If you have just purchased your phyCORE-AM57x development kit and want to know how to get started, this guide will help you. This guide is specifically written to boot PHYTEC's Embedded Linux Board Support Package (BSP) on the hardware. The Linux BSP utilizes Yocto and OpenEmbedded as well as TI's TISDK release. Follow the guide below to learn how to set up your host machine, connect to the device and get started with your software development.

Requirements

All PHYTEC development kits ship with the necessary cables to get started. For this kit you should have received:

You will also need a host/development machine to communicate with the hardware. The requirements for your machine depend on your use case but a couple recommendations are provided below.

For basic evaluation 

If you simply want to turn the kit on, communicate over a serial shell, and run basic commands on the device then your host system can vary. In this environment it's understood that you are not compiling code on your host machine to run on the target and therefore the requirements are minimal.

For BSP or Application Development

If you are designing a custom carrier board and need to make boot-loader and kernel level changes, the host machine must meet the criteria below. In this environment you will be able to build the software BSP and develop custom Yocto meta layers.

Virtual machine platforms such as Virtual BOX, VMWare, and Docker can be used to host your development environment. Certain SD-card readers, USB serial adapters, and other peripherals have proven to be unstable when working with Virtual Machines. Please keep this in mind or contact PHYTEC Support for a recommendation.

Prepare the Hardware

Before turning on the hardware, first ensure the phyCORE-AM57x SOM is properly seated onto the Carrier Board.

• Press firmly down on the SOM with equal pressure on both sides.

• Insert the SD card (phyCORE-AM57x Linux BSP) included with your kit.

Your development kit comes with this SD card. If your kit does not have an SD card or your existing card has been corrupted you can follow the instructions for how to make a new SD card here: Create a Bootable SD card

• Development kits are by default set to boot from SD Card. Locate the boot switches on the Carrier Board and verify the switches are set as follows: 

Connect the Peripherals

You only need to make a few connections to get up and running with your development kit. You will make all the connections between the development kit and your computer first and then in following steps we will guide you on how to set up your serial terminal and establish a console session with the phyCORE-AM57x SOM.

Set up a Serial Terminal

If you don't already have a terminal application set up on your host machine, we have provided a few different methods below depending on your host operating system.

Windows 10

Determine the COM port associated with the development kit:

• Open Device Manager
• Expand Ports (COM & LPT)
• You should see 1 "USB Serial Port" device that corresponds to UART3 on the development kit.

•  Remember this port number.
• If you are having trouble determining which COM port to use:
  • Unplug/re-plug the USB cable from your computer and see what disappears/reappears in Device Manager.
  • Check "Other Devices"

Configure your Terminal Session:

• Download or open the terminal emulator of your preference. There are many options such as PuTTY and TeraTerm.
• Configuration of your terminal will vary slightly depending on the terminal emulator software you are using.
• Specify that you will connect using "Serial" to the COM port (found in previous step)
• Other parameters include: 115200 Baud, 8 bit data, no parity bits, 1 stop bit and no flow control.

You might not see anything in your serial terminal once it opens. That is OK, if the board was powered on for more than a minute while setting up the terminal session, then it has already booted. Simply press 'enter' in the terminal to get a new line OR press the "Cold Reset" button (S1). Otherwise, make sure your hardware is plugged in and powered on and the correct COM port has been selected.

MacOS Mojave

 Click here to expand...

On your host machine open up a Terminal and type the following command to list all of the USB serial devices

Host (MacOS)

ls -ltl /dev/cu.usb*

CODE

Verify the output is similar to:

Start a serial terminal session using screen. From the list choose the USB device that ends in 'A'. In this case, that will be /dev/cu.usbserial-00002014A. 

Now type the following command: 

Host (MacOS)

screen /dev/cu.usbserial-00002014A 115200 

CODE

The '115200' is the default baud rate. 

You might not see anything in your serial terminal once it opens. That is OK, if the board was powered on for more than a minute while setting up the terminal session, then it has already booted. Simply press 'enter' in the terminal to get a new line OR press the "Cold Reset" button (S1). Otherwise, make sure your hardware is plugged in and powered on and the correct COM port has been selected.

Boot the Board

• If you have not already powered on the development kit, you can do this now.
• The board will begin booting and the output will look similar to the one below:

• If you are not getting any output and have already plugged in power, you might need to reset the board. You can press the "Reset" button (S1) to reset the board:
  
  
  

• On your serial console you should reach a login prompt.

  Expected Output

  PHYTEC: BSP-Yocto-TISDK-AM57xx-PD17.1.1
  am57xx-phycore-rdk login:

  CODE

• Login using "root" (no password is required). 
  
  

You may find that commands and text wrap over themselves if they extend too far on a single line in your Terminal Window. To improve usability and to prevent text from wrapping over itself use the following command: 

Target (Linux)

shopt -s checkwinsize && resize

CODE

Turn Off the Device

Before removing power from the development kit, you must make sure that the operating system has safely shutdown.

• To initiate a shutdown run the following command:

  Target (Linux)

  poweroff

  CODE

• Once you have seen Reached target Shutdown it is safe to remove the power from the development kit:

  Expected Output

  Reached target Shutdown.

  CODE
• Completely remove power from the board by unplugging the power cable
  
  

What's Next