Nvidia 250, Tegra 250 Harmony User Manual

Harmony Developers’ Kit Hardware

Introduction and Setup

Version 100106.01

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January 2010

Contents

INTRODUCTION 3

GETTING STARTED: OVERVIEW 4

UNBOXING 5

HOST PC CONFIGURATION 9

CONNECTING THE HARMONY HW 9

“FLASHING” (INSTALLING) OPERATING SYSTEM IMAGES ONTO THE HARMONY 11

USING YOUR BOOTED HARMONY DEVKIT 17

CONNECTING THE MINI SATELLITE BOARD 18

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Introduction

This manual describes the basic, initial setup of a Harmony Tegra 250 developers’ kit (devkit), and is
designed to assist a new user in understanding the hardware, selecting an operating system to install to
the devkit, and connect and configure the hardware to boot that operating system. Very little operating
system-specific information will be found in this manual, as each operating system supported by the
Harmony devkit includes its own support pack with software and documentation. This manual covers
the details that tend to cross over all supported operating systems.

What is “Harmony”?

The NVIDIA Tegra 250-based “Harmony” devkit is a compact, Smartbook-motherboard form factor
computer-on-a-board with the following specifications:

- Dual ARM Cortex A9 CPU @1GHz

- 1GB of RAM

- High-performance, shader-based 3D acceleration

- HD video encode and decode

- 512MB of Flash memory

- Onboard wired Ethernet

- WiFi

- Bluetooth

- Analog stereo audio in/out

- USB keyboard/mouse/storage support

- HDMI/DVI-D and VGA/CRT display support

- Onboard SD(HC) slot

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Getting Started: Overview

There are a few basic steps required to begin developing for the Harmony devkit:

Unboxing:

1) Unpack the Harmony devkit components

2) Familiarize yourself with the components

Host PC Configuration:

1) Select your desired Harmony operating system

2) Download the support pack for that operating system from the NVIDIA Tegra developers
website

3) Read the documentation provided with that support pack and install it to the appropriate host
PC

4) Download and install any host PC support SW as required by the platform support pack’s
documentation

Connecting the Harmony HW:

1) Locate/procure the required hardware accessories for the Harmony (somewhat dependent
upon the selected Harmony operating system image)

2) Select the desired video output based on your available display devices and the operating
system image

Installing the Operating System to the Harmony:

1) Follow the operating system image installation instructions provided with the support pack

2) Boot the Harmony

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Unboxing

Devkit Contents and Hardware Requirements

As shipped, your Harmony devkit should contain the following items:

• Harmony main board (rectangular circuit board containing the Tegra chip and connectors for
networking, USB peripherals, storage and display devices)

• 15V power adapter (USA 120V mains power connection)

• Adjustable, folding, threaded WiFi antenna

• Expansion board (smaller, square circuit board containing a serial port, LEDs and a few buttons)

Also required to use the Harmony devkit, but not supplied (developer must provide these):

• Host PC with USB ports. The exact OS that this host PC must be running may differ depending
upon the devkit OS to be used, but is most frequently Microsoft Windows.

• USB mini (NOT micro, as with previous Tegra devkits) to USB cable (for device setup and
connectivity)

• External display supporting VGA (15-pin D-Sub), HDMI or DVI (via HDMI-to-DVI adapter)

• SD card or USB-based “thumb drive” for additional storage

• USB mouse

• USB keyboard

Strongly recommended to use the Harmony devkit, but not supplied (developer should provide these):

• Powered USB hub

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January 2010

USB mini

Dual USB

-

A

jacks

Ethernet

jack

SD Card

Headphone

jack

Microphone

VGA (CRT)

15V power

HDMI

WiFi Antenna

jack

USB-A

Expansion board

Power

Recovery

button

Reset

button

Tegra chip

“ACOK”

configuration switch

Power

Getting Familiar with the Devkit

Main Board

The following diagram shows a Harmony main board with power connected. Important connectors are
annotated:

jack

jack

slot

jack

button

jack

jack

LEDs

jack

connectors

The annotated items include:

• 15V Power jack. Supplies the main power to the devkit (the Harmony devkit as shipped to
developers does not directly support battery power)

• VGA (CRT) jack. Support for 15-pin D-Sub analog display output

• HDMI jack. Support for digital display output

• WiFi antenna jack. Connection point for supplied (or 3rd-party) WiFi antenna

• Tegra 250 chip. The heart and soul of the Harmony devkit

• USB-A jacks (3). Support for common peripherals (use of a powered USB hub is strongly

recommended)

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January 2010