Mango Pi peripherals

There is a lot of functionality packed within the Mango Pi board that you may want to explore. A few of these features have been successfully used in past (i2c, spi, i2s), the others are challenges open for pioneers!

D-1 peripherals

The hardware peripherals listed below built into the D1 chip. Refer to chapter references in D-1 User Manual for more info. We have support code available for some of these, but many are yet to be explored.

  • CCU (clock controller) Ch 3.2
    • many peripherals require clock config as part of init
    • source for our ccu reference module in $CS107E/src
  • DMA (direct memory access) Ch 3.9
    • DMA used for fast data transfer to/from peripherals, offload from CPU
  • THS (thermal sensor) Ch 3.10
    • monitor for temperature of chip
  • RTC (real-time clock) Ch 3.14
    • Mango Pi does not maintain independent power for RTC domain
    • if backup power needed, consider instead battery-backed external RTC, e.g. DS3231
  • Video graphics Ch 4
    • Display Engine, G2D (hardware acceleration 2-D graphics), Video Engine
    • our de reference module in $CS107E/src
    • here is spec for Display Engine 2.0
  • Video output Ch 5
    • pipeline of pixels to display hardware (HDMI, LCD, MIPI, TCON)
    • our hdmi/tcon reference module in $CS107E/src
  • SMHC (read/write sd card) Ch 7.2
    • we have draft version of brand-new code to load boot program from sd card FAT filesystem, needs further testing
  • Audio (I2S/PCM, DMIC, OWA) Ch 8
    • code for I2S driver in $CS107E/src
    • draft version, newish code, needs further testing
  • TWI (Two-Wire,i.e. i2c) Ch 9.1
    • code for I2S driver in $CS107E/src
    • driver successfully used in past, minor recent updates to code
  • UART (async receiver/transmitter) Ch 9.2
    • our uart reference module in $CS107E/src
  • SPI (serial peripheral) Ch 9.3
    • code for draft I2S driver in $CS107E/src
    • driver successfully used in past, minor recent updates to code
  • USB (universal serial bus) Ch 9.6
  • ADC (analog-digital conversion) Ch 9.8-9.10
    • several ADCs avail on-chip, but no analog inputs broken out on Mango Pi board, sigh
    • consider instead external ADC, e.g. MCP3008
  • PWM (pulse width modulation) Ch 9.11
    • code for draft PWM driver in $CS107E/src
    • code is brand-new, needs further testing
  • LEDC (led controller) Ch 9.12
    • supports precise timing for neopixel-like rgb led strips, offload from CPU to hw peripheral
  • EMAC (ethernet) Ch 9.13
  • IR (infrared receiver/transmitter) Ch 9.14-9.15
    • hw peripheral for encoding/decoding protocol, use in conjuction with IR detector and/or emitter
  • Security system (crypto engine) Ch 10

Mango Pi wifi/bluetooth

There is a RealTek rtl8723ds wifi and bluetooth module on-board the Mango Pi. We would love to have either/both working bare-metal but as yet have not cracked the code. Perhaps this will be your contribution!

  • Recent linux distros support both wifi and bluetooth on Mango Pi, which gives us hope.
  • Documentation is hard to find and not that helpful (Realtek proprietary/secret?)
  • If you're not up for blazing trails and just want client-use of wireless communication, consider instead external module (e.g. ESP32)?

Vector unit

The RISC-V processor of the MangoPI includes a vector unit that can be used for SIMD operations. Former student Yifang Yang wrote up a starter guide.