The Gemstone Obsidian (T3-GEM-O1) model uses the Texas Instruments AM67A microprocessor. This System on Chip (SoC) integrates a quad-core ARM Cortex®-A53 and dual-core Cortex®-R5. This means you can run operating systems like Linux on the A53 cores while simultaneously running MCU projects (Baremetal, FreeRTOS, Zephyr RTOS) on the Cortex®-R5 cores.

For example, you can develop ROS2, OpenCV, C++, Python projects on the A53 with Gemstone Linux, while writing MCU applications on the R5 cores that handle system safety and control.

The AM67A model features a dual-core C7x DSP chip that serves as a hardware accelerator for deep learning. The image below shows some key features of this SoC.

Texas AM67A

For developing MCU software to run on the Cortex®-R5 cores, Texas Instruments’ CCS Code Composer Studio is used. The table below lists the most commonly used resources for this microprocessor.

Since Texas Instruments hasn’t released a stable MCU SDK or complete documentation for this model, development often references the Jacinto product line. The Components section explains how to compile and run an MCU application on Gemstone boards. For feedback and suggestions, please use the Gemstone Community Forums.