0006 MPTPU(M.2 E) EN

Keywords

Raspberry Pi5, PCIe, TPU, DTPU, Driver installation, Operation demonstration, AI, Google, Coral

Ⅰ、Introduction

MPTPU is a TPU expansion board specifically designed for the Raspberry Pi 5, driven by a Coral TPU module through PCIe 1x Gen2. TPU module on the Raspberry Pi system requires the installation of drivers and configuration of the operating environment. This document is based on the MPTPU expansion board (single TPU), and the driver installation is also applicable for dual TPU setups.

Note: The operation requires a stable internet connection to the regions out of China (you may need to find your own method). Otherwise, many files may not download or may only partially download, which could ultimately lead to the code failing to run.

Ⅱ、Hardware Resources

2.1 Specifically designed for the PCIe interface of the Raspberry Pi 5.

2.2 Support M.2 E-KEY PCIe and Google coral Edge TPU.

2.3 CSI/DSI slots: Supports 0.5mm pitch 22-pin cables and 1mm pitch 15-pin cables.

2.4 An onboard power indicator LED ("PWR").

2.5 Adopts high-quality electronic components, lead-free production, immersion gold process; the PCB board is UL certified and RoHS compliant.

2.6 The board has four M2.5 mounting holes, with a recessed design on the top of the board to facilitate the use of the 40-Pin GPIO without affecting the use of the Raspberry Pi 5's 40-Pin GPIO.

Ⅲ、System flashing

3.1 The Raspberry Pi OS used in this document is: 2024-07-04-raspios-bookworm-armhf.img.xz（Raspberry Pi OS with desktop）。

You can download it in:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/#raspberry-pi-os-64-bit

3.2 Use Imager or balenaEtcher to flash the OS image in TF card. Click here to read the instructions for System flashing

Ⅳ、Driver installation and configuration

4.1 Config config.txt

After the system starts, open the Raspberry Pi terminal and enter the command:

sudo nano /boot/firmware/config.txt

or:

sudo mousepad /boot/firmware/config.txt

Add the codes in the ending of this file:

dtparam=pciex1

kernel=kernel8.img

dtoverlay=pineboards-hat-ai

then，save the file and reboot the system:

sudo reboot

4.2 Ensuring software environment

After reboot the system, open the Raspberry Pi terminal and enter the command:

uname -r

After ensuring the kernel version is greater than 4.18, enter:

lsmod | grep apex

Ensure there is no output, then you can begin installing the TPU driver.

4.3 Install necessary software

Ensure the network is connected to internet connection to the regions out of China (you may need to find your own method), and then add the Google TPU software library:

echo "deb https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt coral-edgetpu-stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/coral-edgetpu.list

curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Update the software list after adding:

sudo apt-get update

Install the necessary software after the update is completed:

sudo apt-get install cmake libedgetpu1-std devscripts debhelper dkms dh-dkms

4.4 Install Gasket Driver

依次输入以下命令安装Gasket Driver：

git clone https://github.com/google/gasket-driver.git

cd gasket-driver

sudo debuild -us -uc -tc -b

cd ..

sudo dpkg -i gasket-dkms_1.0-18_all.deb

安装完成后输入以下命令确保驱动以及软件安装成功：

sudo apt-get install gasket-dkms libedgetpu1-std

接下来添加udev rule去获得设备操作权限：

sudo sh -c "echo 'SUBSYSTEM==\"apex\", MODE=\"0660\", GROUP=\"apex\"' >> /etc/udev/rules.d/65-apex.rules"

添加用户到apex：

sudo groupadd apex

sudo adduser $USER apex

设置完成后重启系统：

sudo reboot

4.5 验证模块检测以及驱动安装

系统启动后验证模块检测以及驱动安装：

lspci -nn | grep 089a

ls /dev/apex_0

这里板载单TPU，因此可以看到一个TPU模块。

输入sudo lspci -v可以看到驱动加载：

4.6 代码运行环境配置

Google TPU模块代码运行需要在Python3.6-3.9之间，而树莓派最新系统的Python版本为3.11，因此我们需要使用Pyenv来下载老版本Python。

首先进行依赖安装：

sudo apt-get install -y make build-essential libssl-dev zlib1g-dev \libbz2-dev libreadline-dev libsqlite3-dev wget curl llvm libncurses5-dev \libncursesw5-dev xz-utils tk-dev libffi-dev liblzma-dev python3-openssl