Release Notes v1.4.0

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 (v1.4.0) 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/v1.4.0

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

Enable SWUpdate

All

Enable support for OTA using SWUpdate.

SL1620 New Features

Feature

SoC

Description

Display

SL1620

Enable onboard DSI to HDMI on SL1620 rev C for default HDMI output.

Wakeup from UART

SL1620

Add support for waking up from UART.

SL1640 New Features

Feature

SoC

Description

Fastlogo on Waveshare Panel

SL1640 and SL1680

Support fastlogo with the RPI Waveshare panel. HDMI is enabled by default. A configuration change is required to enable the Waveshare panel.

V4L2 Scaler RGB 888 format

SL1640 and SL1680

Add support for the RGB 888 format with the V4L2 Scaler

SL1680 New Features

Feature

SoC

Description

Fastlogo on Waveshare Panel

SL1640 and SL1680

Support fastlogo with the RPI Waveshare panel. HDMI is enabled by default. A configuration change is required to enable the Waveshare panel.

Add 8CH LPCM on HDMI-RX

SL1680

Add support for 8 channel LPCM with HDMI-RX

Add IOMMU support for ISP

SL1680

Add IOMMU for ISP paths MP / SP1 / SP2 / 3DNR

Add MIPI CSI1 Support

SL1680

Add support for using MIPI CSI1 with the OV5647 sensor

V4L2 Scaler RGB 888 format

SL1640 and SL1680

Add support for the RGB 888 format with the V4L2 Scaler

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 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

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

Y

Y

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).

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 0/1

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, the default display output for the SL1620 is set to HDMI via a DSI-to-HDMI conversion. Starting with Astra v1.4, the onboard DSI-to-HDMI converter for the SL1620 Rev D core module has been enabled. For older core modules, an external DSI-to-HDMI adapter board is required. The default display output can be switched to MIPI by following the instructions provided in the User Guides. Haier Panel Configuration Guide and Waveshare Panel Configuration Guide.

Note

In Astra v1.4, the default MIPI display on SL1680 was changed to the Waveshare 7” Panel.

Note

In Astra v1.4, ISP IOMMU only supports the NV12 format. When using RGB888 format, set the v4l2src parameters extra-controls="c,mmu_enable=0" to disable IOMMU.

Known Issues

SL1620

SL1640

SL1680

Module

ID

Summary

Y

N/A

N/A

QT Browser

32541

QT Browser Speedometer 3 performance test hangs after 10 to 30 seconds.

Y

N/A

N/A

Audio

32555

File recorded using avenc_mp2 does not contain metadata.

Y

N/A

N/A

OTA

32533

Blank UI after upgrading using OTA.

Y

N/A

N/A

OTA

32528

OTA upgrade fails when using Mongoose Webserver.

Y

N/A

N/A

Display

31635

Observed blue flicker after fastlogo and before weston UI.

Y

N/A

N/A

Display

28911

Observed garbage on MIPI / TFT screens while doing soft reboot.

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

Chromium

31549

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

Y

N/A

N/A

Gstreamer Pipeline

31606

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

Y

N/A

N/A

Audio

32157

Error displayed when using gstreamer to record DMIC input with sample rate 8000

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

Linux Kernel

31739

Not enough bandwidth to display 3 USB cameras with 640x480 resolution.

Y

N/A

N/A

Display

31596

Fastlogo not observed on HDMI output.

Y

N/A

N/A

Display

31799

Observed stutter when doing color conversion for 1080p with synavideoconvertscale.

Y

N/A

N/A

Audio

32156

Observed corrupted file when recording from DMIC with 32bit pcm for AAC and ffmpeg-mp2 formats.

Y

N/A

N/A

Audio

29306

Recorded audio is at 0.75x speed when recording from DMIC input at 44.1KHz with signed 32 bit.

Y

N/A

N/A

Display

32400

Observed garbage on HDMI Output during suspend and resume.

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

Chromium

31605

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

Y

N/A

N/A

Video Player Demo

30712

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

N/A

Y

N/A

OTA

32540

System hangs while booting after doing OTA upgrade using SWUpdate.

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

Gstreamer Pipeline

31593

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

N/A

Y

Y

Display

31586

No fastlogo with image which has the Waveshare panel enabled.

N/A

Y

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

30385

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

Y

Y

N/A

Gstreamer Pipeline

32313

Warning about dropped buffers displayed when decoding 2x 720P30fps H.265 streams

using ffmpeg with cpufreq set to max.

N/A

Y

N/A

AI Player Demo

30700

Object detection bounding boxes remain after stream finishes playing.

N/A

Y

Y

Display

30691

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

N/A

Y

N/A

Kernel

31566

Suspend to RAM fails when a MIPI display is connected.

N/A

Y

Y

Display

30438

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

N/A

Y

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

30429

Video freeze observed when displaying some streams using kmssink.

N/A

Y

Y

Framebuffer Console

30984

Framebuffer console response is slow.

N/A

Y

Y

HDMI

31173

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

N/A

Y

Y

Kernel

30858

Suspend to RAM fails.

N/A

N/A

Y

HDMI-RX

32566

Video is darker / brighter / green when using HDMI-RX with PC input.

N/A

N/A

Y

HDMI-RX

32552

Video shows green screen and the timing is stuck on with various gstreamer pipelines.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

32537

Observed frame drop when testing ISP, V4L2 Scaler, and AI testcase.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

32526

Randomly experienced no audio output when playing AC3 stream via Gstreamer.

N/A

N/A

Y

HDMI-RX

32545

Video color is much darker after changing PC resolution from 4K60 to 4K50.

N/A

N/A

Y

RTSP Server

32532

Video stutters when playing RTSP server test video on a PC using VLC Player.

N/A

N/A

Y

HDMI-RX

32549

Video freezes when testing V4L2 2160p50 input sources in both NV12 and UYVU formats.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

32564

Video stutter observed when playing 4x 1920x1080 RSTP streams for a long time.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

32538

4 View RTSP playback + AI freezes after 10 minutes when using V4L2 scaler.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

32558

Video freezes and displays a green screen when testing IMX258 sensor with 4K NV12

input, scaled to 1080 using V4L2 scaler, with IOMMU disabled.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

32556

Observed video output shaking when testing OV5647 sensor on MIPI CSI1 port.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

32557

Observed random video stutter when testing ISP camera with RGB format and V4L2 scaler.

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

32021

Observed random frame drops when decoding 4K60fps H.265 stream on 1080p TV.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP PQ Tuning

31552

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

N/A

Y

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

28506

Observed horizontal lines when using USB camera.

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

HDMI-RX

31568

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

N/A

N/A

Y

HDMI-RX

32192

Audio channel map is incorrect with QD980 input set to 5.1CH at 48KHz.

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

31576

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

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP PQ Tuning

31553

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

N/A

N/A

Y

HDMI-RX

32022

No audio/video output on dual display configurations while doing HDMI-RX playback

and HDMI-TX hotplug.

N/A

Y

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

30385

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

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

ISP PQ Tuning

31536

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

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

Gstreamer AI

31554

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

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

HDMI

31521

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

N/A

N/A

Y

U-Boot

30036

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