Future Teensy features & pinout

Tiny connectors complicate prototyping, and some require the use of either hot air or a re-flow oven and using solder paste. Additional setup complexity is the opposite of what we want when prototyping. 1.27mm pads are difficult to hand solder, 1mm pads require very good soldering skills and make using a wire attachment near impossible. Those of us that are more serious (and experienced) about what we are doing will have the re-flow oven, solder paste, and a hot air gun. The newer people (usually younger people) will have a very hard time with high density connections in terms of the right soldering skills and the added expense for making those connections happen. Unless the connectors are already on the board, and that will again add extra expense that may prevent new developers from entering the fray.
Anything smaller than TSSOP is nearly impossible to work with. (well... for me at least, and I've been at this since the early 90's)
 
wcalvert said:
I really like the idea of a T4 MicroMod and hope that it sees the light of day. :)
Click to expand...

Though in terms of separate pins being available, there are only 56 pins that are available as gpio pins (out of 75 total pins in the MicroMod connector):
  • Pins 1, 7, 33, 36, 39, 45, and 75 are ground pins;
  • Pins 2 and 74 are 3.3v;
  • Pin 4 is 3.3v enable;
  • Pins 3, 5 are the main USB D+/D-;
  • Pin 9 is USB VIN;
  • Pin 11 is Boot;
  • Pins 21 and 23 are the JTAG pins (SWDCK, SWDIO);
  • Pins 35 and 37 are the USB host D+/D-; (and)
  • Pin 49 is the battery VIN.
  • https://www.sparkfun.com/micromod

The MicroMod Teensy has a lot going for it by allowing you to attach standard shields and possibly getting access to the hardware JTAG pins, but it doesn't give you more GPIO pins than we have already.

IIRC, the Teensy MicroMod as expressed in the current .h files has:
  • 46 digital pins;
  • 14 analog input pins;
  • 20 PWM pins; (and)
  • 7 UARTs.

For reference the Teensy 4.1 has (counting the pins in the micro-SD card reader and the underneath pads):
  • 55 digital pins;
  • 18 analog input pins;
  • 35 PWM pins; (and)
  • 8 UARTs.

The Teensy 3.6 has:
  • 51 digital pins;
  • 25 analog input pins;
  • 2 analog output pins;
  • 22 PWM pins;
  • 11 touch pins; (and)
  • 6 UARTs.
 
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I'd also really like to see a MicroMod version. There would probably be enough real estate to include at least one of the memory pads from the 4.1.
 
MicroMod adapter boards for all teensy models would be a nice thing.
(as long I don't need to solder the connector ;-)
 
Personally, I prefer the classic teensy format. I know which will be larger with the 1170.
If the MicroMod version is there in addition, why not but if not I prefer to stay on the classic teensy format
 
Armadafg: I'm with you on that. The format of the T4 and T41 is very nice. Well laid out, easily accessible functionality. And, if the format of the board is changed too much will it still be possible to call it a Teensy?
 
Depends on how much sense it makes for users to lose a lot of functionality just to have a small form factor - that with an unrivaled fast CPU.
I think many would favor a good display.
That's for Paul to decide.

I don't like these small spi displays anymore....

Edit:
Even if it not for a display, there are many cases where just more GPIOs make sense - and if it's only to be able to use a 16BIT bus (+ handshake connections) without loosing Serials, I2C, SPI, CAN or Audio..
 
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Frank B: The format of the board can remain similar and fairly small like the current board. It will have to be bigger just to accommodate the RT1176 package. Nothing to do about that. But the basic pin layout can remain unchanged (except for left to right spacing which will likely need to be at least 0.2" wider), and simply adding a second row of 24 pins at either side has the potential to increase pin count drastically. (Potentially 55 GPIO's increased to 103 GPIO's, not accounting for the necessary ground pins. If every other pin on the outer pin header were ground that would still yield 79 GPIO pins!)

I have a picture in my mind of a board, up to 0.5" wider than a T41, with 2 rows of pin headers at either side. One row faces down, the other faces up and it is breadboard friendly. Finish the breadboard part of the project and assemble one with all headers facing the same direction for soldering or connecting a 48 pin ribbon cable at each side. And some unpopulated SMD package pads for one or two SOIC-8 SPI memories, one or two TSSOP-56/48 for SDRAM's, and the LCD interface brought out to a 40 or 50 pin FFC connector. And the Ethernet and USB headers as on the T41.
 
Armadafg said:
Personally, I prefer the classic teensy format. I know which will be larger with the 1170.
If the MicroMod version is there in addition, why not but if not I prefer to stay on the classic teensy format
Click to expand...

The Teensy format (AKA Stamp) excels for breadboarding use. This is one reason why Teensys have been so popular. (Though, by far not the only reason)

I've looked at micromod and concluded it buys me very little. Fewer pins/gpios (over the T4.1), functional limitations (where's ethernet?) and a relatively expensive connector. The benefit of processor flexibility does not outweigh the drawbacks. I'm not sure it even saves much overall PCB space.

A quad row stamp still feels like a great way to go. A quad-row T4.0 (T4.4?), for example would have 80 pins and when you take out Power/Gnd/Programming/... there should be well north of 60 GPIO/Async/SPI/I2C/timers. By careful choice of inside and outside pin assignments and use of FlexIO, this could still be dual-row (inside rows) breadboard friendly and support LCDs, ethernet, Host USB, SDCard on the outer rows. With the right design/pin assignments, peripheral cards could plug directly onto the the outer row pins. And a baseboard (T4.4 explorer) would be easy to design and cheap to build.
 
Hey folks, check out the picture upper top right in this link: https://www.digikey.com/en/maker/bl...ce-micromod-ecosystem-accelerates-prototyping (screenshot Attached). We need software like in one of those spy movies to enhance, the image but to me that looks like an actual sparkfun teensy micro-mod! I am so excited!! For many applications that require fewer than the full set of pins and where swapp-ability and PCBa board size are the driving design considerations (0.1" headers are kinda frowned upon in my world) this will be fantastic. I only hope that they also make the 3.6 and 3.2 in micro-mod form!

Screen Shot 2021-03-04 at 1.37.53 PM.jpg

-john
 
Somebody broke embargo! Interesting. Is that an ethernet Phy I spy? (on second thought, probably not)
 
MicroMod Teensy <--> Teensy MicroMod
So, these are two different versions.

I have a Micromod board... didn't bother unboxing.. :) It's for the MicoMod Teensy 3.2 Luni board I didn't solder...


John: Go and find images of Teensy i.mx rt 1176.
 
Wishes for a new Teensy with i.mx rt1170:
- DIP-64 format, this gives extra pins and more space on the PCB
- USB C connector
- Ethernet (100Mb) and USB Host on standard pins (like on the first Mbed boards)
- The chip have two 1Gb Ethernet with AVB/TSN, this interesting for audio over ethernet, maybe as 12-pin connectors on board (8 for ENET, 2 for LEDs, 1 for GND)
- 100mil connectors on the board should lockable
- RTOS for using the cores (e.g. one core for display / ENET, the other for the main loop)
- LCD connector
 
johnrom said:
<Enhancing image level 1000 applied> Nah, I just found this in google image search somehow. Enjoy =D.
View attachment 23917
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I didn't anticipate the T4 MicroMod to actually be manufactured by sparkfun. The radio silence since the git commits and blog posts in October could indicate one or both parties lost interest, or maybe SF is just too busy or waiting on parts, who knows. *sigh*
 
wcalvert said:
I didn't anticipate the T4 MicroMod to actually be manufactured by sparkfun. The radio silence since the git commits and blog posts in October could indicate one or both parties lost interest, or maybe SF is just too busy or waiting on parts, who knows. *sigh*
Click to expand...
My guess (and it is only a guess) is they have been waiting for the bootloader chip (https://www.pjrc.com/store/ic_mkl02_t4.html)
Which I think still has a limit of 10...
 
wcalvert said:
I didn't anticipate the T4 MicroMod to actually be manufactured by sparkfun. The radio silence since the git commits and blog posts in October could indicate one or both parties lost interest, or maybe SF is just too busy or waiting on parts, who knows. *sigh*
Click to expand...

It is a huge departure for PJRC (from BB friendly boards) and doesn't really bring out new features. Is there a cost advantage? Given that you need a base board and based on Sparkfun prices, the answer looks to be no. Maybe there is a cheaper MMod explorer board out there but it looks like a lot of the processor cost is transferred to the base board.
 
PhilB said:
It is a huge departure for PJRC (from BB friendly boards) and doesn't really bring out new features. Is there a cost advantage? Given that you need a base board and based on Sparkfun prices, the answer looks to be no. Maybe there is a cheaper MMod explorer board out there but it looks like a lot of the processor cost is transferred to the base board.
Click to expand...

The T4 MM would go into my custom hardware. I want to be able to position the USB host and device connectors and uSD connector wherever I want, and use whichever connector style I want. That can be done now of course, but would require little USB jumper cables and so on to achieve it. Fine for prototypes, and not the end of the world for production, so I suppose I shouldn't obsess over it too much.
 
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