCs are equipped with hardware accelerators for edge inferencing, security, graphics, vision, and audio, and offer out-of-the-box functionality with Synaptics’ connectivity solutions.

Astra (v1.2.0) GA Release is a unified software development kit supporting the SL-Series of MPUs.

The high-level components included in this SDK are described below:

Upstream Linux Kernel and device tree.

Low-level Linux device drivers (U-BOOT) for peripheral devices.

Open source code for Multimedia pipelines.

Synaptics proprietary security approach.

Related SDK Documents

All of these items can be found through Synaptics’ and third parties open source Git repositories on GitHub.

Yocto SDK

The Yocto Project is an open-source collaboration project that provides templates, tools and methods for custom Linux-based systems for embedded and IoT products. By leveraging the power of the open-source development community, Synaptics hopes to provide its customers with a wider array of compatible software packages to build their products faster, with more features, while at the same time having the stability and support of a large open-source development project. Additionally, the SDK enables customers who already use a Yocto-based development environment to migrate to Synaptics class-leading silicon solutions for improved performance and additional functionality. The Yocto Project offers a vast number of software packages that provide many options.

Reference Board Supported Scope

Below table lists the supported ASTRA reference board (Machina) and supported scope.

SOC / Reference Board	Test Validation and Support Scope
SL1680 Core board + IO board	GA
SL1640 Core board + IO board	GA
SL1620 Core board + IO board	GA

License

Using the Astra Software Developer Kit and BSP requires complying with the ASTRA EMBEDDED SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT KIT LICENSE AGREEMENT –.

Synaptics Proprietary TAs

The following Trusted Applications (TAs) are Synaptics proprietary TAs which run in the OP-TEE Trusted Execution Environment. They are provided in binary format. Synaptics will migrate them into REE and open source the code to the public in a near future releases.

Package	Notes
MIPI-DSI	TA SL1620
Fastlogo	TA SL1680 / SL1640
SyNAP	TA SL1680 / SL1640 / SL1620
DHUB	TA SL1680 / SL1640
Vmeta	TA SL1680 / SL1640 / SL1620

Where to get the SDK from GitHub

For other collaterals please refer to the Synaptics Customer Portal.

New Features

Common New Features

Feature	SoC	Description
OpenCV	All	Added support for the OpenCV library
Weston Default Display	All	Supports setting the default display in which weston clients appear at launch for dual display configurations
Gstreamer AI Overlay optimizations	All	Optimize the drawing in the gstsynap overlay component
Support Multiple Memory Layouts	All	Add multiple memory layouts for different DDR configurations SL1620: 1GB,2GB,4GB SL1640/SL1680: 2GB,4GB
Increase System Memory	All	Optimize the memory layouts to provide more system memory
Auto resize of home partition on eMMC	All	The home partition will be resized on first boot to use any remaining space on the eMMC
Add hostapd	All	Add hostapd to the astra-media image
Support Waveshare MIPI DSI Panel	All	Add support for the using the Waveshare MIPI DSI Panel for RPi5 with Astra Machina

SL1620 New Features

Feature	SoC	Description
1 GB DDR x16 Support	SL1620	Added support for 1G DDR4 x 16 support
Suspend to RAM	SL1620	Support Suspend to RAM (S3) Power State

SL1640 New Features

Feature	SoC	Description
Fastlogo with UI	SL1640 and SL1680	Support displaying a logo on boot
VCORE DVFS Support	SL1640	Add support for dynamic voltage and frequency scaling on VCORE
Framebuffer Console Support	SL1640 and SL1680	Display console messages to Video output
HDMI Hot Plug Detect and Dynamic Resolution Change	SL1640 and SL1680	Support HDMI Hot Plug Detect and support Dynamic Resolution Change
Current Sensor Support	SL1640 and SL1680	Adds support for the current sensor included with SL1640 RevB and SL1680 RevC and newer boards

SL1680 New Features

Feature	SoC	Description
HDMI-RX	SL1680	Add support for HDMI-RX
HDMI-RX	SL1680	4K Support Add OP-TEE based DHUB TA Support all HDMI-RX formats at 2K resolution Add HDMI-RX driver which supports 2K resolution at 60 fps Add EDID Support for HDMI-RX Add support for VIP Scalar Support YUYV and NV12 formats with VIP output Support RGB,YUV444/422/420 – 12/10/8 bit input Support wayland and kms sinks with Gstreamer
Gstreamer HDMI-RX Video	SL1680	Support outputting HDMI-RX video to display sink
Gstreamer HDMI-RX Audio	SL1680	Support Capturing Audio Through HDMI-RX with Gstreamer
ISP performance	SL1680	Improve ISP performance in low light environments
ISP Format Support	SL1680	Add support for Bayer and RGB formats
Fastlogo with UI	SL1640 and SL1680	Support displaying a logo on boot
Framebuffer Console Support	SL1640 and SL1680	Display console messages to Video output
HDMI Hot Plug Detect and Dynamic Resolution Change	SL1640 and SL1680	Support HDMI Hot Plug Detect and support Dynamic Resolution Change
Current Sensor Support	SL1640 and SL1680	Adds support for the current sensor included with SL1640 RevB and SL1680 RevC and newer boards

SoC Core Feature Summary

This section summarizes the hardware features of Astra Machina SoCs.

Feature	SoC
2D and 3D Graphics with GPU	SL1620, SL1640, and SL1680
DRM-KMS	SL1620, SL1640, and SL1680
Multi-standard Video Encoding/Decoding	SL1640 and SL1680
Cortex-M core boot	SL1620, SL1640, and SL1680
HIFI4 DSP	SL1640
NPU	SL1640 and SL1680
Security for CPU, BOOT, and DRM engine	SL1620, SL1640, and SL1680
MIPI CSI & ISP	SL1680

Specific Modules and Features

Feature Modules	Feature Items	SL1620	SL1640	SL1680	Comment
GST Audio Pipeline	GST Audio Pipeline	Y	Y	Y
	BT A2DP Audio	Y	Y	Y
	PDM MIC Support	Y	N/A	N/A
	SW Decoding Capability	Y	Y	Y	Supported formats: AAC, MP2, MP3, Vobis, AC3, OPUS
	File Playback	Y	Y	Y	Supported formats: TS, MP3, MP4, Webm
	GST Sample Rate Conversion & Mixing	Y	Y	Y	Limitation on SL1620 audio mixing. Sample Rate conversion is fine.
	HDMI-RX (Audio)	N/A	N/A	Y
GST Video Pipeline	KMS SINK with IOMMU	N/A	Y	Y	MultiView: Camera + Video OR multi Video Dual display means the output simultaneously Dual display for SL1680 means HDMI-TX + MIPI-DSI Dual display for SL1620 means MIPI-DSI + RGB
	HDMI Rx Video Path to Display Sink	N/A	N/A	Y
	RTSP stream with V4L2 playback	N/A	Y	Y
	Multiview RTSP Playback	N/A	N/A	Y
	Support Wayland Sink Window Dragging with mouse	Y	Y	Y
	Multi View	N/A	N/A	Y
	Video Decode with 2K Wayland Sink	Y	Y	Y
	FFMPEG Decode	Y	Y	Y
	V4L2 Decode	N/A	Y	Y
	Dual Display	Y	N/A	Y
	Video Decode with QT Applications	Y	Y	Y	Multi-playback only on SL1680
GST AI	OpenCV Support	Y	Y	Y
	Multistream AI with RTSP	N/A	N/A	Y
	AI support for ISP Camera	N/A	N/A	Y
	GST AI Support for GPU models	Y	N/A	N/A
	Pose Estimation	Y	Y	Y
	Single View AI use case	Y	Y	Y
	Multi View AI user case	N/A	N/A	Y	SL680 supports multi-view AI case SL1640/1620 only supports single view AI case
	SyNAP	Y	Y	Y	supports SyNAP pre-process and sink
HDMI-RX	HDMI-RX 4K	N/A	N/A	Y
	DHUB TA in OP-TEE	N/A	N/A	Y
	HDIM-Rx Video 2K all formats support	N/A	N/A	Y
	GST Pipeline Support	N/A	N/A	Y
	HDMI-Rx Driver for Video – 2K60	N/A	N/A	Y
	YUYV and NV12 formats as VIP output	N/A	N/A	Y
	EDID Support	N/A	N/A	Y
	VIP Scalar	N/A	N/A	Y
	RGB, YUV444/422/420 – 12/10/8 bit input	N/A	N/A	Y
	Gstreamer v4l2src pipeline to Display	N/A	N/A	Y
DRM-KMS	Fastlogo with OP-TEE	N/A	Y	Y	Fastlogo for SL1680/SL1640
	HDMI Hot Plug Detect and Dynamic Resolution Change	N/A	Y	Y
	EDID parsing	N/A	Y	Y
	MIPI, HDMI on Astra Machina boards	Y	Y	Y	No HDMI for SL1620 SL1640 supports either HDMI or MIPI output. Default is HDMI, can be changes to MIPI via DTS
V4L2 ISP	Single Sensor V4L2 ISP Driver	N/A	N/A	Y	ISP feature is only for SL1680 Known limitation of Downscaling of inputs: YUV420 SP 10bit and RGB 888
	Support for 4K input and output	N/A	N/A	Y
	Support for downscaling of the inputs	N/A	N/A	Y
	Supports Bayer and RGB formats	N/A	N/A	Y
U-Boot	SL1620 EMMC HS400 support	Y	N/A	N/A
	SL1620 1G DDR4 x 16 support	Y	N/A	N/A
	VCPU DVFS Support	Y	Y	Y
	U-BOOT v1.1.0	Y	Y	Y	Fastboot: Add “oem run” to support all U-Boot commands Add “flash ram” to download files into memory General: Add OTP program support Support eMMC quick fill while upgrading sparse images
	General peripherals support	Y	Y	Y	Supports USB2.0 devices Supports USB3.0 host Supports Ethernet Supports SPI Flash
	Boot mode: from eMMC	Y	Y	Y
	Boot mode: from SD-CARD	Y	Y	Y
	Image Upgrade	Y	Y	Y	Supports eMMC image upgrade with USB U-Boot, SPI U-Boot and SU-Boot Supports SD card image upgrade with SPI U-Boot and SU-Boot USB U-Boot: image via TFTP and USB target (connected to PC) SPI U-Boot: image via TFTP and USB Host (connected to USB Disk) SU-Boot: image via TFTP and USB Host (connected to USB Disk) Supports sparse image slices (Yocto will generate sparse image automatically).
	OP-TEE Support	Y	Y	Y
	Suspend to RAM (S3) Power State	Y	N/A	N/A
OP-TEE	OP-TEE enabled	Y	Y	Y
WIFI	WIFI 6 & WIFI 6E	Y	Y	Y	wpa_supplicant 2.10
WIFI	Host AP mode using hostapd	Y	Y	Y
Bluetooth	Supported	Y	Y	Y

General Modules, Peripherals, and Interfaces Supported

General
Kernel	Kernel Version 5.15.140
Yocto	Kirkstone: 4.0.17
U-Boot	SPI U-Boot version: v1.1.0
USB Tool	version: 1.1.0
OP-TEE	OP-TEE version: 4.0.0
Gstreamer (GST)	GST version: 1.22.8

Memory

Memory - DDR

SL1620: (16bit or 32bit 2133 Mbps) DDR3 / DDR4 → 1G/2G/4GB

SL1640: (32bit 3200 Mbps) DDR4 → 2G/4G

SL1680: (64bit or 32bit 3733 Mbps) LPDDR4 → 2G/4G

Memory - eMMC

General Peripherals
Interrupt	GIC
Clock	Controls the system frequency and clock tree distribution
Timer
GPIO	GPIO is initialized in earlier phase according to hardware design
SDMA	Conforms to the DMA engine framework
UART
USB 2.0 (OTG)
USB 3.0 (Host)
I2C
SPI

Network

Ethernet

SL1620: 10 / 100 / 1000 Mbps

SL1640: 10 / 100 Mbps

SL1680: 10 /100 / 1000 Mbps

Wireless Connectivity

Supports WIFI & BT

GPU and Display
GPU	DDK 1.23.1@6404501 OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 22.3.5 libdrm 2.4.110 Weston 10.0.2
Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) Display
RGB Parallel Output	Supported on SL1620
HDMI-TX	Supported on SL1640/SL1680
HDMI-RX	Supported on SL1680
MIPI-DSI	SL1680/SL1640/SL1620. On SL1640 it needs to be enabled via DTS

Camera
MIPI-CSI	SL1680
ISP	SL1680

Audio Interfaces
PDM	SL1620
SPDIF	None
I2S	SL1620, SL1640, SL1680

Supported Camera Modules

Sensor	Module	Interface	Adapter Board	Patches Required
IMX258	Synaptics IMX258 Camera Module	MIPI-CSI 0	Synaptics SL1680 MIPI CSI Adaptor Board	No
IMX415	Synaptics IMX415 Camera Module	MIPI-CSI 0	Synaptics SL1680 MIPI CSI Adaptor Board	No
OV5647	Arducam 5MP OV5647 Camera Module	MIPI-CSI 0	None	Yes

Known Issues and Limitations

Note

Versions of U-Boot included in the Astra SDK v0.9.0 release are not compatible with Astra SDK releases v1.0 or later. Please ensure that you are using USB Tool v1.0 or later when flashing using USB. Or U-Boot v1.0.0 or later when updating with internal SPI flash. See Updating Internal SPI Flash Firmware for instructions on updating the internal SPI flash.