Introducing Trellis: Open Source Hardware for Nerves - Gus Workman | ElixirConf EU

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Introducing Trellis: Open Source Hardware for Nerves - Gus Workman | ElixirConf EU 2025

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Trellis looks cool - congrats @gus!

For anyone interested in the CPU this is what Google returned:

The Allwinner T113-S4 is an industrial-grade dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor with an integrated 256MB DDR3, designed for intelligent control, HMI, and automotive applications. It features a 64-bit RISC-V co-processor, H.264 video decoding, and supports various displays (RGB/MIPI/LVDS). It is pin-compatible with the 128MB T113-S3 but provides doubled memory capacity.

Key Features and Specifications:

  • Processor: Dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 + 64-bit C906 RISC-V core.
  • Memory: Built-in 256MB DDR3.
  • Multimedia: H.264 video decoder, 2D graphics engine, and display support for RGB/MIPI/LVDS/8080 interfaces.
  • Application: Ideal for smart home, industrial IoT gateways, digital signage, and automotive, often paired with WiFi6 (e.g., AIC8800D80).
  • Availability: Listed on platforms like JLCPCB. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

The T113-S4 offers a robust, high-temperature resistant solution (up to (105^{\circ }\text{C}) on some modules) for embedded systems needing reliable performance. [1]

Was curious because I’ve become interested in RISC-V (from a security perspective).

Like that is high temperature resistant - two of the Nerves projects I want to do at some point are sauna related :lol:

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Thanks @AstonJ! This has been an ongoing saga, and it all started with this talk :smiley:

Unfortunately, Google has got it a little bit wrong on the chip details. The specs and datasheet for this chip can be found here. The highlights: it has two ARM A7 core @ 1GHz, 256MB DDR3, and a pretty good selection of peripherals for a chip of this size (I2C, UART, SPI, CAN, SDIO, Ethernet, LVDS, RGB888, etc). It’s definitely a fun chip to use with Nerves!

Trellis is a project to make designing custom hardware with Nerves more accessible. The design is open source, created with open source PCB design tools

After ElixirConf EU last year, @lawik and I cooked up a plan to make a Trellis variant for the Goatmire conference last September in Sweden. We managed to pull it off, and thanks to a sponsor covering all the hardware costs, everyone who attended received a Nerves-powered e-ink name badge:

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Now, I’m working on developing the new Nerves Starter Kit, which is a piece of first-party hardware for the Nerves ecosystem. It’s similar to the name badge, but with a larger display, onboard sensors, low power mode and plenty more improvements. Release date later this summer :slight_smile:

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The new PCB powering the Nerves Starter Kit

Like it said, it’s been an ongoing project, definitely been keeping me busy :smiley: I post pretty regularly about it in the Nerves Discord

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Sounds like a fun project! I haven’t played with this chip in any high temperature applications yet, but it should hold up just fine, maybe with a conformal coating on the PCB to make it corrosion resistant. Allwinner markets it as an automotive chip, so the temperature requirements mean it can withstand some fairly harsh conditions

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Those name badges look really cool Gus - I bet everyone loved them! :icon_cool:

I will mount the hardware outside the sauna tbh, so heat shouldn’t be too much of an issue - it’ll be more steam and moisture that I’ll need to worry about :lol: