Conclusive Engineering WHLE-LS1 networking SBC offers 4x GbE, 2x 10GbE SFP+ cages

Conclusive Engineering WHLE-LS1 is a networking SBC powered by a choice of NXP Layerscape LS1xx8A Cortex-A72 or Cortex-A53 communication processors with four Gigabit Ethernet ports, two SFP+ cages capable of up to 10Gbps data rates.

The board also features one SO-DIMM socket for up to 32GB DDR4, up to 64GB eMMC flash, M.2 PCIe sockets for NVMe SSDs, USB 3.0 host and USB 2.0 device ports, an RTC with backup battery, as well as serial and JTAG debug interfaces.

WHLE-LS1 NXP Layerscape SBCWHLE-LS1 specifications:

  • SoC (one or the other)
    • WHLE-LS1026A – NXP Layerscape LS1026A 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ 1.8GHz with DPAA package processing engine
    • WHLE-LS1046A – NXP Layerscape LS1046A 4x Arm Cortex-A72 @ 1.8GHz with DPAA package processing engine
    • WHLE-LS1048A – NXP Layerscape LS1048A 4x Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.6GHz with DPAA2 package processing engine
    • WHLE-LS1088A – NXP Layerscape LS1088A 8x Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.6GHz with DPAA2 package processing engine
  • System Memory – 1x SO-DIMM socket supporting up to 32 DDR4 SDRAM (x72) with ECC
  • Storage
    • 4 to 64GB eMMC flash
    • 8KB EEPROM
    • Support for NVMe SSD storage (See Expansion)
  • Networking
    • 4x Gigabit (10/100/1000Mbit/s) Ethernet RJ45 ports
    • 2x 1/10Gbit/s Ethernet SFP+ cages
  • USB – 1x USB 3.0 Type-A host port, 1x micro USB 2.0 device port
  • Expansion slots
    • 1x M.2 Type M socket PCIe 3.0 x2
    • 1x M.2 Type M socket PCIe 3.0 x1
    • 1x M.2 Type E socket PCIe 3.0 x1
  • Debugging – Conclusive Developer Cable connector providing access to System UART, JTAG port, System I2C bus
  • Misc – RTC with external backup battery, power supply current monitor, Reset button, 2x two-color status LED
  • Power supply – 12V DC, 7.5A via a power barrel connector
  • Dimensions – 170x170mm (Mini-ITX form factor) based on specs, but the shop shows 130x130mm for all models
WHLE-LS1 block diagram
WHLE-LS1 block diagram
Networking SBC M.2 sockets location
M.2 sockets location

Conclusive Engineering says mainline Linux is supported, FreeBSD 13 support is available upon request, and U-boot, UEFI EDK2, and Arm Trusted Firmware are also supported. There should eventually be a customer portal and a wiki with “manuals, datasheets, prebuilt OS images and other useful information”, but all that is currently shown as “coming soon“.

The WHLE-LS1 networking SBC is offered with 16GB eMMC flash directly from the company’s store for prices ranging from $399 to $579 depending on the selected processors. The leadtime is said to be 14 weeks. More details, including a 54-page datasheet, can be found on the product page.

Thanks to Theguyuk for the tip.

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8 Comments
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Willy
1 year ago

One of the rare server boards with nice specs in a long time. The price is high but not overly excessive for the specs (though keep in mind that one has to add RAM). Also such chipsets are expected to work fine with a mainline kernel. This is great to make high-performance firewalls, load balancers, VPN gateways etc in a small size and power budget. You can easily imagine having two side by side in a 1U rack for high availability.

tkaiser
tkaiser
1 year ago

> small size and power budget

The article talks about a ’12V DC, 7.5A’ power supply. Have you measured consumption with your HoneyComb LX2 and give some typical numbers for idle and moderate load?

Willy
1 year ago

Yes it’s very low for what it is. I don’t remember the numbers but I’m using tiny PSU adapters that fit into the ATX connector, and a single 132W power adapter to power the two LX2, the odroid-N2+ and the neo2+ that serves as a power controller for the LX2. I seem to remember numbers around 30+W peak during builds but I would say rubish so I’d need to recheck.

Willy
1 year ago

BTW given the heat sink + fan size above they clearly don’t expect to pull more than ~20W from the SoC.

tkaiser
tkaiser
1 year ago

I looked into WHLE-LS1 datasheet, section 9.3:

  • Average power consumption in idle state: 6-8 Watts.
  • Maximum power consumption: 72W
  • To gather real application power consumption statistics, please use the built-in Texas Instruments INA220A power monitoring IC available on the board’s I2C bus. It provides advanced power monitoring features.’
Willy
1 year ago

Yep ,that sounds like the max it can deliver to all ports (i.e. all eth plugged and up, and all M2 slots fitted at max spec power, which makes sense). Too bad they don’t give the power usage at full load without extra modules. The LS1046A datasheet here (https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/data-sheet/LS1046A.pdf) says 9.4W typical, 18.2W max at 105 degrees at 1.8 GHz CPU / 2100 DDR. To this you can add 1W for DDR4@2100 and a few other values (the table is well detailed). So it’s a bit on the high side compared to more modern designs (it’s 5-6 years old), but… Read more »

David
David
1 year ago

“To gather real application power consumption statistics, please use the built-in Texas Instruments INA220A power monitoring IC available on the board’s I2C bus. It provides advanced power monitoring features.”

Yeah right. There haven’t been any INA220A parts in stock for ages. Digi-Key says today the next expected ship date is 11/29/2023, almost a year and four months from now! And it keeps slipping.

It sucks being an EE on a planet with no nice chips.

https://www.findchips.com/search/INA220A

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/INA220AIDGSR/2231778

Willy
1 year ago

If you absolutely want one, just order this board and desolder it 🙂

Khadas VIM4 SBC