Direct Insight creates QNX 7 BSP for power-efficient Toradex Colibri iMX8X SoC modules

Suits medical devices, industrial automation, data acquisition, robotics and more

Oxfordshire, UK June 2021: Direct Insight, the UK-based, technical systems integrator and reseller of system-on-module (SoM) and other embedded systems, has created a QNX 7 Board Support Package (BSP) for Toradex’s Colibri iMX8X embedded computing modules. The combination of a feature-rich OS with real-time capability and mission-critical and the powerful ARM core processor perfectly suits applications such as medical devices, navigation, industrial automation, HMIs, avionics, POS, data acquisition, robotics, and more.

Toradex Colibri iMX8X modules feature the NXP® i.MX 8X family of embedded SoCs, including the top-tier i.MX 8QuadXPlus (i.MX 8QXP) which features four Cortex-A35 cores – currently ARM’s most efficient ARM v8 core as the main processor cluster. The SoCs provide full 64-bit ARM v8-A support while maintaining seamless backward compatibility with 32-bit Armv7-A software. The main cores run at up to 1.2 GHz.

Comments David Pashley, Direct Insight’s MD: “The BSP unlocks the full benefits of the QNX OS on the power-efficient Toradex modules. QNX is perfect for real time, safety critical applications, and the BSP created by Direct Insight provides a great starting point for high-availability industrial designs.”

The QNX 7 Board Support Package (BSP) for Toradex’s Colibri iMX8X contains all the basic features required to run the OS on the board. Included are drivers for various interfaces including Ethernet, Watchdog timer, I2C, SPI, USB, SD Card, UART. A display driver is also planned. The BSP is free to download as a demo system, and the source code can be licensed on a per-project basis for an affordable fee. Direct Insight also offers enhancements to the BSP, including additional drivers and production-hardening and testing, as an additional services engagement.

Adds Daniel Lang, CMO at Toradex: “We designs its products for applications that demand high reliability, safety and security, such as medical devices. The QNX offering from Direct Insight further strengthens this positioning and allows our customers to use QNX while lowering the project risk and shortening the time-to-market.”