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XPOD Information

 
Article updated at 28 Oct 2017
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The xPOD™ standard provides a mechanism for easily expanding system functionality through additional plug-in hardware modules. The xPOD standard defines an electrical interface specification and a mechanical form factor, ensuring hardware compatibility between the Tellurium platform and future additions to the xPOD module family.

The xPOD electrical interface provides a wide range of serial communication interfaces, GPIO interfaces and regulated power supplies as follows:

  • SSP (Synchronous Serial Protocol)¹
  • UART (Universal Asynchronous Receive Transmit) [software handshaking only]
  • I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit)
  • Full speed USB 2.0
  • SDIO (Secure Digital I/O)²
  • Reset In/Reset Out
  • 2x Host GPIO (connected to GPIO signals on the Colibri SODIMM connector)
  • +5V and +3.3V regulated power supplies
  • 8x xPOD GPIO (connected directly to the expansion connector so that the platform can communicate with any external devices through a single interface)

Not all interfaces will be used by every xPOD module: each xPOD module can make use of the interfaces that it needs to achieve the functionality specific to that xPOD. There are 2 xPOD interfaces available on the Tellurium platform.

The below image shows how the xPOD GPIO interface is mapped to individual pins on the 40-way expansion connector on the Tellurium platform. The functionality of these pins will depend upon the type of xPOD module installed. Information on xPOD GPIO usage can be found in the datasheet for a specific xPOD module.


¹ The SPP interface is shared between the xPOD 1 interface and the 40 way expansion interface on the MECS Tellurium platform.

² The SDIO interface is multiplexed between both xPOD 1 and xPOD 2 interfaces and the SD/MMC card slot on the MECS Tellurium platform.