Last week, I acquired the C6748 + SPARTAN6 development board from Shenzhen Xinmingxin Technology. My first impression was that the core board is incredibly compact—about the size of a coin. It uses three DC-DC converters for power, resulting in low power consumption, and all chips are industrial-grade, making it highly suitable for our power monitoring equipment.

One notable feature is that the board includes EMC and ESD protection, eliminating concerns about electromagnetic interference in power systems.
After spending a week experimenting with the example programs they provided, I found the Qt integration particularly impressive. Here are a few photos I found online for reference.

1. Evaluation Board Overview

Based on the TI TMS320C6748 fixed-point/floating-point DSP C674x and Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA processor;
Ø DSP and FPGA are connected via uPP, EMIFA, and I2C buses, supporting communication speeds up to 228 MByte/s;
Ø DSP clocked at 456 MHz, delivering up to 3648 MIPS and 2746 MFLOPS computing performance;
FPGA compatible with Xilinx Spartan-6 XC6SLX9/16/25/45, enabling strong platform scalability;
The development board exposes abundant peripherals, including Gigabit Ethernet, SATA, EMIFA, uPP, and USB 2.0 for high-speed data transmission, as well as common interfaces such as GPIO, I2C, RS232, PWM, McBSP, VGA, PMOD, and RS485;
Certified for high and low temperature operation, suitable for harsh working environments;
DSP + FPGA dual-core core board measuring 66mm × 38.6mm, using industrial-grade B2B connectors to ensure signal integrity;
Ø
Integrated charge/discharge battery circuitry, multiple standard industrial interfaces, supports connection to multi-channel AD/DA modules, offering strong expandability;
Supports bare-metal and SYS/BIOS operating systems.

Figure 1: Front and side views of the development board

The XM6748F-IDK-V3.0 is a development board designed around the Shenzhen Xinmingxin XM6748F-SOM core module. It features a 4-layer PCB with lead-free immersion gold finish and serves as a testing platform for the XM6748F-SOM core board, enabling rapid evaluation of its overall performance.

The XM6748F-SOM exposes all CPU resource signal pins, making secondary development extremely easy. Customers can focus solely on application-level development, significantly reducing development difficulty and time-to-market, allowing products to launch quickly and seize market opportunities. In addition to rich demo programs, detailed development tutorials and comprehensive technical support are provided to assist customers with carrier board design, debugging, and software development.

2. Typical Application Areas

Data acquisition, processing, and display systems
Intelligent power systems
Image processing equipment
High-precision instruments and meters
Mid-to-high-end CNC systems
Communication equipment
Audio and video data processing

Figure 2: Typical application areas

3. Hardware and Software Specifications

Peripheral resource block diagram of the development board

Figure 3: Development board interface diagram

Figure 4: Development board interface diagram

Table 1: Hardware Resources

CPU

TI TMS320C6748, fixed-point/floating-point DSP C674x, 456 MHz

Xilinx Spartan-6 XC6SLX9/16/25/45 FPGA

ROM

TMS320C6748 side: 128/256/512 MByte NAND FLASH
Spartan-6 side: 64 Mbit SPI FLASH

RAM

TMS320C6748 side: 128/256 MByte DDR2

B2B Connector

2×80-pin male B2B, 2×80-pin female B2B, 0.5 mm pitch, total 320 pins

2×25-pin IDC3 header, 2.54 mm pitch, EMIFA expansion signals
2×25-pin IDC3 header, 2.54 mm pitch, FPGA GPIO expansion signals
2×15-pin headers, 2.54 mm pitch, including I2C, McBSP, PWM, FPGA differential IO, and other expansion signals

LED

2× power indicator LEDs (1 on baseboard, 1 on core board)
5× programmable LEDs (3 on baseboard, 2 on core board)
5× programmable LEDs (3 on baseboard, 2 on core board, FPGA side)

KEY

1× system reset button
3× programmable input buttons (including 1 non-maskable interrupt button)
5× programmable LEDs (3 on baseboard, 2 on core board, FPGA side)

JTAG

1× 14-pin TI Rev B JTAG interface, 2.54 mm pitch
1× 14-pin FPGA JTAG interface, 2.00 mm pitch

LCD

1× LCD touchscreen interface

BOOT SET

1× 5-bit DIP switch for boot mode selection

1× Micro SD card interface

RTC

1× RC1220 RTC socket, 3V

SATA

1× 7-pin SATA hard drive interface

Ethernet

1× RJ45 Ethernet port, 10/100M auto-negotiation

USB

1× Micro USB 2.0 OTG interface
1× USB 1.1 HOST interface

UART

2× RS232 serial ports: UART2 via Micro USB, UART1 via DB9; 4-wire TTL header (TXD, RXD, 3V3, GND) also exposed

SWITCH

1× power toggle switch

POWER

1× 12V 2A DC input via DC417 connector, 4.4 mm outer diameter, 1.65 mm inner diameter

Note: Shenzhen Xinmingxin's XM138F-SOM, XM1808F-SOM, and XM6748F-SOM core boards are pin-to-pin compatible in hardware.

Table 2: Software Resources

DSP Software Support

Bare-metal, SYS/BIOS operating system

CCS Version

CCS 5.5

ISE Version

ISE 14.7

4. Development Resources

(1) Provide core board pin definitions, editable carrier board schematics and PCB files, and chip datasheets to shorten hardware design cycles;
(2) Provide system flashing images, kernel driver source code, file system source code, and a rich set of demo programs;
(3) Provide complete platform development packages and getting-started tutorials to save software setup time and ease onboarding;
(4) Provide extensive tutorials and development examples, including OMAP-L138 and FPGA communication examples;
(5) Provide detailed DSP + ARM dual-core communication tutorials to effectively overcome dual-core development bottlenecks;
(6) Provide Qt-based graphical interface development tutorials.

Shenzhen Xinmingxin offers extensive development materials, video tutorials, and Chinese datasheets, setting a new benchmark for OMAP-L138 platform development and driving widespread interest in the OMAP-L138 + Spartan-6 DSP + ARM + FPGA tri-core architecture.

See Appendix A for selected development examples, including:

Bare-metal development examples for ARM side
Linux development examples for ARM side
Bare-metal development examples for DSP side
SYS/BIOS development examples for DSP side
SYSLINK-based dual-core development examples
DSPLINK-based dual-core development examples
XM_IPC-based dual-core development examples
PRU assembly development examples
FPGA-side development examples

5. Electrical Characteristics

Core Board Operating Environment

Table 3

Environmental Parameter

Minimum

Typical

Maximum

Commercial Temperature

0°C

70°C

Industrial Temperature

-40°C

85°C

Operating Voltage

3.3V

Power Consumption Test

Table 4

6. Mechanical Dimensions

Table 5

Core Board

Development Board

PCB Dimensions

66mm × 38.6mm

165mm × 110mm

Number of Mounting Holes

Figure 5: Core board mechanical dimensions

Figure 6: Evaluation board mechanical dimensions

7. Product Ordering Models

Table 6

Model

CPU Frequency

NAND FLASH

DDR2

SPI FLASH

FPGA Model

Temperature Grade

SOM-XM6748F-4-4GN1GD2S16-I

456 MHz

512 MB

128 MB

64 Mbit

XC6SLX16

Industrial

SOM-XM6748F-4-4GN2GD2S16-I

456 MHz

512 MB

256 MB

64 Mbit

XC6SLX16

Industrial

SOM-XM6748F-4-4GN1GD2S45-I

456 MHz

512 MB

128 MB

64 Mbit

XC6SLX45

Industrial

SOM-XM6748F-4-4GN2GD2S45-I

456 MHz

512 MB

256 MB

64 Mbit

XC6SLX45

Industrial

Note: Default configuration is SOM-XM6748F-4-4GN1GD2S16-I. Contact sales for other models.

8. Development Board Kit Contents

Table 7

Item

Quantity

XM6748F-IDK-V3 Development Board (with core board)

1 unit

12V/2A Power Adapter

1 unit

Documentation CD

1 set

Micro SD System Card

1 unit

SD Card Reader

1 unit

Straight Ethernet Cable

1 piece

Micro USB Data Cable

1 piece

9. Technical Support

(1) Assist with carrier board design and testing to reduce hardware design errors;
(2) Help resolve anomalies encountered during operation per user manual;
(3) Assist in product fault diagnosis;
(4) Help correctly compile and run provided source code;
(5) Support secondary product development;
(6) Provide long-term after-sales service.

10. Value-Added Services

Custom carrier board design
Custom core board design
Embedded software development
Joint project development
Technical training

Impressions from Testing the C6748 + SPARTAN6 Core Board and Evaluation Board

1. Evaluation Board Overview

2. Typical Application Areas

3. Hardware and Software Specifications

4. Development Resources

5. Electrical Characteristics

6. Mechanical Dimensions

7. Product Ordering Models

8. Development Board Kit Contents

9. Technical Support

10. Value-Added Services

11. Development Examples