Release Notes v1.3.0

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 (v1.3.0) 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

Images and Toolchains

https://github.com/synaptics-astra/sdk/releases/

SDK

https://github.com/synaptics-astra/sdk/tree/v1.3.0

Documentation

Getting Started

Astra Machina Eval Platform

Astra Yocto Linux Developer Guide

Astra Yocto Linux User Guide

For other collaterals please refer to the Synaptics Customer Portal.

New Features

Common New Features

Feature

SoC

Description

Gstreamer GLVideoMixer

All

Support using glvideomixer plugin to decode and display several video streams at once.

Fastlogo with UI on MIPI

All

Add support for displaying the Fastlogo UI on MIPI displays.

DSI to HDMI

All

Support converting DSI to HDMI. SL1640 / SL1680 / SL1620 Rev A

require external adapter board. SL1620 Rev B / C requires a patch.

Vulkan Support

All

Add support for the Vulkan runtime.

Open OP-TEE source code

All

OP-TEE and TA source code is now publicly available.

DDR Memory Layout Customization

All

DDR memory layouts can now be customized.

SL1620 New Features

Feature

SoC

Description

Current Sensor Support

SL1620

Adds support for the current sensor included with SL1620 RevD and newer boards.

SL1640 New Features

No SL1640 specific features were added in this release.

SL1680 New Features

Feature

SoC

Description

Gstreamer Dual Display

SL1680

On dual display configurations gstreamer now supports displaying to two sinks simultaneously.

Gstreamer Multistream AI

SL1680

Support 4x1080p multi stream decoding with AI inferencing

ISP Tuning Tool

SL1680

Add the tool used for ISP sensor tuning to the filesystem.

Support OV5647 Sensor

SL1680

Add support for the OV5647 image sensor.

Improve ISP Format Support

SL1680

Improve support for for Bayer and RGB formats.

Cropping in ISP Down Scaler

SL1680

Add support for cropping to the ISP Down Scalar.

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

Y

Y

Y

Supports both HDMI and MIPI

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

  • SL1620 /SL1640 supports either HDMI or MIPI output.

  • SL1680 supports HDMI and MIPI simultaneously.

    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

Support for 4K input and output

N/A

N/A

Y

Support for downscaling of the inputs

N/A

N/A

Y

SP 10bit and RGB 888

Support cropping in ISP down scaler

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

DVFS Support

Y

Y

Y

VCPU DVFS can be supported on SL1620/SL1640/SL1680

VCORE DVFS is only supported on SL1640

U-BOOT v1.1.1

Y

Y

Y

Release Notes

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

  • Support eMMC HS400 mode

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

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: v1.1.1

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

up to 32GB

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 SL1620/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

DTS Update 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.

Note

U-Boot version v1.1.0 improves emmc flash times significantly. We recommend updating to U-Boot v1.1.0 to benefit from these improvements.

Note

SD Boot with release v1.3 and later requires updating to U-Boot v1.1.1 or later. See Updating Internal SPI Flash Firmware for instructions on updating the internal SPI flash.

Note

In Astra v1.3 SL1620 has the default display output set to HDMI using DSI to HDMI conversion. SL1620 Rev A core modules require an external DSI to HDMI adapter board. Default output can be changed to MIPI using the instructions in the User Guide. Haier Panel Configuration Guide

Known Issues

SL1620

SL1640

SL1680

Module

ID

Summary

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer HDMI-RX

31622

Last frame retained after playback stops for some pipelines using kmssink.

N/A

N/A

Y

Chromium

31602

Audio from mic is not continuous with WebRTC on Chromium.

N/A

N/A

Y

QT Browser

31556

WebRTC test case ‘multiple-video-devices’ fails with the error “User media

request denied with error:OverconstrainedError” with the QT Browser.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

31539

Unexpected video size when testing 9x and 16x decoding of 640x480 video stream.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP PQ Tuning

31537

Setting roiweight to max value results in blank output while doing AWB tuning.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP PQ Tuning

31553

3A exposure statistics option ‘View Color Matrix’ does not work.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer HDMI-RX

31254

HDMI-RX video color is incorrect when switching resolution between 4K30 and 1080p30.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer AI

31554

Video stutters when testing Multi AI example with 4x 1080p30.

N/A

N/A

Y

AI Player Demo

31573

Bottom right video freezed during Multi AI example with 4x 1080p30 and V4L2.

N/A

Y

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

30385

Last frame is retained after playback stopped when using KMS sink.

N/A

Y

Y

Framebuffer Console

30984

Framebuffer console response is slow.

N/A

N/A

Y

Video Player Demo

30437

Observed video shaking when playing back 4 streams with V4L2 decoding in syna-video-player.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer HDMI-RX

31576

Video freezes or no video output when switching resolution from 4K60 RGB 8bit to 1080P60 8bit.

N/A

N/A

Y

U-Boot

30036

SPI U-Boot fails for flash image to SD card.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP PQ Tuning

31552

Selecting manual mode view disables all available options in 3A exposure control.

N/A

N/A

Y

Fastlogo

31585

Fastlogo not seen on Waveshare panel. (dual display setup)

N/A

Y

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

30429

Video freeze observed when displaying some streams using kmssink.

N/A

N/A

Y

HDMI

31521

No signal and error printed when connecting with 4K TV then 2K TV then 4K TV again.

N/A

Y

Y

Display

30691

Green flash occurs at the beginning of playback on some streams when using kmssink.

N/A

Y

Y

Kernel

30858

Suspend to RAM fails.

N/A

N/A

Y

AI Player Demo

31248

Playback randomly hangs when displaying 4 1080p30 streams with V4L2 decoding and AI inferencing.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

31225

Bayer raw dump for IMX sensor could not be verified.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer HDMI-RX

31568

Failed to display test source with 4K30 YUV422 8bit data.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP PQ Tuning

31536

Deleted ROI points get re-enabled in certain scenarios during AWB tuning.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer HDMI-RX

31575

Video stutter with 720p25 stream in both NV12 and UYVY modes and V4L2.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

31355

Incorrect color displayed when using videoconvert to display RGB output.

N/A

Y

Y

Display

30438

Observed video shaking and horizontal lines during playback of some streams when using kmssink.

N/A

N/A

Y

AI Player Demo

31249

Bottom right video freezes or app force stops during Multi AI example with 4x 1080p30 and V4L2.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer HDMI-RX

31577

No audio output when testing HDMI-RX with laptop connected to a dock.

N/A

Y

N/A

Gstreamer Pipeline

31593

Error “A lot of buffers are being dropped” and noise seen output when performing color conversion.

N/A

Y

Y

NNStreamer

31011

Video freezes for 2 seconds during object detection using nnstreamer and an external USB camera.

N/A

Y

N/A

Kernel

31566

Suspend to RAM fails when a MIPI display is connected.

N/A

Y

Y

HDMI

31173

Fails to connect to 2K sink after unplug from 4K sink.

N/A

Y

N/A

AI Player Demo

30700

Object detection bounding boxes remain after stream finishes playing.

N/A

Y

N/A

Fastlogo

31585

Fastlogo not seen on Waveshare panel. (MIPI display only setup)

Y

N/A

N/A

Chromium

31605

Chromium Web Browser window size and position on HDMI is no the same as TFT panel.

Y

N/A

N/A

QT Browser

31603

QT Browser UI does not show loaded web page until set to fullscreen.

Y

N/A

N/A

Gstreamer Pipeline

31606

Video playback is slightly slower when decoding multiple (2x) 640x480 streams.

Y

N/A

N/A

Gstreamer Pipeline

31607

Video playback is slightly faster when decoding multiple (4x) 320x180 streams.

Y

N/A

N/A

HDMI

31612

HDMI HDP feature is not working.

Y

N/A

N/A

Gstreamer Pipeline

29478

Streams requiring deinterlace plugin fail to play.

Y

N/A

N/A

Gstreamer Pipeline

30741

Display window does not scale when moved from MIPI to TFT panel.

Y

N/A

N/A

Audio

29228

arecord prints “Sample format is non-available” when recording DMIC input set to

16 and 24.

Y

N/A

N/A

QT Browser

31560

WebRTC test case ‘multiple-video-devices’ fails with the error “User media

request denied with error:OverconstrainedError” with the QT Browser.

Y

Y

Y

Chromium

31540

Only two USB cameras detected by Chromium when three connected to board.

Y

N/A

N/A

Gstreamer Pipeline

30587

Sluggish output when displaying some VP9 streams.

Y

N/A

N/A

Video Player Demo

30712

Video Player Demo app is not properly sized for TFT panel.

Y

N/A

N/A

Linux Kernel

29893

Observed Horizontal Stride, whenever there is an object movement

during USB Camera Test.

Y

N/A

N/A

Chromium

31549

Microsoft Teams participant video is not visible when using the Chromium browser.

Y

Y

N/A

Display

30804

Rotation not enabled for MIPI video playback.