Product of the Week: Laird Connectivity’s Summit SOM 8M Plus

By Embedded Computing Design Staff

January 23, 2023

Advanced wireless IoT applications such as machine vision, industrial HMI, audio/voice systems, and more, require an integrated hardware and software solution that can provide multiprocessing and industrial-grade features in a secure architecture.

To enable such capabilities, the Summit SOM 8M Plus from Laird Connectivity is based on NXP processors and connectivity — specifically the i.MX 8M Plus applications processor and the 88W8997 wireless SoC — for multi-core processing, dual-band 2x2 Wi-Fi 5, and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity.

For power efficiency and the ability to run simultaneous Linux® and RTOS execution, the SOM features onboard Arm Cortex-A53 and Cortex-M7 cores operating at 1.6 GHz and 800 MHz. The quad-core i.MX 8M Plus SoC is also capable of running multiple instances of Linux for user interface and connectivity use cases.

Laird Connectivity’s Summit SOM 8M Plus in Action

The 40 x 47 x 4.6 mm rugged Summit SOM 8M Plus enables graphics performance with the GC7000UL chipset which provides 2 shaders for 3D, and the GC520L chipset for 2D. The OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0 enable graphics rendering for 2D and 3D computer graphics, while the OpenCL 1.2 API provides heterogeneous computing from CUDA-powered GPUs.

The Vulkan GPU is also included as it enables 3D graphics and computing capabilities, and the Tensilica® HiFi 4 DSP chipset supplies 32-bit fixed and floating-point performance for audio.

For machine learning applications, the Summit SOM supports an integrated neural processing unit with 2.3 TOP/s of performance for features such as keyword detection, noise reduction, beamforming, speech recognition (i.e. Deep Speech 2), and image recognition (i.e. ResNet-50).

The Summit SOM 8M Plus provides LPDDR4 RAM and eMMC 5.1 storage, as well as support for Summit Yocto Linux, secure enclave, and the Summit Linux FIPS Core Crypto. The Summit Suite security architecture includes the Summit Suite Chain of Trust secure enclave and secure boot, supported by the i.MX 8M Plus.

The architecture also includes root of trust hardware-based software validation and a secure storage system for passwords, certificates, and data storage, which can be supported by the future Summit Suite FIPS Cryptographic module (FIPS 140-3 Level 1) validation. For the NXP i.MX 8M Plus processor, NXP’s Product Longevity Program supports 15-plus years of availability.

Getting Started with Laird Connectivity’s Summit SOM 8M Plus

The Summit SOM provides antenna options by providing a 2x U.FL connector, operates at a temperature range of -30° C to +85° C, and is certified by FCC, ISED, CE, UKCA, MIC, AS/NZS standards, and Bluetooth SIG approvals.

For more information about the Summit SOM 8M Plus, watch Laird Connectivity’s introduction video featuring the company’s Senior Product Manager of IoT Solutions, Dan Kephart, as well as an unboxing of the solution with Software Dev Engineer Chris Trowbridge below.