IMX6 SOM and Cortex M RTOS

[Russell Haley]

Hello again,

I am looking to replace my IMX53 SOM with an IMX6. I saw on the wiki
that the Wandboard and the Hummingbird SBC/CuBox are supported as well
as a nebulous "others". Is there currently a preferred IMX6 SOM or one
with better driver support? What about, say, Varsite, Digi or Phytec
(which may have some level of support from other boards)? I am
preferably looking for a IMX6 SBC based on a SOM that has eMMC as well
as a microSD card and to which I can add a  M.2 3G or 4g broadband
modem (i.e. Sierra Wireless, Huaweii etc).

I have two other questions that are only related to this thread by
juxtoposition, but I figure this group would have some strong opinions
about them:

1) For a lower power solution based on a Cortex M, would I need to
move down to an RTOS? Is there any preferred RTOS for which I could
use PC-BSD as my host for cross compiling? I ask this because I am
trying to standardize on a FreeBSD based system for my toolchain and I
may need to support lower powered systems.

2) Is there any advantage to using an Intel Atom or AMD (or Via
anyone?)based SOM over an Arm based SOM? I can see that some of the
higher end Atom processors have more performance but also use more
power, however I am looking for possibilities like better driver or
package support. The Advantech and ADI Engineering boards have caught
my eye...

Okay, I'll stop there. As always, your help is crucial and greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Russ