NetCube Systems Nagami is a small Allwinner T113-S3 system-on-module that I just saw added to Linux 6.18. Besides mainline Linux support, the Allwinner SoM offers somewhat unique or unusual features that include a mini PCIe form factor and an ESP32 co-processor for WiFi 4 and Bluetooth connectivity.
The Nagami also comes with 128MB DDR3 embedded in the T113-S3, 4GB eMMC flash, a Fast Ethernet PHY, and a Qwiic connector for I2C expansion modules. All I/Os are exposed through a standard mini PCIe edge connector: audio I/Os, Ethernet, USB 2.0 OTG/host, and a range of low-speed I/Os.
Nagami SoM specifications:
- SoC – Allwinner T113-S3
- CPU – Dual-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.2 GHz with 32 KB L1 I-cache + 32 KB L1 D-cache per core, and 256 KB L2 cache
- DSP – Single-core HiFi4
- VPU – H.265/H.264 video decoding up to 1080p60 and JPEG/MJPEG video encoding up to 1080p60
- Memory – 128 MB DDR3
- Storage
- 4GB eMMC flash
- I2C EEPROM (QWIIC-compatible with MAC address)
- Networking
- 10/100Mbps Ethernet PHY (LAN8720A)
- WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.x via ESP32 chip connected over UART and SDIO; IPEX antenna connector
- Mini PCIe edge connector
- Audio
- Up to 2x I2S/PCM
- Up to 1x SPDIF In & Output
- Ethernet – 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet
- USB – 1x USB 2.0 OTG, 1x USB 2.0 host
- Low-speed I/Os – Up to 5x UART (2x with RTS/CTS), 2x CAN 2.0B, 4x I2C, 1x SPI with HOLD/WP
- Audio
- Expansion – Qwiic-compatible I2C connector; note: this connector has 5 pins instead of 4, so not technically a Qwiic connector. See the comments section.
- Power supply – +3.3V supply
- Dimensions – 50.95 x 30 mm (Standard Mini PCIe form factor with two mounting holes)
- Temperature Range
- -25 to 75°C without heatsink
- -25 to 85°C with heatsink
The Nagami is compatible with Linux-based embedded operating systems built with tools like Buildroot or Yocto, and supports mainline U-Boot and Linux Kernel builds. It targets industrial & home automation, IoT/IIoT, robotics, and generic embedded systems.
The Linux 6.18 changelog mentions two carrier boards:
The NetCube Systems Nagami Basic Carrier Board is a simple carrier for the Nagami SoM. It is intended to serve as a simple reference design for a custom implementation or just evaluating the module with other peripherals.
The NetCube Systems Nagami Keypad Carrier is a custom board intended to fit a standard Ritto Intercom enclosure and provides a Keypad, NFC-Reader and Status-LED all controllable over Ethernet with PoE support.
However, I could not find any information about those two on the documentation website, which has further details about the module itself and software support.
It’s the second Allwinner board from Austria-based NetCube Systems with mainline Linux support. The other is the Allwinner V3s-based Kumpat industrial automation/embedded system board. There are other Allwinner T113-S3 system-on-modules on the market, such as the MYiR MYC-YT113X and T113-S3 Core Lite, which offer additional interfaces (e.g., RGB LCD, DVP camera…), but all lack mainline Linux support, and instead support is provided through a Linux 5.4 BSP.
NetCube Systems sells the Nagami SoM for $69.99 on Tindie, but not the related carrier boards (yet). A few more details may also be found on the company’s website.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Thank you very much for this.
Can you please add that they are tiny, but do their own upstream / mainline.
(Not sure if “they” are even two people)
One person has done more patch work than Radxa, OrangePi, BananaPI and Allwinner combined 🙂
U-boot:
https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/list/?submitter=90004&archive=both&state=*
Linux:
https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-arm-kernel/list/?submitter=215532&archive=both&state=*
Also seems like more strict European quality hardware.
Forgot to add other Chinese companies to the list of companies there, like Qualcomm who were so non-helpful that Tuxedo had to finally admit defeat on a viable Snapdragon linux laptop. Same with Nvidia and their Tegra (not even mentioning the infamous Linus finger due to his frustration at Nvidia’s GPU support for linux). And the big Red of them all: Apple. Apple the company that started the Arm revolution FORTY years ago and has provided ZERO linux support in all that time (who at the same time has NO problem lifting open source work from BSD into their own proprietary OS). Apple even going so far as actively block efforts like Asahi team by making hardware changes to their newer M series cpu to close the loop from reverse engineering found by the community on M1 chip, so now the project is stalled. Why keep forgetting to mention these other companies.
(Hint. Misbehaving companies are not tied to one country. American companies started the trend and continue to this day for decades, which is being intentionally ignored here.)
It really looks good. I like the form factor.
I hope this wouldn’t be too expensive 🙂
I posted a comment, hours ago, and it’s still not visible?
Why is that? It’s not censorship and manipulation for Chinese brands, is it?
That’s called sleeping.
That JST connector has 5 pins, not 4. It looks like they’ve done this to add an interrupt line, but it means that it isn’t actually a QWIIC connector and won’t plug directly into QWIIC devices without a special cable with one pin depopulated. Per Sparkfun’s documentation, they’re not supposed to call this QWIIC-compatible.