Banana Pi BPI-CM7 SoM Features Allwinner H618 Processor and LPDDR4

The decoupled System-on-Module (SoM) plus Carrier Board architecture has become the de-facto path to accelerate device deployment in today’s embedded hardware framework. The newly announced Banana Pi BPI-CM7 compute module featuring the Allwinner H618 processor provides a highly targeted hardware basis for edge computing nodes. The BPI-CM7 is a compact and lightweight compute module with onboard LPDDR4 memory, eMMC storage, Wi-Fi 5, and Bluetooth 5.0, and it is powered by the quad-core Allwinner H618. The module utilizes two 100-pin board-to-board connectors. The module is designed to be used with the BPI-CM7IO carrier board for the Banana Pi, which offers access to several peripheral interfaces. The Allwinner H618 has already been spotted on boards like the Avaota C1, and Banana Pi BPI-M4 Zero. The SoC has four Arm Cortex-A53 cores clocked at up to 1.5GHz and an Arm Mali-G31 GPU.  

The PCB routing space for signal integrity (SI) and power delivery networks (PDN) is exceptionally narrow within the constrained 55 × 40mm footprint. BPI-CM7 is powered with 5V DC input. Power management, core compute, storage and wireless modules are retained on the SoM but complex physical layer (PHY) interfaces and heavy-duty standardized connectors are off-loaded to the carrier board. The visuals of the disclosed module layouts show a typical setup with 2 GB LPDDR4, 32 GB eMMC storage and a 256-byte EEPROM. Within the Banana Pi Documentation, it can be found that the Memory and eMMC capacity depends on the product configuration. There are two 100-pin connectors, which provide HDMI, Fast Ethernet, USB, microSD and a variety of general-purpose interfaces. These are GPIO, UART, TWI/I2C, SPI, PWM, I2S/PCM, DMIC, SPDIF and infrared signals. The USB support includes one USB 2.0 OTG interface and three USB 2.0 host interfaces. The module also features a K019-CW43-Dw wireless module for Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity with an external antenna connector. 

Banana Pi BPI-CM7

Banana Pi BPI-CM7 – Hardware Specifications:

• Processor and Graphics:
  • SoC: Allwinner H618 quad-core processor featuring four Arm Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at up to 1.5 GHz.
  • GPU: Arm Mali-G31 graphics processor.
• Memory and Storage:
  • RAM: Onboard LPDDR4 memory. The 2GB test configuration provides approximately 1.9GiB of usable memory.
  • Internal Storage: Onboard eMMC flash storage, with 32GB in the test configuration (29.3GiB usable).
  • EEPROM: Additional 256-byte EEPROM for configuration and data storage.
• Wireless and Network Connectivity:
  • Wi-Fi: K019-CW43-Dw wireless module with Wi-Fi 5 support.
  • Bluetooth: Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity.
  • Antenna: External antenna connection supported.
  • Ethernet: 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet interface routed through board-to-board (B2B) connectors.
• USB and Peripheral Interfaces:
  • USB Connectivity:
    • 1x USB 2.0 OTG port
    • 3x USB 2.0 Host ports
  • Low-Speed Interfaces: GPIO, UART, TWI/I2C, SPI, PWM, I2S/PCM, DMIC, SPDIF and IR.
• Display and Multimedia:
  • Video Output: HDMI and composite video interfaces.
  • Audio Interfaces: I2S/PCM, digital microphone (DMIC) and SPDIF support.
• Power Supply: 5V DC input.
• Module Dimensions: Approximately 55 × 40mm.
• Expansion Interface: Dual 100-pin board-to-board (B2B) connectors.

Banana Pi BPI-CM7 top view and bottom view

Banana Pi has also documented the accompanying BPI-CM7IO carrier board, but has not released images of the board. The carrier is said to offer USB Type-C power and USB 2.0 OTG, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, HDMI, 10/100Mbps Ethernet, a microSD slot and a 40-pin GPIO header. Other auxiliary connectivity options include a USB 2.0 mini-PCIe style socket, SIM card slot, UART debug header, reset and FEL buttons and a four-pin header for composite video and stereo line out.

Allwinner H618 block diagram

Banana Pi BPI-CM7IO – I/O Board Specifications:

• Connectivity and Expansion Interfaces:
  • Board-to-Board Interface: 2x 100-pin B2B connectors for interfacing with the BPI-CM7 compute module.
  • USB Connectivity: 1x USB Type-C port supporting power input and USB 2.0 OTG, plus 2x USB 2.0 Type-A host ports.
  • Ethernet: 1x 10/100Mbps Ethernet port with an RJ45 connector.
  • Wireless Expansion: Mini-PCIe-style expansion socket with USB 2.0 interface.
  • SIM Interface: Integrated SIM card slot.
• Display and Multimedia:
  • Video Output: HDMI output and composite video interface.
  • Audio Output: Stereo line-out interface.
• GPIO and Debugging:
  • GPIO Expansion: 40-pin GPIO header for connecting external peripherals and hardware extensions.
  • Debug Interface: Dedicated UART debugging interface.
  • Hardware Controls: Reset and FEL buttons for system control and firmware flashing.

Software assistance comprises Android and Linux. Banana Pi documents an Armbian 24.11.1 Jammy image based on Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS with a Linux 5.4.125 legacy sunxi64 kernel.  

For any additional details about the Banana Pi BPI-CM7 module and its Banana Pi BPI-CM7IO carrier board, see the official product page and Banana Pi forum. At the moment of writing, Banana Pi did not disclose pricing and availability.