AUX-Core 65

Board Overview

AUX-Core 65

Name:

core65

Vendor:

Auxspace e.V.

Status:

Maintained

Architecture:

xtensa

SoC:

esp32s3

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Overview

The Auxspace e.V. AUX-Core 65 PCB is the “brain board” at the heart of the AUX-Stack, a modular avionics stack made up of interconnected PCBs. It is built around an ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 module (8 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM) from Espressif.

More about the SoC itself can be found in the zephyr docs of the ESP32-S3.

Warning

AUX-Core is still under active hardware bring-up. Most of its sensor footprints are wired in devicetree but no AURORA application currently declares the chosen nodes it would need to run on this board (see the sensor_board hardware requirements).

Hardware

• Two identical AUX-Stack data connectors (top and bottom), for stacking further brain boards and shields (e.g. AUX-Pwr) above and below the board. See Connections and IOs below.

• BOOT button and an SD-activity status LED

• PWM buzzer and notifier LED footprints (disabled by default)

• Sensor footprints on the on-board I2C bus, all disabled by default pending bring-up:

  • ST LSM6DSO32 6-DoF IMU

  • Infineon DPS310 barometer

  • Analog Devices ADXL375 high-g accelerometer

  • Melexis MLX90395 magnetometer

• Native (4-bit) SDHC µSD-card slot

• CAN/TWAI controller, shared between both AUX-Stack data connectors

• ESP32-S3 built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE

• USB Serial/JTAG for console, programming and debugging

• Capacitive touch input controller

Supported Features

The core65 board supports the hardware features listed below.

on-chip / on-board

Feature integrated in the SoC / present on the board.

2 / 2

Number of instances that are enabled / disabled.
Click on the label to see the first instance of this feature in the board/SoC DTS files.

vnd,foo

Compatible string for the Devicetree binding matching the feature.
Click on the link to view the binding documentation.

core65@1/esp32s3/procpu target

On-target memory for this board target: 416 KiB of RAM, 8 MiB of Flash.

Type	Location	Description	Compatible
CPU	on-chip	Espressif Xtensa LX7 CPU2	espressif,xtensa-lx7
ADC	on-chip	ESP32 ADC2	espressif,esp32-adc
Bluetooth	on-chip	Bluetooth HCI for Espressif ESP321	espressif,esp32-bt-hci
CAN	on-chip	ESP32 Two-Wire Automotive Interface (TWAI)1	espressif,esp32-twai
Clock control	on-chip	ESP32 Clock (Power & Clock Controller Module) Module1	espressif,esp32-clock
Counter	on-chip	ESP32 Counter Driver based on RTC Main Timer1	espressif,esp32-rtc-timer
	on-chip	ESP32 general-purpose timers13	espressif,esp32-timer
	on-chip	ESP32 counters4	espressif,esp32-counter
Cryptographic accelerator	on-chip	Espressif ESP32 SHA Hardware Accelerator1	espressif,esp32-sha
	on-chip	Espressif ESP32 family AES Hardware Accelerator1	espressif,esp32-aes
DMA	on-chip	ESP32 GDMA (General Direct Memory Access)1	espressif,esp32-gdma
Flash controller	on-chip	ESP32 flash controller1	espressif,esp32-flash-controller
GPIO & Headers	on-chip	ESP32 GPIO controller2	espressif,esp32-gpio
	on-board	AUX-Stack data connector2	auxspaceev,aux-stack-data-connector
I2C	on-chip	ESP32 I2C2	espressif,esp32-i2c
I2S	on-chip	ESP32 I2S2	espressif,esp32-i2s
Input	on-chip	ESP32 touch sensor input1	espressif,esp32-touch
	on-board	Group of GPIO-bound input keys1	gpio-keys
Interrupt controller	on-chip	ESP32 Interrupt controller1	espressif,esp32-intc
IPM	on-chip	ESP32 soft inter processor message1	espressif,esp32-ipm
LED	on-board	Group of PWM-controlled LEDs1	pwm-leds
	on-board	Group of GPIO-controlled LEDs2	gpio-leds
Mailbox	on-chip	ESP32 soft mailbox1	espressif,mbox-esp32
Memory controller	on-chip	ESP32 pseudo-static RAM controller1	espressif,esp32-psram
MIPI-DBI	on-chip	ESP32 LCD-CAM display interface1	espressif,esp32-lcd-cam-mipi-dbi
Miscellaneous	on-chip	ESP32 LCD-CAM controller1	espressif,esp32-lcd-cam
	on-board	PWM passive buzzer1	auxspaceev,pwm-buzzer
MTD	on-chip	Flash node1	soc-nv-flash
Pin control	on-chip	ESP32 pin controller1	espressif,esp32-pinctrl
PWM	on-chip	ESP32 LED Control (LEDC)1	espressif,esp32-ledc
	on-chip	ESP32 Motor Control Pulse Width Modulator (MCPWM)2	espressif,esp32-mcpwm
RNG	on-chip	ESP32 TRNG (True Random Number Generator)1	espressif,esp32-trng
SDHC	on-chip	ESP32 SDHC controller1	espressif,esp32-sdhc
	on-chip	ESP32 SDHC controller slot2	espressif,esp32-sdhc-slot
Sensors	on-board	STMicroelectronics LSM6DSO32 6-axis IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) sensor accessed through I2C bus1	st,lsm6dso32
	on-board	Infineon DPS310 temperature and pressure sensor1	infineon,dps310
	on-chip	ESP32 internal temperature sensor1	espressif,esp32-temp
	on-chip	ESP32 Pulse Counter (PCNT)1	espressif,esp32-pcnt
	on-board	Analog Devices ADXL375 3-axis +-200 g accelerometer on I2C1	adi,adxl375
	on-board	Melexis MLX90395 3-axis magnetometer on I2C1	melexis,mlx90395
Serial controller	on-chip	ESP32 UART3	espressif,esp32-uart
	on-chip	ESP32 UART1	espressif,esp32-usb-serial
SPI	on-chip	ESP32 SPI controller2	espressif,esp32-spi
SRAM	on-chip	Generic on-chip SRAM2	mmio-sram
USB	on-chip	Espressif USB-OTG full-speed controller (DWC2 compatible) with the internal FS/LS PHY1	espressif,esp32-usb-otg-fs
Video	on-chip	ESP32 LCD-CAM camera interface1	espressif,esp32-lcd-cam-dvp
Watchdog	on-chip	ESP32 XT Watchdog Timer1	espressif,esp32-xt-wdt
	on-chip	ESP32 watchdog11	espressif,esp32-watchdog
Wi-Fi	on-chip	ESP32 SoC Wi-Fi1	espressif,esp32-wifi

Connections and IOs

A detailed physical pinout diagram is not yet available, since the PCB is under active development.

AUX-Stack data connectors

AUX-Core exposes two auxspaceev,aux-stack-data-connector connectors, top_data_connector and bottom_data_connector, for stacking further boards above and below it. Both connectors share the same CAN bus and the same I2C bus (aux_data_i2c), but each has its own dedicated UART (aux_data_uart_top / uart1 for the top connector, aux_data_uart_bottom / uart2 for the bottom one).

Each connector also breaks out three stack-wide “information” signals as GPIOs, defined in <auxspace/dt-bindings/gpio/auxspaceev-aux-stack-data-connector.h>:

Signal	Purpose
AUX_DATA_ARM	Stack-wide arm/disarm state
AUX_DATA_LIFTOFF	Stack-wide liftoff indication
AUX_DATA_PWRFLT	Stack-wide power-fault signal

Shields attach to a connector’s I2C/UART pins (e.g. AUX-Pwr attaches to aux_data_i2c). CAN is a peer bus shared directly between brain boards and does not go through the shield mechanism.

Programming and Debugging

The core65 board supports the runners and associated west commands listed below.

	flash	debug	debugserver	rtt	attach
esp32	✅ (default)
openocd	✅	✅ (default)	✅	✅	✅

Building

AUX-Core is built with sysbuild since it uses the MCUBoot boot loader.

west build -p -b core65/esp32s3/procpu --sysbuild sensor_board

Flashing

The simplest way to flash is connecting the board via USB and running:

west flash

Otherwise, put the board into download mode and flash both images with esptool, then reset. e.g. for the sensor_board application:

esptool --chip esp32s3 -p /dev/tty<ESP_DEV> -b 921600 write-flash \
  0x0 build/mcuboot/zephyr/zephyr.bin \
  0x20000 build/sensor_board/zephyr/zephyr.signed.bin