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GESBC-9G25w

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Board Diagram



Pre-compiled Binary Images & Source Patches

Pre-compiled boot.bin, boot strap code.
Pre-compiled Linux 4.5.2 kernel zImage.
Linux 4.5.2 patch for GESBC-9G25w.
pre-built system SD card image.


Debug Serial Port.

Similar to many other ARM processors the AT91SAM9G25 processor uses a serial port as a debug port in additional to JTAG port. The factory built Linux kernel uses this port as the system console. The port is marked as P0 on the PCB. It is a 3 pin header with 2mm pin spacing. It connects directly to the CPU so the port is a LVTTL UART. A USB-to-UART adapter can be used to connect desktop system to the GESBC-9G25w. Alternatively a RS-232 driver chip can be used externally to translate the signal voltage to RS-232 level. The pin out of P0 is shown in the following table.

Pin Description
Pin 1 Rx
Pin 2 Tx
Pin 3 GND


System Interface

The GESBC-9G25w connects to external devices and power supply via a 2 x 20 dual row solder pads. It is marked P1 on the GESBC-9G25w PCB. The following table lists main function and alternate function of each pin.

Pin # Name Description Pin # Name Description
1 3.3V DC power input 2 GND
3 NRST reset input, active low 4 VBAT RTC backup power supply
5 PA0 GPIO group A line 0, TXD0 6 PA1 GPIO group A line 1, RXD0
7 PA2 GPIO group A line 2, RTS0 8 PA5 GPIO group A line 3, TXD1
9 PA6 GPIO group A line 6, RXD1 10 PA7 GPIO group A line 7, TXD2,SPI1_NPCS1
11 PA8 GPIO group A line 8, RXD2, SPI1_NPCS0, 12 PA11 GPIO group A line 11
13 PA12 GPIO group A line 12 14 PA21 GPIO group A line 21, SPI1_MISO
15 PA22 GPIO group A line 22, SPI1_MOSI 16 PA23 GPIO group A line 23, SPI1_SPCK
17 PA24 GPIO group A line 24, I2S TK 18 PA25 GPIO group A line 25, I2S TF
19 PA26 GPIO group A line 26, I2S TD 20 PA27 GPIO group A line 27, I2S RD
21 PA28 GPIO group A line 28, I2S RK 22 PA29 GPIO group A line 29, I2S RF
23 PA30 GPIO group A line 30, TWD0, SPI1_NPCS3 24 PA31 GPIO group A line 31, TWCK0, SPI1_NPCS2
25 PB11 GPIO group B line 11, AD0, PWM0 26 PB12 GPIO group B line 12, AD1, PWM1
27 PB13 GPIO group B line 13, AD2, PWM2 28 PB14 GPIO group B line 14, AD3, PWM3
29 PC0 GPIO group C line 0, TWD0 30 PC1 GPIO group C line 1, TWCK1
31 PC2 GPIO group C line 2, TIOA3 32 PC3 GPIO group C line 3, TIOB3
33 PC4 GPIO group C line 4, TCLK3 34 PC5 GPIO group C line 5
35 PC27 GPIO group C line 27, RTS1 36 PC28 GPIO group C line 28, CTS1
37 USBB_DM USB host port B data- 38 USBB_DP USB host port B data+
39 USBC_DM USB host port C data- 40 USBC_DP USB host port C data+

The solder pads use standard 2.54mm spacing. It can accept Standard 2.54mm spacing male headers, female receptacles, both straight and 90 degree angled versions. The connector can be mounted on top side or the bottom side of the PCB. The following pictures demonstrate possible configurations,


I/O Pin Configuration

Most of the signal lines on P1 can be configured either as GPIO or its alternate peripheral function(s). The Linux 4.5.2 kernel uses device tree to configure the functionality of the GPIO line(s). The factory built device tree has the following peripheral functions configured,

  • UART0 using PA0, PA1
  • UART1 with RTS/CTS hardware flow control using PA5, PA6, PC27, PC28
  • SPI1 with chip select 0 using PA21, PA22, PA23, PA8
  • ADC 0, 1, 2, 3 using PB11, PB12, PB13, PB14
  • USB host port 0 and 1
  • LED heart beat


Creating Bootable SD card

The GESBC-9G25w is designed to use micro SD card as the boot media as well as the storage for root file system. The SD card should be partitioned into a FAT partition and a Linux compatible partition, e.g. ext3, ext4, etc. The FAT partition should be the first partition and must be set as bootable. A 20MB FAT partition should be sufficient since the files must be stored in the FAT partition are Linux kernel,device tree binary, and boot strap code. The remaining storage space can be all assigned to Linux file system.

A pre-built SD card image is available for download. The WinDiskImager utility can be used to write the pre-built disk image file. Although the image was built on a 1GB SD card the WinDiskImager can smartly write to SD cards with bigger capacity.

Linux fdisk or sfdisk utility can also be used to manually partition the SD card. Once the SD card is partitioned mount both the FAT and Linux partition. Copy boot.bin, gesbc-9g25w-.dtb, and zImage to the FAT partition. Untar the Debian file system to the Linux partition. Please make sure to sync the drive before umounting the partitions.

The GESBC-9G25w should boot automatically with the SD card in the socket and 3.3V power supply is applied to the power pins.


System Operation

User and Password

The factory SD card image has Debian 8.4 file system installed. It has two users: debain and root. Both account has password disabled. Typing in the user name at the login prompt will get to Linux command prompt.

Software Packages

The factory installed Debian file system has only basic system packages installed. User can use package management tool APT to manage software packages. For example the following command will install gcc compiler,

    apt-get update
    apt-get install gcc

For detailed information on APT please see https://wiki.debian.org/Apt

WIFI Configuration

Scan for available networks and get network details:

          # iwlist scan

Now edit /etc/network/interfaces. The required configuration is dependent on your particular WIFI network setup. The typical setting is,

          # my wifi device
          auto wlan0
          iface wlan0 inet dhcp
                  wireless-essid [ESSID]
                  wireless-mode [MODE]

For WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK

          auto wlan0
          iface wlan0 inet dhcp
                  wpa-ssid myssid
                  wpa-psk ccb290fd4fe6b22935cbae31449e050edd02ad44627b16ce0151668f5f53c01b

The psk can be generated from the pass phrase using the following command,

          #wpa_passphrase myssid my_very_secret_passphrase

For more detailed information see https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse

Power Management

The factory installed Linux kernel has power management built-in. It supports three power saving mode, freeze, standby, and mem. The following example shows how to put the system in standby mode,

 echo standby > /sys/power/state

A wake up source should be configured before putting the system into power saving mode. The RTC can be used for timed wake up. RTC module can be setup for predefined alarm timeout and the system wakes up from standby after that amount of time.

For RTC Wakeup, use 'rtcwake' command to enter and wakeup from standby.

rtcwake -d [RTC device (rtc/rtc0)] -m [suspend mode (mem/standby)] -s [number of seconds]

To enter standby and wake up after 5 seconds with rtc0 as rtc device, use below command.

rtcwake -d /dev/rtc0 -m standby -s 5

The GPIO pins can also be used to wake up the system but it must be configured in the system device tree. The following section of GPIO node configuration demonstrates how to configure GPIO A11 as wake up source,

      gpio_keys {
            compatible = "gpio-keys";
                pinctrl-names = "default";

            button {
                label = "pb_user1";
                gpios = <&pioA 11 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;
                linux,code = <0x104>;
                wakeup-source;
            };