Release Notes v1.5.0

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 (v1.5.0) 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/v1.5.0

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

OOBE Recipes

All

Added recipes to enable the Out-of-Box-Experience image.

Device Tree Overlay Support

All

Added support for device tree overlays in U-Boot.

Xorg Support

All

Added support for the Xorg X11 Display Server

Bluetooth SCO

All

Added support for Bluetooth SCO link.

SL1620 New Features

Feature

SoC

Description

DMIC Recording

SL1620

Add support for recording from the DMIC on the SL1620 RDK.

SL1640 New Features

No SL1640 specific features were added in this release.

SL1680 New Features

Feature

SoC

Description

Container Support for OOBE

SL1680

Added support for containers and docker to the OOBE image.

ISP Multiple Path Support

SL1680

Added support for playing back multiple paths from a single sensor.

ISP Dual Sensor Support

SL1680

Added support for using dual OV5647 sensors simultaneously.

SPI Boot

SL1680

Added support for booting Linux from SPI NOR flash.

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

Super Resolution AI use case

N/A

N/A

Y

Audio Classification AI use case

Y

Y

Y

Not included in image

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

Display

Wayland Display Server

Y

Y

Y

X11 Display Server

Y

Y

Y

V4L2 ISP

Dual / 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

Support Simultaneous Path Playback w/ Single Sensor

N/A

N/A

Y

U-Boot

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

Low Power Standby

N/A

Y

Y

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: 1.2.0

OP-TEE

OP-TEE version: 4.0.0

Gstreamer (GST)

GST version: 1.22.8

ISP Firmware

version: 6.5.1

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 24.2@6643903

  • 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

Device Tree Overlay Required

IMX258

Synaptics IMX258 Camera Module

MIPI-CSI 0

Synaptics SL1680 MIPI CSI Adaptor Board

Yes

IMX415

Synaptics IMX415 Camera Module

MIPI-CSI 0

Synaptics SL1680 MIPI CSI Adaptor Board

Yes

OV5647

Arducam 5MP OV5647 Camera Module

MIPI-CSI 0/1

None

CSI0 - No

CSI1 -Yes

CSI0/CSI1 - 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.

Note

In Astra v1.5, the rootfs parition sizes increased to accommodate the extra packages in the OOBE images. This interferes with OTA since SWUpdate expects the rootfs partition size to be the same. To perform OTA on a system with v1.4 installed, please build an image using v1.4’s partition sizes. (See eMMC Partition Customization on Astra Machina)

Known Issues

SL1620

SL1640

SL1680

Module

ID

Summary

Y

Y

Y

OTA

33104

33087

Displays don’t work after OTA upgrade from v1.4 to v1.5.

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

Gstreamer Pipeline

32697

Multi-decode mixer test freezes after 0.2 seconds for 640x360@25 video file.

Y

N/A

N/A

Linux Kernel

31739

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

Y

N/A

N/A

Graphics

32890

Mouse pointer is not visible when it is behind the Vulkan Unittest app.

Y

N/A

N/A

Graphics

33037

GFX Demo app UI goes to background when opened (OOBE image only).

Y

N/A

N/A

Bluetooth

33074

Observed noise when playing sound through BT headphones while testing BT SCO.

Y

N/A

N/A

Display

28911

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

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

OOBE Demo

33048

FingerPaint GFX Demo is not working (OOBE image only).

Y

Y

Y

NNStreamer

33030

Failed to run NNStreamer Object Detection GPU test (X11 based images only).

Y

N/A

N/A

USB U-Boot

32904

Not able to flash image with USB U-Boot using TFTP.

Y

N/A

N/A

Suspend / Resume

33028

SL1620 can be woken from suspend with any key instead of the wake key.

Y

N/A

N/A

Gstreamer Pipeline

31606

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

Y

N/A

N/A

SD Boot

32689

Booting from SD Card is failing.

Y

N/A

N/A

QT Browser

31603

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

Y

Y

Y

Chromium

32042

Chromium Browser freezes on maximizing after minimizing (OOBE images only).

Y

N/A

N/A

Gstreamer Pipeline

33062

Video playback output is not scaled on TFT panel when using vximagesink (X11 image only).

Y

N/A

N/A

Display

32400

Observed garbage on HDMI Output during suspend and resume.

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

Chromium

31549

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

Y

N/A

N/A

Fastboot

30596

Corrupted UI observed in tft panel while in fastboot mode.

Y

N/A

N/A

Display

31635

Observed a blue flicker after fastlogo and before weston ui.

Y

N/A

N/A

Chromium

33038

Observed colored dots while playing any content on HDMI.

Y

N/A

N/A

Audio

32156

Observed corrupted file when recording from DMIC with 32bit pcm for AAC and

ffmpeg-mp2 formats.

N/A

Y

Y

Display

33034

Frame pushed to MAIN(stripes) only displayed on one quarter of the screen during mode test with a 4K TV.

N/A

Y

Y

Display

33040

Observed results do not match expectations when scaling during mode.

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

Y

Bluetooth

33055

Meet noise and audio playback stutter when play YouTube stream via BT SCO headset

and command.

Y

Y

N/A

Fastlogo

33042

Fastlogo not seen on Waveshare panel when switching DTBO.

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

Y

N/A

OOBE

32928

OOBE image failed to enter standby when running echo mem > /sys/power/state.

N/A

Y

Y

Display

30691

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

N/A

Y

Y

NNStreamer

31011

Video freezes for 2 seconds during object detection using nnstreamer and an

external USB camera.

N/A

Y

Y

Display

30438

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

using kmssink.

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

32891

Randomly observed that the Weston UI is not properly scaled when connecting HDMI to

4K sink.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

33100

Observed video flicker during Multipath Stream (640x480) : CSI0 (MP+SP1+SP2)

and CSI1 (MP+SP1+SP2) test cases.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

33101

Observed a random freeze during Multipath Stream (640x480) : CSI0 (MP+SP1+SP2) and

CSI1 (MP+SP1+SP2) test cases.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

33103

Multipath Stream write to file test cases failed for (360x240)) : CSI0 (MP+SP1+SP2)

and CSI1 (MP+SP1+SP2).

N/A

N/A

Y

Gstreamer Pipeline

32544

Video stutter observed when playing 4x 1080P RTSP IP camera streams.

N/A

N/A

Y

Display (X11)

33083

Video tearing occurred when playing a local file stream with USB camera(720p/1080p).

(X11 image only).

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

ISP

32959

OV5647 image contains color imbalance (too much green).

N/A

Y

Y

Kernel

30858

Suspend to RAM fails.

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

32566

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

N/A

N/A

Y

HDMI

33085

HDMI output audio channel mapping is incorrect when using QD980 as input set to

5.1/7.1ch 48khz.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

32960

Excessive noise is visible on screen when testing OV5647 with ports CSI-0 and CSI-1.

N/A

N/A

Y

ISP

33086

Video has horizontal bar at the top of the window in dual sensor mode for several

configurations.

N/A

N/A

Y

Display (X11)

33081

Desktop UI incorrectly scaled after HDMI Hotplug (X11 images only).