Author: Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 55 Comments on Radxa Orion O6 mini-ITX motherboard is powered by Cix P1 12-core Armv9 SoC with a 30 TOPS AI accelerator

Radxa Orion O6 mini-ITX motherboard is powered by Cix P1 12-core Armv9 SoC with a 30 TOPS AI accelerator

Radxa Orion 06 Armv9 mini ITX motherboard

Radxa Orion O6 is an Arm mini-ITX motherboard with performance similar to Apple M1 and Qualcomm 8cs Gen3 platform thanks to the Cix P1 12-core Armv9 processor with four Cortex-A720 cores clocked at 2.8 GHz, four Cortex-A720 cores at 2.4GHz, and four low-power Cortex-A520 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. The Cix P1 SoC also features an Arm Immortalis-G720 GPU for graphics and AI computing, a 30 TOPS AI accelerator for a combined 45 TOPS of AI inference performance, an 8Kp60 video decoder, and an 8Kp30 video encoder. The Orion O6 SBC ships with up to 64GB LPDDR5, features a 4Kp60 HDMI 2.0 port, a 4Kp120 DP 1.4 connector, two 5Gbps Ethernet ports, M.2 socket for storage and wireless, a PCIe x16 slot, and more. Radxa Orion O6 specifications: SoC – Cix P1 (Codename: CD8180, not the CP8180 variant for AI PCs) 12-core DynamIQ processor 4x Cortex‑A720 big cores @ up […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Orange Pi CM5 “Tablet” Base Board drops Ethernet for WiFi 5, adds battery support, M.2 socket, 26-pin GPIO header…

Orange Pi CM5 “Tablet” Base Board drops Ethernet for WiFi 5, adds battery support, M.2 socket, 26-pin GPIO header…

Orange Pi CM5 Tablet Base Board

The Orange Pi CM5 was launched as an alternative to Raspberry Pi CM4/CM5 last July with a Rockchip RK3588S octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC, up to 16GB LPDDR4x, 256GB eMMC flash, and three board-to-board connectors maintaining partially compatibility with the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. At the time, Orange Pi also introduced the Orange Pi CM5 Base Board with HDMI 2.1, one Gigabit Ethernet port, two 2.5GbE ports, USB 3.0/2.0 ports, four camera connectors, and more. The company has now launched the Orange Pi CM5 “Tablet” Base Board without Ethernet ports, making use of WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 for networking instead. It keeps many of the same features but adds a 26-pin GPIO header, an M.2 Key-M socket for SSD storage, DP 1.4 and MIPI DSI display interfaces, and various audio interfaces. However, it does with “only” three camera interfaces. It’s quite thick to be used in a typical tablet, but […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments on $249 NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit targets generative AI applications at the edge

$249 NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit targets generative AI applications at the edge

NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Development Kit

NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit is an upgrade to the Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit with 1.7 times more generative AI performance, a 70% increase in performance to 67 INT8 TOPS, and about half the price, making it a great development platform for generative AI at the edge, mostly robotics. We’ve seen several AI boxes and boards in the last year capable of offline generative AI applications like the Firefly AIO-1684XQ motherboard or Radxa Fogwise Airbox which I reviewed with Llama3, Stable diffusion, Imgsearch, etc… A product like the Fogwise Airbox delivers up to 32 TOPS (INT8) and sells for around $330 which was very competitive then (June 2024). However, the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit will certainly disrupt the market with over twice the performance, a lower price, and a larger developer community. NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super specifications: NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 8GB Module CPU […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on LG opens the ThinQ API for Smart Home devices

LG opens the ThinQ API for Smart Home devices

LG ThinQ API

LG Electronics (LG) has fully opened its ThingQ API for its Smart Home platform to enable developers to integrate their solutions with compatible LG appliances. The release covers both the API for individual users and corporate users. The ThinQ API for individual users supports the control and monitoring of AI appliances registered in the LG ThinQ app. It allows users to create customized Smart Home applications, for example, the popular Home Assistant home automation framework can already connect and control 26 types of LG AI appliances including refrigerators, water heaters, and washing machines. I can see the community has been working on LG ThinQ integration well before the release of the full release of the API, but maybe LG saw this and completly released the API to ease the work of developers. There are four main ThingQ APIs for individuals: Device API – Used to request ThinQ device information and […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Nuvoton NuMicro MA35D1 SoM and SBC target industrial control, edge IoT gateway, and HMI applications

Nuvoton NuMicro MA35D1 SoM and SBC target industrial control, edge IoT gateway, and HMI applications

Forlinx OK-MA35-S21 SBC for Numicro MA35D1 SoM

Forlinx Embedded OK-MA35-S21 SBC is based on the company’s FET-MA35-S2 SoM powered by a Nuvoton Numicro MA35D1 Arm Cortex-A35/M4F microprocessor, and offered with up to 1GB RAM and an 8GB eMMC flash. Designed for applications such as charging piles, HMI, industrial control, medical equipment, new energy, edge gateways, smart buildings, and smart agriculture, the MA35D1 SoM supports dual Gigabit Ethernet, CAN FD, up to 17x UART, 16x analog input, etc.. and the SBC further integrates RS485 and RS232 terminal blocks, WiFi and Bluetooth,  and optional 4G LTE connectivity Forlinx FET-MA35-S2 SoM Specifications: SoC – Nuvoton NuMicro MA35D1 CPU 2x Arm Cortex-A35 cores at up to 800 MHz Arm Cortex-M4 processor core at  up to 180 MHz GPU – 2D Graphic Engine (GFX) VPU – H.264 video decoder up to 1920×1080 @ 45 Hz; JPEG Image Decoder System Memory – 512MB/1GB DDR3L Storage – 8GB eMMC flash Carrier board interfaces – […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on iKOOLCORE R2 Max review – Part 2: 10GbE on an Intel N100 mini PC with OpenWrt (QWRT), Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04 and pfSense 2.7.2

iKOOLCORE R2 Max review – Part 2: 10GbE on an Intel N100 mini PC with OpenWrt (QWRT), Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04 and pfSense 2.7.2

iKOOLCORE R2 Max Review Proxmox VE Ubuntu 22.04

I’ve already checked out iKOOLCORE R2 Max hardware in the first part of the review with an unboxing and a teardown of the Intel N100 system with two 10GbE ports and two 2.5GbE ports. I’ve now had more time to test it with an OpenWrt fork, Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04, and pfSense, so I’ll report my experience in the second and final part of the review. As a reminder, since I didn’t have any 10GbE gear so far, iKOOLCORE sent me two R2 Max devices, a fanless model and an actively-cooled model. I was told the fanless one was based on Intel N100 SoC, and the actively-cooled one was powered by an Intel Core i3-N305 CPU, but I ended up with two Intel N100 devices. The fanless model will be an OpenWrt 23.05 (QWRT) server, and the actively cooled variant be the device under test/client with Proxmox VE 8.3 server […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Pico W5 is a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W alternative with RP2350 MCU, dual-band WiFi 4, 8MB flash

Pico W5 is a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W alternative with RP2350 MCU, dual-band WiFi 4, 8MB flash

Pico W5 board

The Pico W5 is a Raspberry Pi RP2350 development board providing an alternative to the official Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W with dual-band (2.4GHz/5GHz) WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity through a B&T BW16 wireless module. Besides dual-band WiFi, there are a few other small changes compared to the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, including a USB Type-C connector, a larger 8MB flash, and a Reset button. As far as I know, it’s the first RP2350 board with 5GHz WiFi, as other RP2350 boards with WiFi, such as the Challenger+ RP2350 WiFi6/BLE5 and Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W, only support 2.4GHz WiFi. Pico W5 specifications: SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350 CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot and Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz Only two cores can be used at any given time Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM Security 8KB of anti-fuse OTP […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Olimex ESP32-P4-DevKit offers Ethernet, USB JTAG, MIPI DSI and CSI interfaces

Olimex ESP32-P4-DevKit offers Ethernet, USB JTAG, MIPI DSI and CSI interfaces

Olimex ESP32-P4 devkit

Olimex ESP32-P4-DevKit is a compact development board powered by a 400 MHz ESP32-P4 general-purpose dual-core RISC-V microcontroller with a 10/100Mbps Ethernet RJ45 connector, a USB-C Serial/JTAG connector, MIPI DSI/CSI connectors for a display and a camera, GPIO headers and UEXT connector, Boot and Reset buttons, and a few LEDs. In some ways, it offers similar to the Waveshare ESP32-P4-NANO board we covered last month, but in a different form factor, and it lacks WiFi 6 connectivity and a USB Type-A connector. It’s also much more compact and cheaper than the official ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board launched this summer, but again, with fewer features. Olimex ESP32-P4-Devkit: Microcontroller – ESP32-P4 MCU Dual-core RISC-V microcontroller @ 400 MHz with AI instructions extension and single-precision FPU Single-RISC-V LP (Low-power) MCU core @ up to 40 MHz GPU – 2D Pixel Processing Accelerator (PPA) VPU – H.264 and JPEG codecs support Memory – 768 KB HP L2MEM, 32 […]

Youyeetoo X1 x86 SBC