Intrinsyc’s 50 x 25mm, $225 “Open-Q 660 μSOM” runs Android 9.0 on the high-end Snapdragon 660 and offers 802.11ac, BT 5.1, 4GB LPDDR4, and 32GB eMMC plus support for 4K DP, 2x MIPI-DSI, 3x MIPI-CSI, and digital audio.

Qualcomm’s octa-core Snapdragon 660 appeared on Intrinsyc’s Open-Q 660 HDK Mini-ITX dev kit back in 2017 and also showed up on an Inforce 6560 Pico-ITX SBC announced in February. Now Intrinsyc has returned with a tiny compute module implementation. The $225 Open-Q 660 µSOM (micro System on Module) measures only 50 x 25mm.

Open-Q 660 μSOM, front and back
(click images to enlarge)

Applications for the Open-Q 660 μSOM include on-device artificial intelligence, enhanced gaming, power optimization, device management, security, and advanced photography and image processing jobs such as camera and audio tuning. Intrinysc mentions a development kit that will connect to the module via its 3x 100-pin board to board connectors, but there were no further details.

The module runs Android 9.0 on the Snapdragon 660 (Qualcomm SDA660), which is claimed to offer up to 20 percent higher CPU performance and 30 percent higher graphics performance compared to the similarly octa-core Snapdragon 653. The Snapdragon 660 is also faster than the octa-core Snapdragon 625 and almost identical Snapdragon 626 thanks to its use of Cortex-A73-like “Kryo” cores.

The 14nm fabricated SoC has 4x Kryo cores clocked to 2.2GHz and 4x clocked to 1.84GHz, as well as a 650MHz Adreno 512 GPU. The module’s AI potentiality is unlocked via dual Spectra 160 ISPs and a Hexagon 680 DSP with Hexagon Vector eXtensions (HVX), which supports Caffe2 and Tensorflow for machine learning and image processing.

Open-Q 660 μSOM
(click image to enlarge)

The Open-Q 660 μSOM has the same footprint as the Snapdragon 820 based Open-Q 820 µSOM. The module ships with a combo eMCP chip with 32GB eMMC and 4GB of dual-channel, 1866MHz LPDDR4 SDRAM.

The module integrates a 2.4/5GHz 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2×2 MU-MIMO WiFi radio via a Qualcomm WCN3990 module supported with 5GHz external PA and U.FL antenna connectors. Bluetooth 5.x is also on board.

The Open-Q 660 μSOM is equipped with 2x 4-lane MIPI-DSI interfaces for up to 2560 x 1600 displays plus DP 1.4 for up to 4K@30 or 2K@60. The up to 24-megapixel camera support is derived from 3x 4-lane MIPI-CSI connections with I2C controllers for each camera port plus 2x camera flash control signals.

Audio features include a SLIMBus interface for external Qualcomm codecs plus optional Qualcomm Fluence support. You also get 4- and 2-lane MI2S interfaces for external audio devices, a Soundwire link for digital amps, and 2x PDM-based digital mic interfaces.

The Open-Q 660 μSOM supports single USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C and USB 2.0 host ports plus 4-bit SD 3.0, 8x BLSP (UART, I2C, SPI), and configurable GPIOs. The module provides a PMIC and battery charging circuitry and offers a 3.6V to 4.2V input and a -10 to 70°C operating range.

 
Further information

The Open-Q 660 µSOM is available for pre-order at $225 in single quantities, with shipments due in April. More information may be found in Intrinyc’s Open-Q 660 µSOM announcement, product page, and shopping page