The i.MX 7 offers a highly integrated multi-market applications processor designed to enable secure and portable applications. This is more specifically designed for the products that require low power, high battery life, low-moderate processing power and targets entirely a different segment. 

Key features of i.MX7:

• Utilizes one or two Cortex A7 core paired with cortex M4 MCU
• Cortex M4 saves power by turning off A7
• Single core version of i.MX 7 will have 800 MHz Cortex A7 while the dual core will have peak clock frequency of 1 GHz
• Low Power State Retention (LPSR) mode" that is said to consume only 250 μW

Evaluating SX-SDCAC:

While evaluating SDCAC in the host test platform i.MX 7, it throws an error "mmc0: Timeout waiting for hardware interrupt". The SDMAC driver could be successfully loaded, whereas initiating a connection request to connect SDCAC caused this error. SDCAC requires a 3.3V power supply to operate which is not supported by i.MX 7. This discrepancy is however managed by using external power supply to the SDCAC wireless module. 

After initiating a connection request, the power monitor showed a sudden increase in current consumption. By design, i.MX7 SABRE SDB appeared inproficient of providing the sudden current demand. The schematic of the i.MX7 SABRE SDB shows that MEM_3V3 supplies a maximum of 1 A to the SD1 card slot. 

We have investigated this issue further to help our customers understand why SDCAC is not compatable to evaluate in i.MX 7 platform, and developed an application note. This has the findings from the investigation for our customers. Please download the full application note for more information.