Understanding the Differences among Xilinx, BeagleBone Black, Amlogic, and CV1835 Control Boards

Introduction: In the world of electronic systems and embedded computing, control boards play a crucial role in providing the necessary hardware and software interfaces to power various applications. Xilinx, BeagleBone Black, Amlogic, and CV1835 are among the popular control boards used in different domains. This blog aims to shed light on their unique features, applications, and the key differences between them.

Before we start, We should know that for firmware development, the biggest difference among these boards is the system-on-a-chip(SoC) being used. An SoC is a microchip that integrates the CPU components and peripherals of an electronic device. In less engineering-y terms, the SoC is critical for telling the ASIC chips (that do the actual hashing) what to do.

Xilinx (ZYNQ):

Xilinx (ZYNQ) is a well-known name in the field of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) solutions. Xilinx boards are highly versatile and flexible, making them suitable for a wide range of applications. They are often employed in tasks that require high-performance computing, digital signal processing, and hardware acceleration. Xilinx boards are known for their programmable logic devices, enabling developers to customize the hardware to meet specific requirements. These boards can be reconfigured and reprogrammed, making them ideal for research, prototyping, and production-grade systems.

This comes with and SD card slot allowing users to manually flash firmware through SD Card.

With Bitmain, Xilinx or should we say Zynq SoC control boards has been a part of long period most of the Antminer models support Xilinx control board that’s why it has been crowned as the G.O.A.T. since it supports many of the Antminer models it’s application is widely spread among S17 to S19XP. Customs OS like HiveOS and Braiins Os+ already supports this control board. The new (7007) version is already available in the market.

Another model of Xilinx (ZYNQ) is being used in only Antminer S19 Hydro models.

BeagleBone Black:

BeagleBone Black is an open-source, single-board computer developed by BeagleBoard.org. It is designed with the goal of being a compact and affordable platform for embedded systems and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. BeagleBone Black utilizes the Texas Instruments Sitara AM335x system-on-a-chip (SoC), which integrates the CPU, GPU, and other components required for efficient processing. This board offers a wide array of I/O interfaces, such as digital I/O, analog inputs, USB ports, and Ethernet connectivity. BeagleBone Black supports the Linux operating system and provides programming language support for Python, C/C++, and more.

Just like Xilinx (ZYNQ) it also comes with and SD Card slot which facilitates firmware flashing using SD Card.

It’s applicability is only limited to Antminer S19J/S19J Pro. People who want to change their stock control board with this should check about the firmware availability too. Custom OS like Braiins OS+ and Hive OS available for this models is limited to S19J/S19J Pro.

Amlogic A113D:

Amlogic is a company specializing in the development of system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions for multimedia devices. Their SoCs are commonly used in Android-based TV boxes, streaming media players, and similar multimedia applications. Amlogic’s SoCs integrate various components like the CPU, GPU, video decoder/encoder, and audio processing units. These SoCs are optimized for video playback, offering support for a wide range of audio and video codecs. Amlogic-based control boards are preferred in multimedia-centric applications due to their excellent media processing capabilities and efficient power consumption. Bitmain currentlt using A113D Amlogic chips i these control boards.

Unike Xilinx (ZYNQ), Beaglebone Black and Cvitek CV1835 this one has Mirco-USB Port. To flash firmware manually this user has to use and OTG adapter and USB flash drive.

Like Xilinx (ZYNQ) this one is also seen across every Antminer model except Hydro models. Which makes it applicable to every air-cooled Antminer model due to availability of firmware by Bitmain. Custom OS like Braiin OS+ and Hive OS aren’t available for Amlogic control boards as of now.

CVITEK CV1835:

It is powered by a CVITEK CV1835 chipset which is generally used in cameras and audio devices, Camera security systems, Production lines, Cars and robots. This chip is clocked at 1Ghz  with a Dual-Core CPU and has a self developed TPU by CVITEK which supports mainstream neural network frameworks such as Caffe, TensorFlow, TensorFlow Lite, Pytorch, ONNX and MXNet. Bitmain has taken a new step by using it in its Antminer control boards range. Bitmain has done it before with Amlogic series too using A113D chips.

Just like Xilinx (ZYNQ) and Beaglebone Black this one also comes with SD Card Slot.

However, this control board was only being used in top of the line models like S19 XP but from two to three months we are watching these in even the base models of Antminer like S19 too. We can’t comment on firmware availability by Bitmain for this control board across different Antminer models as this was only being used in S19XP before. But we can say that Bitmain will soon roll out firmware suitable for this control board for different miner models.

Conclusion:

In the case of the Xilinx (ZYNQ) control boards, they use a Xilinx SoC which has been consistent across multiple generations of Bitmain hardware. That’s why, if you have an X17 control board, you can swap it into an X19 device and it will work well with Braiins OS+ on the X19. The SoC and connector pinouts are the same between these X17 and X19 Zynq control boards, so Braiins OS+ can auto-detect which hardware model it is and run the corresponding firmware version.

During the latter half of 2021, it seems that Bitmain ran out of the supply of these Xilinx chips and had to change to a modified BeagleBone Black (BBB) design where the main SoC is an AM335x Sitara. Shortly after, they introduced a third control board variant called Amlogic in which the SoC is an Amlogic A113D. Readers may be interested to know that these Amlogic A133D chips are primarily meant for audio processing, e.g. in smart speakers such as Amazon Alexa.

There is one thing in common between all 4 of these control board variations, however. Each has Secure Boot enabled, making it more difficult to install custom firmwares and to access the machines via SSH.