Avnet MaaxBoard

The Avnet MaaXBoard SBC (Single Board Computer) has been selected as the target platform for developing and investigating this seL4 Developer Kit.

The following high level features of the Avnet MaaXBoard SBC make it particularly suitable for use with the seL4 Developer Kit:

  • Inexpensive: The Avnet MaaXBoard SBC is relatively inexpensive, minimising the cost of getting started with the seL4 Developer Kit.

  • Available: While not a routine product, it is straight forward to identify suppliers with multiple instances of the Avnet MaaXBoard in stock.

  • Devices: The Avnet MaaXBoard incorporates a wide collection of input and output devices, simplifying its practical usage, and permitting some flexibility in the activities that may be explored with the seL4 Developer Kit.

  • Architecture: The Avnet MaaXBoard supports an ARM architecture (AArch32 and AArch64). In general, the ARM architecture, in contrast to the x86 architecture, is much simpler, which is particularly suitable for security focused applications. More so, because of this intrinsic suitability, the seL4 Microkernel and its associated components, tend to offer greater support and capabilities for the ARM architecture.

  • Open: The detailed technical aspects of the Avnet MaaXBoard, its resident devices, and the ARM architecture, are well documented and freely publicly available.

Specifications

The Avnet MaaXBoard SBC is part of a family of SBCs. For clarity, we are using the "Avnet MaaXBoard" with part number "AES-MC-SBC-IMX8M-G".

The Avnet MaaxBoard uses the i.MX 8M SoC (System-on-Chip) processor as developed by NXP. The associated reference manual is a very useful document for developing atop this processor. The manual is freely available through NXP, once an account is created with them: NXP. Search for "Documentation" for the "i.MX 8M Family" with keyword "IMX8MDQLQRM".

The Avnet MaaXBoard SBC contains two USB ports, routed to the two USB hosts, as provided by the i.MX 8M SoC. While the i.MX 8M SoC manual provides considerable detail, it is also helpful to inspect the xHCI (eXtensible Host Controller Interface) specification, which the i.MX 8M SoC implements. This is directly available from Intel as the eXtensible Host Controller Interface for Universal Serial Bus (xHCI) - Requirements Specification

The Avnet MaaxBoard, due to its i.MX 8M SoC, build around the Cortex-A53 and Cortex-M4 cores, adopts an ARM architecture, and specifically the Instruction Set "ARMv8-A" (also know as ARMv8). While less directly relevant, the associated documentation can nevertheless be valuable in investigating and understanding detailed aspects of the platform. The documentation is directly available from Arm as the Arm Architecture Reference Manual for A-profile architecture.