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Hardware

TockOS Hardware

Tock supports a growing number of hardware platforms.

If you are interested in adding support for a new board, we have a guide to porting. While there are a set of minimum requirements to merge a new board (gpio, timer, uart), please feel free to reach out earlier in the process with draft PRs, issues, questions, etc as you are getting started!


Stable

These are the most mature boards in Tock, which have a large number of peripherals implemented and have generally seen a reasonable amount of testing and use by the community.

nRF52 Family

An enhancement of the highly popular nRF51XXX family, Nordic Semiconductor recently released the nRF52 family of SoCs. These boards include Bluetooth 5, Bluetooth mesh, NFC, and ANT. The first was the nRF52832, which is available on the nRF52 DK. More recently, they released the nRF52840, which adds 802.15.4 and in turn Thread and Zigbee support, which is available on the nRF52840 DK. This is also available in a minimalist form factor (no debugging, pin headers, etc) as the nRF52840 Dongle.

nRF52840 Dongle with nRF52840 SoC nRF52840 DK with nRF52840 SoC nRF52 DK with nRF52832 SoC
nRF52840 Dongle nRF52840 DK nRF52 DK

Where to get it:

Hail & imix

Hail and imix were the first two platforms supported by Tock. They were designed as a common basis for Tock development. They have specific features that make Tock development easier: e.g. a common set of sensors, radios, and the ability to measure power draw easily. Both Hail and imix were designed at Universities for our own purposes, but we’re able to make them available with small-run productions funded with grad student rent money. This means they’re not as cheap as they could be. Sorry!

Hail

Hail is a Particle Photon sized development board for Tock. You can learn more on the introducing hail post, or buy one below.

imix

Imix on a table

imix is a “kitchen sink” development board for Tock with a SAM4L MCU, two wireless radios, a hardware random number generator, and a sensor suite. See the GitHub page for more information.

imix will be available in the coming weeks. Sign up below to be notified by e-mail when it is available for purchase or contact Amit if you want one sooner.

Sign up for notifications on imix availability

Hail & imix Comparison

  imix Hail
Microcontroller Sam4l Sam4l
Sensors    
‣ Accelerometer
‣ Temperature/Humidity
‣ Light
‣ Accelerometer
Radios    
‣ BLE
‣ 802.15.4  
Other Features    
‣ Buttons 1 user, 1 reset 1 user, 1 reset
‣ LEDs 3 1 blue, 1 RGB
‣ Hardware RNG  
‣ USB Host pins only
‣ Independent Power Domains  
Programming USB or JTAG USB or JTAG
Form Factor Custom, Arduino Headers Particle Photon
Size 2.45” x 4” 0.8” x 1.44”
Price $100 $60

Developmental

These are the newest boards to Tock. They may have some rough edges or incomplete peripheral implementations beyond the core set.

STM Family

STM32 Discovery

  • Chip: STM32F303VCT6
  • Basics:
    • Eight user LEDs: LD3/10 (red), LD4/9 (blue), LD5/8 (orange) and LD6/7 (green)
    • One user button
  • Sensors:
    • Accelerometer
    • Gyroscope
    • e-Compass (3-axis digital accelerometer with a 3-axis digital magnetic sensor)
  • Extras:
    • USB connection
    • On-board debugger/programmer

Image of Discovery Kit

Where to get it: ST distributors

Nucleo f446re

  • Chip: STM32F446RE
  • Basics:
    • 1 user LED
    • 1 user button
  • Sensors:
    • Available with expansion boards
  • Extras:
    • USB connection
    • On-board debugger/programmer
    • Extensible via Arduino™ Uno V3 connectivity support or ST morpho headers

Image of Nucleo f446re

Where to get it: ST or distributors

Nucleo f429zi

  • Chip: STM32F429ZI
  • Basics:
    • 3 user LEDs
    • 2 user buttons
  • Sensors:
    • Available with expansion boards
  • I/O:
    • Ethernet
  • Extras:
    • USB connection
    • On-board debugger/programmer
    • Extensible via Arduino™ Uno V3 connectivity support or ST morpho headers

Image of Nucleo f446re

Where to get it: ST distributors

Aconno

A peripheral-rich platform based on the nrf52 family.

  • Chip: nRF52832
  • Basics:
    • One (two?) user LEDs
    • One (two?) user buttons
  • Sensors:
    • Accelerometer
    • Gyroscope
    • Magnetometer
    • Temperature
    • Ambient light
  • I/O:
    • IR LED
    • 5-way joystick
    • BLE Radio (nrf52832)
    • NFC
    • Buzzer
    • Relay
  • Extras:
    • USB connection

Where to get it: Aconno

TI Launch XL

A newer addition to TI’s LaunchPad family of development boards.

  • Chip: CC26X2R
  • Basics:
    • Two user LEDs
    • Two user buttons
  • Sensors:
    • None on board, but many availble via BoosterPack
  • I/O:
    • BLE
    • 802.15.4 (Thread/Zigbee)
  • Extras:
    • USB connection

Where to get it: TI or distributors

ESP32 Family

ESP32-C3-DevKitM-1

ESP32-C3-DevKitM-1 is an entry-level development board based on ESP32-C3-MINI-1, a small-sized 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n) and Bluetooth® 5 module built around the ESP32-C3 series of SoCs, RISC-V single-core microprocessor.

  • Chip: ESP32-C3
  • Basics:
    • RGB LED
  • I/O:
    • Wi-Fi
    • Bluetooth LE
  • Extras:
    • USB-to-UART Bridge

Image of ESP32-C3-DevKitM-1

Where to get it: Espressif distributors


Experimental

These are special cases, boards that Tock is experimenting with or hardware platforms that may not yet themselves be stable or mature.

SiFive HiFive1

Some of the first commercially available Risc-V hardware, the HiFive1 platform is iterating quickly. Tock is very interested in Risc-V support and is working with various platform vendors to quickly iterate on designs for deeply embedded platforms.

Where to get it: Crowdsupply*

*Note: Tock only supports the Rev B

OpenTitan

A new silicon root of trust, for details, please see the repository.

Arty e21

An FPGA-based platform with large I/O potential and a vast array of timers. The board is a Arduino-compatible footprint, enabling additional expansion.

Where to get it: Digilent or distributors


Deprecated

These are boards previously supported by Tock. They may have been deprecated because the manufacturer quit making them or there was no longer any active developers interested in maintaining them. Generally, we willing to resurrect a deprecated board if someone is willing to take ownership of the platform, however please reach out to us first.

nRF51-DK (deprecated)

Note: Tock has largely deprecated efforts around the nrf51 in favor of the nRF52.

NRF51 Development Kit

The Nordic nRF Development Kit is Nordic Semiconductor’s development board for the popular Blutooth Low Energy SoC, the NRF51. Both imix and Hail include this chip in addition to the SAM4L.