The TS-TPC-8900 is a TS-SOCKET baseboard comprised of a 10" TFT LCD and TS-8900 baseboard, ready to be paired with a TS-SOCKET macrocontroller (sold separately). It is an ideal solution for applications requiring a touch screen human machine interface (HMI), such as industrial automation, home automation, self-service machines, and point-of-sale terminals. This product offers an excellent value with a full range of features and industry standard connectors and a fanless, low power, high performance modular design. TS-TPC-8900 also provides an upgrade path for embeddedTS customers currently using TS-TPC-7390, TS-TPC-7395, and TS-TPC-8390 products.

The TS-TPC-8900 is a low-cost, industrial-grade TS-SOCKET baseboard with WVGA touchscreen, audio codec, headphone jack, speaker, and black bezel. Reliability is enhanced through entirely solid-state operation with no moving parts and requires no fans or heat-sinks. The rugged aluminum support elegantly frames the 10-inch TFT LCD, making it an ideal solution for mounting on a wall or cabinet. The computer unit is mounted to the back of the panel, providing access to a wide variety of connectors including dual 10/100BASE-T Ethernet ports, two full-speed USB host ports via standard USB connectors, DIO, and serial ports. The unit runs Debian Linux 2.6 and Debian Sarge out of the box and is suitable for a wide range of HMI-type and simple GUI applications.

The TS-8900 Engine

The TS-8900 baseboard, mated with one of two multi-purpose macrocontrollers running an 800MHz Arm®-based CPUs, powers the TS-TPC-8900 Touch Panel Computer. It allows development of multi-function embedded applications through its multiple peripheral interfaces, which include on-board RAM, NAND flash, dual 10/100 Ethernet ports, dual USB 2.0 host ports, serial ports, SD card socket, digital I/O lines, real time clock, audio codec and speaker, video framebuffer, touchscreen, and LCD video interfaces.

The 40-pin DIO header provides the following connections:

• I2C Bus and SPI Bus
• 8 Digital Outputs (0-3.3V)
• 8 Digital Inputs (0-5V)

The TS-8900 engine is extremely rugged and reliable. Temperature operation is fanless and the range is the industrial standard at lower CPU speeds. The LCD is rated for storage temperature range of -30 ° to +80 °C. The operating range is -20 °C to +70 °C. The unit may be powered by a standard DC supply with a flexible input range from 5V DC to 30V DC or via Power over Ethernet (PoE) on Ethernet port #1. The power supplies for both the LCD and the LCD back-light are controlled via software.

The TS-8900 provides up to six COM ports, four RS-232 and two RS-485/422 ports. Some of the COM ports are provided by the FPGA through the proprietary XUART core and can support 9-bit data modes and have a 4Kbyte shared FIFO. In addition, one or two CAN ports are provided that support CAN 2.0B with an extended receive buffer size of 2Kbytes.

LCD-Ready Embedded Computers

The TS-8900 with a mating TS-4700 or TS-4800 macrocontroller (sold separately) is designed specifically as the engine for the TS-TPC-8900. The connectors are not general purpose and will not work with most LCDs, so we do not generally sell the TS-8900 and mating macrocontroller as a stand alone board set. If you have an interest in using the TS-8900 in your project, please call us for information about pricing or product customization.

The TS-8900 baseboard with mating macrocontroller boots to Linux 2.6 from an SD card using the proprietary TS-SDBOOT bootup firmware residing in FPGA ROM memory. The board can also boot from on-board NAND flash using the TS-NANDBOOT firmware. The state of the SD Boot jumper controls whether the board boots from NAND or SD.

A valid bootable media (SD card or NAND flash) must contain a Linux kernel image, a initial ram disk image, and a valid Linux root filesystem. The ultra-fast Linux bootup solution was optimized for speed and includes kernel, initrd, and filesystem (Busybox) tweaks. Since this board boots to an initrd (initial ram disk) with a read-only mounted filesystem, it is possible to have something other than a shell prompt running after bootup by editing the /linuxrc shell script on the initrd. Additional TS-TPC-8900 software features include:

• Boots Linux out-of-the-box in about 2-3 seconds (to shell prompt, depending on SD card used).
• SD card/NAND flash pre-installed with standard Debian Linux distribution.
• Startup Linux mini-root scripts allow flexible root and backup filesystem selection (SD, NAND, NFS, USB flash) as well as software field upgrade support.
• Linux "bootload" program allows booting of Linux kernels and other OS's from within Linux itself.
• Includes FrameBuffer, Video, TouchScreen, Mouse, and Keyboard Linux drivers.
• GUI application development through X Windows Systems (Xorg-Xserver).
• Other GUI library packages possible/provided.

Bootloader Un-brickable Design

The TS-TPC-8900 bootstrap combines FPGA hardware logic, specific boot-up firmware, and kernel modifications to ensure fast boot time, security, and high board recoverability:

• Proprietary bootloader boots Linux 2.6 kernel to shell prompt in about one second from SD card or on-board flash. A Linux bootload utility is available to boot any other kernel or operating system image from the Linux shell prompt.
• Un-brickable design ensures 100% recoverability from SD card in case of on-board flash erasure.
• Full Debian Linux can be installed on on-board flash from a USB Thumb drive or SD card, eliminating the need to use miniaturized niche embedded Linux distributions or blast/boot boards.
• SD card security features can be utilized for boot medium verification or booting of locked SD cards.

Linux 2.6 and Debian Linux

embeddedTS TS-TPC-8900 Arm-based Touch Panel Computers (TPC) are compatible with a wide range of Operating Systems (OS's). The Linux choice is highly recommended and our products are totally integrated with the open-source vision. The boards ship with Linux 2.6 kernel running out-of-the-box. The Linux kernel includes complete driver support for on-board hardware, enabling quick time to market of end-users applications. Examples and source code are also available for download.

The TS-8900 SBCs are configured to load the Debian Linux OS from either the on-board flash or a SD card during boot up time. The full featured Debian Linux (version Etch) distribution includes a complete GNU C/C++ embedded development environment installed. In addition, Apache Web Server, FTP, SSH, Telnet, and other network services are available with C/PHP for embedded CGI development. Custom Linux GUI applications can be developed using X Windows (Xorg-Xserver which is included).

Please contact embeddedTS for further information regarding Operating System and software support for this product.

Detailed Feature List

• TS-SOCKET Baseboard (requires TS-SOCKET Macrocontroller)
• 256MB DDR2 RAM
• 256MB SLC XNAND Drive
• 2 MB Battery Backed NVRAM (Optional)
• SD card socket for additional Flash
• TS-4700: Linux kernel 2.6.29
• TS-4800: Linux kernel 2.6.28
• Ideal upgrade path for TS-7390/7395
• High brightness LCD (320 nits)
• 800x600 TFT 10-inch LCD
• 4 Wire Resistive Touch-Screen Interface
• Accepts 5V-30V DC power
• Typical power consumption < 10Watts
• Dual 10/100 Ethernet Ports (Standard)
• Standard PoE on Ethernet 1 (ETH1)
• 2 USB Host Ports
• 1 RS-485/422 Port (selectable)
• 1 RS-485 Port (dedicated)
• 2 RS-232 Ports
• CAN bus (Standard)
• 2nd CAN bus (Call for details)
• TS-4800 required for 2nd optional CAN bus
• 8 Digital Outputs (0-3.3V)
• 8 Digital Inputs (0-5V)
• 16-bit Audio Codec (Output only)
• Stereo Headphone Jack
• Amplified Mono Speaker
• PC/104 expansion bus
• XBee Radio Socket
• Unbrickable, boots from SD or Flash
• Fanless -20 °C to +70 °C operation
• Battery for Real-Time Clock & NVRAM
• 2 User Programmable LEDs

embeddedTS has partnered with a third-party vendor to provide anti-microbial, shock-absorbing, and super scratch-resistant film overlays. These films also protect screens from scratches, dirt, and abrasion. If interested, inquire with sales for more information and learn how to obtain a sample.