Apalis iMX8: DP / HDMI Alternative mode - USB Type C

Technical Support
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Hi team,

A customer asked me what are the chances of being able to use the HDMI or DP Alternate mode, that seems to be available through USB Type C (Everything You Need to Know About HDMI Alt Mode and USB Type-C). One thing at a time…

Hardware:

  • Is it possible to use one of the available USB signals in the Apalis iMX8 for a USB Type - C connector?
  • Can we expect any Type - C reference schematic any time soon? (USB type C - Technical Support - Toradex Community)
  • Any experience or information regarding this DP or HDMI Alternate mode. Quickly checking it seems that this “simply” work given the connection, at least HW wise.

Software:

  • The obvious question: Drivers. Thoughts? Would the customer need to develop their own driver to get this working?

Thanks and kind regards,
Alvaro.

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Hi @alvaro.tx,

Here my answers regarding the hardware point of view:

Yes, it is possible to use a USB-C connector on an Apalis module.

Yes, we can expect such a reference schematics soon. We are currently working on a second carrier board for the new Verdin module. This carrier board is going to have three different USB-C connectors:

  • USB-C port as a replacement for the OTG port. It will support the host and client functions. It will be only USB 2.0 since the OTG port on Verdin does not feature SuperSpeed. This circuit feature the TUSB321 for detecting the role.
  • USB-C connector as a replacement for the micro USB-B connector of the FTDI UART port. This one is actually the simplest circuit since it only features client function.
  • USB-C power input port. We are going to implement a USB-C PD and BC1.2 capable USB-C power input for powering the whole board. This port can only be used for powering the board, there will be no data connection.

We are currently not planing a USB-C reference schematics for DP or HDMI as alternate function. Implementation for alternate functions require further detection and switching ICs. Most of these USB-C detection ICs require to be configured over the I2C interface. Therefore, I would call it doable, but not simple.

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Thanks Peter, sounds good!