Recommended Operating Conditions Current

The Xavier SoM Data Sheet defines “Absolute Maximum Ratings” for voltage and current (at specific voltage). Those are specified as stress conditions, and that one should not operate a module under these conditions for longer time. There’s also “Recommended Operating Conditions”, but only for voltage and not for current.

I was wondering what the recommended currents for SYS_VIN_HV=12V are. Or generally for any input voltage.

It is 5.4A max for HV as listed in 4.1 Absolute Maximum Ratings table in module datasheet. No recommended current as it is case by case which is due to customer’s use case.

What information would be required to judge if our case is within the recommended range? We need all the availabe compute and will run on MAXN with jetson_clocks, spinning everything (CPU, GPU, PVA, DLA, EMC, Video / Jpeg coders). The voltage will be ~12V. Would you recommend increasing the voltage in order to decrease the current?

No need to increase voltage level for that as there are PMIC in module to convert VCC_SRC to other level as needed. You should run your use case on devkit to find out real power consumption. For module maximum power, it is about 30W as listed in module datasheet.

While Xavier is specified for 30W, MAXN + jetson_clocks allows significantly higher power usage. Here’s a jtop screenshot of AGX Xavier (devkit) running at ~50W:


This is even without running the DLA and some of the VIC features, EMC only at 1/3 load, no display attached, GPU not using tensor cores etc. Naively extrapolating I could imagine ~60W.

More compute directly leads to higher quality output for our application. Better looking video with higher H265 profile. Better detection with bigger networks. More accurate tracking with more CPU/GPU cycles.

I asked about this in the Jetson Team Q&A GTC Session, where the answer was roughly: The clocks from MAXN are validated, as long as you follow the thermal design guide. However there was no time to discuss in depth.

The question is basically: Is this usage intended, or generally unsafe? We can provide the source code to reproduce the power consumption if required (under NDA).

We ran a lighter case (~42W) for several hours on an AGX Xavier Devkit. It reaches thermal equilibrium without throttling in an office. Our final cooling solution will be able to handle >100W, but can the jetson handle that?

Hi, basically it depends on the thermal solution. If thermal design is good enough to keep the thermal zones value under the threshold, then won’t cause damage to system.

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