Forlinx OK1052-C Board Features NXP i.MX RT1052 Crossover Processor

NXP i.MX RT1502 SBC

NXP i.MX RT series crossover processors were first announced last year as processors providing the same real-time capability as found in microcontrollers while providing performance similar to entry-level application processors thanks to an Arm Cortex-M7 core clocked at up to 600 MHz. i.MX RT series also lower BoM thanks to integrated PMIC and up to 512KB SRAM/TCM. Later on uCLinux for NXP i.MX RT1050 evaluation board was released, and a few months ago, we covered the upcoming VisionSOM-RT industrial system-on-module powered by the crossover processor.  That means we did not have production-ready commercial solutions so far, but this has changed recently, with for example Forlinx Embedded OK1052-C board. The solution is comprised of a baseboard and a system-on-module with the following specifications: FET1052-C SoM SoC –  NXP i.MX RT1052 single core Arm Cortex-M7 crossover processor @ up to 528 MHz with 512KB SRAM/TCM System Memory – 16MB or 32MB SDRAM […]

Alfawise U30 3D Printer now Offered for $166 (Promo)

This time of the year is normally a good period to buy 3D printers at a discounted prices ,as we’ve seen in the past with the popular Anet A8 model, which again is sold for $139.99 plus shipping right now, or if you are based in Europe as low as $129.99 with coupon GB23CC4. Another potentially interesting deal is the new Alfawise U30 3D printer which can be bought on GearBest for $165.99 plus shipping ($7.57 here) with coupon GBBFEX017. The 3D printer is also said to offer safety features, support for left handed people, and resume after power failure or running out of filament. Alfawise U30 main features: 2.8″ full color touchscreen placed on the left or right of the printer frame Storage – micro SD card slot, USB port Build volume – 220 x 220 x 250mm Nozzle diameter – standard 0.4mm nozzle Print speed – Up to […]

An Attempt to Benchmark Entry-level x86 Boards against RK3399 & Exynos Arm Boards

Arm vs Intel C-Ray

Some Arm boards have become quite powerful, while hardware based on low power Intel processor has generally become cheaper with both architectures somewhat converging in terms of performance and price. Piotr Maliński got interested and purchased some low cost (<$150) Intel hardware to compare to mid-range Arm boards, throwing a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ into the mix as well for comparison. Those are the Intel test boards / computers: Qotom motherboard with Intel Atom Z3735F Bay Trail processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB flash – $74 + shipping on Aliexpress Piesia nano ITX board with Intel Celeron N2806 Bay Trail processor, DDR3 SO-DIMM socket, SATA / mSATA interfaces – Piotr found it for around $85 on Aliexpress, but the price now jumped to over $150 plus shipping, which does not make it very attractive Generic thin mini ITX motherboard based on Celeron N3160 “Braswell” processor, DDR3 SO-DIMM socket, SATA / mSATA interfaces. $62.68 […]

X96S Amlogic S905Y2 TV Stick Spotted for $39 and Up

X96S amlogic S905Y2 TV Stick

Lacking Ethernet support, the latest Amlogic S905Y2 processor is designed for 4K HDMI TV dongles. However excluding Amlogic’s own TV stick reference design, we only had seen S905Y2 TV boxes so far, and no actual commercial product following the TV stick form factor. That has now changed since X96S TV stick powered by Amlogic S905Y2 processor has appeared on several Aliexpress stores with price starting at $38.76 including international shipping.X96S TV dongle specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905Y2 quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 2.0 GHz with Mali-G31 MP2 “Dvalin” GPU System Memory / Storage options 2GB LPDDR4, 16GB eMMC flash, micro SD card slot 4GB LPDDR4, 32GB eMMC flash, micro SD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.1 output with HDR up to 4K UHD @ 75 Hz Video Codecs –  VP9 Profile-2 up to 4K 60fps, 10-bit H.265 up to 4K 60fps,   AVS2-P2 up to […]

Alfawise T1 Gemini Lake Mini PC Offered for $150 (Promo)

Alfawise T1 mini PC

Gemini Lake mini PCs have been around for a while, but not quite at the price most expected, that is roughly the same as Apollo Lake, possibly due to shortages of Intel’s entry level processors. So for example, I had yet to see any Gemini Lake computers for under $150, with with Black Friday taking place now, GearBest decided to offer Alfawise T1 mini PC powered by an  Intel Celeron N4100 quad core processor for just $149.99 with coupon GBJEAN. Alfawise T1 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N4100 quad core Gemini Lake processor up to 2.4 GHz with Intel UHD Graphics 600; 6W TDP System Memory – 4GB DDR4 Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, 2.5″ SATA bay, M.2 SSD slot, micro SD card Video Output – 2x HDMI 2.0 ports up to 4K @ 60 Hz Audio – Via HDMI, built-in microphone, 3.5mm audio jack Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual […]

ODROID-XU4 and ODROID-XU4Q Boards Going for $49 (Promo)

ODROID XU4 Black Friday

ODROID-XU4, and its fanless ODROID-XU4Q sibling, are neat little single board computer packing lots of power into a small form factor. I tested ODROID-XU4 with Ubuntu 18.04 recently and was relatively impressed by how well it worked considering it’s an Arm platform, as there were still admittedly some limitations. But as they say at $59 a board you can’t beat the price. Except you can actually do, as Hardkernel is offering both ODROID-XU4Q and ODROID-XU4 for just $49 during Black Friday here and there. If you’ve already forgotten about the board it is equipped with a Samsung Exynos 5422 octa-core Cortex A15/A7 processor, 2GB RAM, eMMC module support, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, HDMI 1.4, and more. You can read the full specifications here. The only difference between ODROID-XU4 and ODROID-XU4Q is the latter comes with a large heatsink, while the former is cooled by fan. If you are currently shopping […]

Open Source Hardware SpiderSoM System-on-Module Features Intel MAX 10 FPGA

aries embedded spidersom

When embedded systems companies offer a system-on-module (SoM) and a baseboard, the later is usually open source hardware with all design files provided so that customers can leverage the work for their own baseboard, but files for the SoM are normally not released to customers. Intel MAX 10 FPGA based Aries SpiderSoM and SpiderBase change that, as the company has decided to release both the module and carrier board KiCAD designs under a CERN OHL v1.2 license. SpiderSoM system-on-module specifications: FPGA – Intel MAX 10 FPGA in F256 package from 10M04DC to 10M50DA System Memory – Optional 128/256/512MB DDR3 DRAM for 10M 16/25/40/50 FPGAs Storage – Optional 4 MB SPI NOR, optional 4 GB eMMC flash 230-pin MxM2 edge connector with 178x FPGA GPIO pins, including 13 LVDS transmitters and 54 receivers Misc – RTC with battery backup,  programmable clock generator and PLL, with optional external reference input Power Supply […]

Orange Pi AI Stick 2801 Neural Compute Stick SDK & Documentation Released

How to use Orange Pi AI Stick SDK

We covered the launch of Orange Pi AI Stick 2801 neural compute stick a few days ago, the first easily available Gyralcon Lightspeeur based USB stick, and noted that while the hardware was there, we had no details about software development kit and documentation at the time. I’ve got some more information now. First, the company release an English presentation about the neural stick, and while it’s not technical documentation, it provides insights into what it is capable of, and an overview about the workflow. More importantly, Shenzhen Xunlong Software also released Orange Pi AI Stick SDK and user manual for x86 PC, as well as cat/dog data and pre-trained models to get started. However, if you want to perform training with your own data, you’ll need to purchase the stick plus PLAI model transformation and training tools sold on Aliexpress for $218 plus shipping, that’s $69 for the hardware, […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC