Marcel Thürmer has posted schematics for building a two-layer, Linux-ready “Blueberry Pi” SBC with a solderable, Cortex-A7 Allwinner V3 with 64MB RAM, plus WiFi/BT, Ethernet, USB, RGB, MIPI-CSI, and a 26-pin RPi header.

Hardware developer Marcel Thürmer has gone to Hackaday to announce the release of open schematics for DIYers to build a Linux hacker board called the Blueberry Pi . The open-spec SBC project, which was further revealed on Hackster.io, eases the path for hobbyists by using a simple 2-layer design — compared to 6x layers on the Raspberry Pi — and by incorporating a highly integrated Allwinner V3 SoC.

Blueberry Pi
(click images to enlarge)

Designed for action cameras and dashcams, the 1.2GHz, Cortex-A7 Allwinner V3 appeared last year on a successfully crowdfunded LicheePi Zero SBC. The SoC is available in a solderable, 128-pin TQFP package, and integrates a Mali-400 GPU, 64MB DDR2 RAM, and a 10/100 Ethernet. PHY. It does not appear that the SoC supports additional RAM.


Blueberry Pi (left) and Allwinner V3 block diagram
(click images to enlarge)

You can use mainline U-Boot to boot mainline Linux from either a microSD or a bit of SPI flash. There are no ready-made images, however.

The Blueberry Pi incorporates coastline 10/100, USB 2.0 host, and micro-USB ports, as well as a WiFi/Bluetooth BLE module. There’s an RGB interface, and Thürmer is planning to use the board’s old-school, 26-pin Raspberry Pi expansion header to fit an upcoming VGA or HDMI add-on board.

A MIPI-CSI camera interface is available, although it’s not yet supported in the Linux kernel. There are also headers for OV2640 and OV7670 image sensors, as well as an ADV7611 header for HDMI capture.

Other features include an audio jack, microphone, and VCR-like playback buttons. An EA3036 3 channel DC stepdown converter handles power management. We did not see a BoM, but judging from the $8 price of the LicheePi Zero, it should be about as affordable as it gets for a Linux hacker board.

 
Further information

Marcel Thürmer’s open source design for the Blueberry Pi is available now with EAGLE files. More information may be found in the Hackaday Blueberry Pi announcement and the Blueberry Pi GitHub page.