HCL:HoneyComb

HoneyComb

The HoneyComb and ClearFog CX are mini-ITX base boards for CEX7 LX2160 COM Express module based on NXP Layerscape LX2160A (16 Cortex A72) Arm processor.

HoneyComb is a ClearFog CX board without QSFP port.
HoneyComb documentation, including schematics, is available on https://developer.solid-run.com/products/honeycomb-lx2k/

Technical Data

16 ARM Cortex-A72 cores
2x DDR4 SO-DIMM 64 bits dual-channel slots (up to 64GB, 2x 32G)
Up to 100GbE (4 x SFP+)
Full virtualization support
M.2 2240/2280 (PCIe)
MicroSD
eMMC (64GB by default)
4x SATA (gen III)
4x SFP+ ports (2×2 cage – 10GbE each)
1x 1GbE copper (RJ45)
1x PCIe x8 Gen 3.0, open slot (can support x16)
3x USB 3.0
3x USB 2.0
1x QSFP port (40Gbps/4x10Gbps) (ClearFog CX only)

Standard UEFI boot environment (Coming soon, check: https://developer.solid-run.com/knowledge-base/lx2160a-cex7-uefi-and-sbsa-status/)

Installing

You can use either WIP UEFI firmware or U-Boot to boot the boards from SD card (or eMMC).

The easiest way is to flash SD card with image provided by Solid-Run (including u-boot) at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AGdWMSh9lLEYpUeX2dAinQTjzvvi5pMn/view?usp=sharing which contains some firmware and U-Boot.
Boot order from U-Boot is: usb0, mmc0 (SD card), scsi0 (sata), nvme0

Otherwise, you can give a try to current WIP UEFI firmware, by building it manually from https://github.com/SolidRun/lx2160a_build with runme.sh (edit header to set required options).

Then, please use the EFI image from Installing openSUSE ARM for AArch64 EFI based systems and copy it to USB or SATA storage (PCIe/NVME is supported on Leap/SLE only and SD read/write line is broken on hardware, so SD is read-only).

If you use u-boot, you will need to provide a DTB as U-Boot does not provide it. Some DTS are available at http://git.armlinux.org.uk/cgit/linux-arm.git/tree/arch/arm64/boot/dts/freescale?h=cex7

git clone git://git.armlinux.org.uk/linux-arm.git --branch=cex7 --depth=1
pushd linux-arm
make defconfig
make freescale/fsl-lx2160a-honeycomb.dtb
# DTB available at arch/arm64/boot/dts/freescale/fsl-lx2160a-honeycomb.dtb
popd

Copy the dtb to boot partition and add the following line for grub menu:

 devicetree /fsl-lx2160a-honeycomb.dtb

and start with ctrl-x.

Known issues

PCIe is not upstream yet, so Tumbleweed does not support PCIe, but Leap 15.x and SLE15-SPx have patches to support it.
Patches sent upstream: https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/10/15/216
LX2160A-CEX7 errata list
HoneyComb and ClearFog CX errata list