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The Google Coral System-on-Module (SoM) is a fully integrated system module for hardware-accelerated machine learning applications, consisting of CPU, GPU, Edge TPU, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and memory in a mere 40mm x 48mm size.

This module can be easily designed into your own hardware (and application). For example, it is the core of the Coral Dev Board (in the 4GB variant).

Your advantages:

Designing a suitable carrier board for your machine learning application is significantly more cost-effective and faster.
You receive a coordinated hardware platform with good software support.
With the three memory variants, you can choose the one best suited for your application - offering options to your customers, or optimizing costs

Tip: we offer you hardware and software design from a single source, centered around Coral and the Raspberry Pi platform. If interested, please contact us for a non-binding and free initial consultation.

Note on availability

Coral 1GB SoM available on request!

Coral SoM

In addition to the EdgeTPU, the Google Coral SoM contains the most important components of an embedded PC:

NXP i.MX 8M SoC (CPU + GPU)
Google Edge TPU ML accelerator
Crypto co-processor
Wi-Fi + Bluetooth
8 or 16 GB eMMC
1, 2, or 4 GB LPDDR4
USB 3.0 interface
Gigabit Ethernet interface
HDMI and MIPI-DSI
MIPI-CSI-2
up to 95 x GPIO (including SPI, I2C, PWM, UART, SAI and SDIO)

In the prototyping stage, you can implement your application using the 4GB Coral Development Board, which is based on this SoM module - and then easily realize your own hardware design that is optimized for your application.

The Edge TPU

With the Edge TPU, Tensor Flow Lite models can be used quickly and energy-efficiently for inference.

A special advantage of this solution: your data remains local. This helps with latency, and of course with data protection! (And accordingly, in compliance with relevant laws, for example the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)).

Google increasingly uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to implement its services. For this purpose, it developed specialized processors for its data centers called TPU ("tensor processing unit"), which can execute algorithms with the TensorFlow framework faster and more energy-efficiently. For example, Google Maps is improved by street signs recorded by Street View, which are analyzed with the help of a TensorFlow-based neural network. The trick: TensorFlow can be easily programmed in Python.

The Edge TPU supports the TensorFlow Lite Framework. The Edge TPU can perform up to 4 trillion operations per second with only 2 W consumption . TensorFlow Lite is a modified variant of TensorFlow, specially adapted to the needs of mobile devices and embedded devices. Many TensorFlow applications can also be realized in TensorFlow Lite.

Technical data Coral SoM (System-on-Module)

NXP i.MX 8M SoC

Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A53 (@1.5 GHz, 64-bit ARMv8-A) + Cortex-M4F
Vivante GC7000Lite GPU (supports Vulkan), 32 GFLOPs 32-bit or 64 GFLOPs 16-bit
4Kp60 HEVC/H.265 main and main 10 decoder
4Kp60 VP9, 4Kp30 AVC/H.264 decoder (requires full system performance)
1080p/60fps MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MJPEG, H.263 decoder

Memory

Flash: 8GB or 16 GB eMMC (4GB RAM variant only)
RAM: 1GB / 2GB / 4GB LPDDR4 variants
SDIO interface supports boot from SD card (if present in your design)

EdgeTPU

Google Edge TPU ML accelerator coprocessor
4 TOPS (int8); 2 TOPS per Watt
connected to NXP i.MX 8M SoC via PCIe (Gen2 x1) and I2C/GPIO

Tip: the connection via PCIe enables the maximum transfer rate to the EdgeTPU module, which is why the Coral System-on-Module is particularly well suited for applications with high frame rates / high performance requirements.

Network & USB

The Coral SoM has the following network interfaces:

Wi-Fi 2x2 MIMO (802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2.4/5GHz), Murata LBEE5U91CQ Module
Bluetooth 4.2 and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), Murata LBEE5U91CQ Module
2x USB 3.0/2.0 controllers with integrated PHYs
1x Gigabit Ethernet controller, supports EEE, Ethernet AVB, and IEEE 1588, via RGMII (Reduced gigabit media-independent interface)

HDMI Display Interface

HDMI 2.0a (standard size), supports one display with up to 1080p resolution
Upscaling & downscaling between 4K and HD video (uses full system resources)
20+ Audio interfaces 32-bit @ 384 kHz fs, with Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) support
SPDIF input and output
Audio Return Channel (ARC) via HDMI is supported

MIPI-DSI Display Interface

MIPI-DSI 4 Lanes, supports one display, resolutions up to 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz
LCDIF Display Controller
Output: LCDIF or DC display controller output

Audio

1x SPDIF input and output
2x synchronous audio interface (SAI) modules, support I2S, AC97, TDM and codec/DSP interfaces
1x SAI for 8 Tx channels for HDMI audio output
1x SPDIF input for HDMI Arc input

Camera

2 x MIPI-CSI2 camera inputs (4-lane each)

GPIO Interface

2x UART interface
2x I2C interface
2x SPI interfaces
16x GPIOs with interrupt capability
4x PWM outputs

Connectivity & Interfaces: Miscellaneous

1x uSDHC Interface
IOMUXC (Input/output multiplexing controller) for pad control

Note: the SoM uses some of the SoC GPIOs / interfaces internally, e.g., to connect the Coral Edge TPU. The interfaces listed here already take this into account and are fully available to you.

Security

Resource Domain Controller (RDC), supports four domains and up to eight regions
Arm TrustZone (TZ) architecture
On-Chip RAM (OCRAM) secure region protection using OCRAM controller
High Assurance Boot (HAB)
Cryptographic acceleration and assurance (CAAM) module
Secure non-volatile storage (SNVS): Secure real-time clock (RTC)
Secure JTAG controller (SJC)
Crypto coprocessor Microchip ATECC608A

Power Supply

The Coral SoM requires a 5 V power supply and generates all other necessary voltages itself with an on-board PMIC.

Power consumption of the SoM approx.:

idle: 2.6 W
idle with HDMI output: 3.0 W
High performance: 6.2 W

Further Information

Dimensions of the Coral SoM: 40 mm x 48 mm x 5.11 mm
Weight: 13 g
Connection to carrier board: the SoM is connected to the carrier board via three 100-pin connectors (Hirose DF40C-100DP-0.4V).

Software Support

Mendel Linux

Mendel Linux is a Debian derivative developed by Google, specifically for the Coral platform. A bootloader is pre-installed on the SoM ex-works; you must install Mendel Linux manually. Here you can find instructions.

Mendel Linux uses Debian's upstream binary packages to maintain maximum compatibility and enable timely security updates. It currently only supports the Coral Dev Boards (also known as "enterprise" or "phanbell") and the Coral SoM modules (System-on-Module).

TensorFlow Lite

The Coral System-on-Module supports the execution of (compiled) TensorFlow Lite models on its EdgeTPU.

AutoML Vision Edge

The Coral System-on-Module supports AutoML Vision Edge, to quickly deploy models for image classification.

Recommended further accessories:

Google Coral Dev Board 4GB (development board with 4GB Coral SoM module)

Potential for industrial applications & Consulting

The Google Coral TPU & TensorFlow Lite are a revolutionary product platform for machine learning applications! This enables embedded solutions that can, for example, detect problems with workpieces, recognize traffic situations, and much more.

The Coral SoM (System-on-Module) is suitable if you are aiming for your own hardware solution that places higher demands on machine learning inference and at the same time requires optimized power consumption.

As an alternative to the SoM, which offers its own platform, Coral by Google also offers PCI Express modules and M.2 modules that can extend your existing or off-the-shelf hardware. We would be happy to advise you on the possibilities.

Consulting

We (pi3g GmbH & Co. KG) are happy to advise you as Google's European general distributor for Google's Coral product range.

We will honestly tell you if we see potential for your application, and if in our opinion another solution would be more suitable.

If interested, please contact us

Hardware & Software Development

We offer you hardware & software development from a single source.

We also offer software development related to artificial intelligence. It is a young field with massive value creation potential for you and your company - please contact us if you are interested in this forward-looking field.

Additional Information

Coral System-on-Module with	Google Part Numbers	ASUS Part Number
1GB RAM + 8GB eMMC	G650-04474-01	90AN00I4-M0XAY0 (Current Stock) 90AN00I4-B0XAY0 (New Production)
2GB RAM + 8GB eMMC	G650-05369-01	90AN00I5-B0XAY0
4GB RAM + 16GB eMMC	G650-05370-01	90AN00I6-B0XAY0