Thank you so much @MakerGram & @salmanfaris for the opportunity to present the webinar on this topic. I've been planning for a long time to arrange a session like this to introduce the world of embedded systems and baremetal programming to our fellow maker friends so that they'll be capable of making better quality real products out in to the market. I had to rush the explanations a little bit because of our time limitations but if our friends like to have another session and want to study more about bare-metal embedded programming we will definitely arrange for more sessions in this series to explain all these concepts in detail.

Hi Kowshik,

While designing high speed digital circuits from scratch, you have to take care of numerous design rules and strategies which I don't want to elaborate.

For these kind of applications, usually to avoid design complexity and getting better time to market, we use SoMs (System on Modules). SoMs comes with different configurations with different Processor-RAM-ROM-GPU combinations. It's just a card kind of board with a Processor, RAM, Flash and an optional GPU and commonly they come with a 200 pin SODIMM male connector.

I always prefer Toradex for SoMs in my projects. You can have a look at their product lineup here - Browse Products - Toradex.

Their boards supports Windows CE, Linux(Yocto), Torizon etc. They provide you with all the BSPs, Drivers, Configuration tools etc.

They also provide carrier boards for prototyping in case you want to test your application while you design your custom board.

@kowshik1729 Yes, a lot of different SoMs from Toradex are optimized for AI and ML based applications. They've developed their own Linux based "Torizon" OS for easy configuration and deployment. There are different SoMs available right from the one's having a normal NXP Vybrid SoC to the powerful ones like NXP i.Mx8 QuadMax and Nvidia Tegra K1. You also have options for embedded WiFi and BLE modules.

These are pure industrial grade modules with IT grade certification(-40° to +85° C), so although they're easy to work upon, I won't recommend them for hobby usage. There are lot of alternatives like @salmanfaris mentioned above if you're aiming for learning/hobby usage.

But if you're looking from a product perspective you can choose Toradex without hesitation.

See the below Links for AI & ML related applications with Toradex SoMs.
-> Webinar : Jumpstart cloud-connected computer vision and ML designs with Toradex.
-> Apalis AI Vision Starter Kit for the i.MX 8 Applications Processor
-> Rapid Creation and Deployment of ML Models at the Edge with Toradex AI Vision Starter Kit

Regarding the question on breakout board.

Yes you definitely have to design a "carrier board" which should hold the SODIMM module. There are a lot of readymade carrier boards for each family of SoMs directly available from Toradex which can be used for prototyping as well as for production. However as you've mentioned in your post about unwanted peripherals, it's always advised to design custom carrier boards for customized applications. Why do you need to pay for a couple of USB receptacles and ethernet connectors if you're not going to use them? Also a custom carrier board can always be designed according to the form factor and dimensions of your product design.

Posting something which I've forgot to mention in the first post.

The Raspberry Pi Compute Module is also an alternative to Toradex SoMs, though you don't have any configurations to choose. There is only one standard model available in every generation of the module.

Just like the Toradex SoM, even this guy comes with a DDR2 SODIMM connector.

More Details here.

@kowshik1729 Keep digging untill you find the gold. All the best!

@kowshik1729 Haha, Nothing is impossible... Let's say if you get a pin compatible DRAM IC complying to BroadCom SoCs requirement without any limitations to the firmware running upon it you may be able to upgrade it. Provided that you didn't destroy the board while tinkering with it. The effort to result ratio will never match.
That's the reason why we get a wide variety of options from manufacturers like Toradex. All the Toradex SoMs belonging to the same device family are pin compatible. You can always upgrade or downgrade your computational module without disturbing the rest of your design!

@kowshik1729 Carrier board schematics for SoMs will be always available as they need to be modified as per customer application, however SoM design files are hard to get unless the H/W design is truly open-source.

@kowshik1729 Haha, Nothing is impossible... Let's say if you get a pin compatible DRAM IC complying to BroadCom SoCs requirement without any limitations to the firmware running upon it you may be able to upgrade it. Provided that you didn't destroy the board while tinkering with it. The effort to result ratio will never match.
That's the reason why we get a wide variety of options from manufacturers like Toradex. All the Toradex SoMs belonging to the same device family are pin compatible. You can always upgrade or downgrade your computational module without disturbing the rest of your design!

@kowshik1729 Keep digging untill you find the gold. All the best!

Posting something which I've forgot to mention in the first post.

The Raspberry Pi Compute Module is also an alternative to Toradex SoMs, though you don't have any configurations to choose. There is only one standard model available in every generation of the module.

Just like the Toradex SoM, even this guy comes with a DDR2 SODIMM connector.

More Details here.

@kowshik1729 Yes, a lot of different SoMs from Toradex are optimized for AI and ML based applications. They've developed their own Linux based "Torizon" OS for easy configuration and deployment. There are different SoMs available right from the one's having a normal NXP Vybrid SoC to the powerful ones like NXP i.Mx8 QuadMax and Nvidia Tegra K1. You also have options for embedded WiFi and BLE modules.

These are pure industrial grade modules with IT grade certification(-40° to +85° C), so although they're easy to work upon, I won't recommend them for hobby usage. There are lot of alternatives like @salmanfaris mentioned above if you're aiming for learning/hobby usage.

But if you're looking from a product perspective you can choose Toradex without hesitation.

See the below Links for AI & ML related applications with Toradex SoMs.
-> Webinar : Jumpstart cloud-connected computer vision and ML designs with Toradex.
-> Apalis AI Vision Starter Kit for the i.MX 8 Applications Processor
-> Rapid Creation and Deployment of ML Models at the Edge with Toradex AI Vision Starter Kit

Regarding the question on breakout board.

Yes you definitely have to design a "carrier board" which should hold the SODIMM module. There are a lot of readymade carrier boards for each family of SoMs directly available from Toradex which can be used for prototyping as well as for production. However as you've mentioned in your post about unwanted peripherals, it's always advised to design custom carrier boards for customized applications. Why do you need to pay for a couple of USB receptacles and ethernet connectors if you're not going to use them? Also a custom carrier board can always be designed according to the form factor and dimensions of your product design.

Hi Kowshik,

While designing high speed digital circuits from scratch, you have to take care of numerous design rules and strategies which I don't want to elaborate.

For these kind of applications, usually to avoid design complexity and getting better time to market, we use SoMs (System on Modules). SoMs comes with different configurations with different Processor-RAM-ROM-GPU combinations. It's just a card kind of board with a Processor, RAM, Flash and an optional GPU and commonly they come with a 200 pin SODIMM male connector.

I always prefer Toradex for SoMs in my projects. You can have a look at their product lineup here - Browse Products - Toradex.

Their boards supports Windows CE, Linux(Yocto), Torizon etc. They provide you with all the BSPs, Drivers, Configuration tools etc.

They also provide carrier boards for prototyping in case you want to test your application while you design your custom board.

Hello All,

I'm building a Python based desktop application to work with some AWS services. The application has a front-end built with the kivy framework and AWS boto3 being the primary tool in the back-end. So my aim is to access services such as AWS IoT & DynamoDB using this application.

The question is, according to AWS standards, we've three modes of authentication for boto3 to access AWS servers.

1. X.509 certificates
2. IAM Authentication
3. Cognito Identities

X.509 certificates are mostly preferred for embedded devices and not in applications.

That leaves me with 2 options, either IAM or Cognito.

I'm not convinced with the idea of hard coding credentials into our code.

In such a case which one of these is a better way of authentication and why?

Do we really have a problem if we hard-code IAM credentials in our application code?

Thank you so much @MakerGram & @salmanfaris for the opportunity to present the webinar on this topic. I've been planning for a long time to arrange a session like this to introduce the world of embedded systems and baremetal programming to our fellow maker friends so that they'll be capable of making better quality real products out in to the market. I had to rush the explanations a little bit because of our time limitations but if our friends like to have another session and want to study more about bare-metal embedded programming we will definitely arrange for more sessions in this series to explain all these concepts in detail.