SDMC DV9286 8K TV box runs Android 13 on Amlogic S928X processor for OTT/IPTV deployments

SDMC DV9286 Android 13 8K TV box

SDMC DV9286 is an 8K TV box for operators running Android 13 TV OS on an Amlogic S928X penta-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor with 4GB to 8GB RAM, WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, an HDMI 2.1a port, and 8K AV1, H.265, VP9 video decoding support. We had started to see 8K TV boxes based on the Amlogic S928X processor at IBC 2022 last September, but with few details. SDMC DV9286 announcement brings a few more details such as the GPU used in S928X and which version of Android will be used. SDMC DV9286 (preliminary) specifications: SoC – Amlogic S928X penta-core processor with 1x Cortex-A76 core, 4x Cortex-A55 cores, Arm Mali-G57 MC2 GPU; 12nm process System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 (up to 8GB option) Storage – 32GB eMMC flash Video Output – HDMI 2.1a up to 8Kp60 with HDCP2.2/2.3, HDR 10, HLG, HDR10+, Dolby Vision (optional), and HDMI 2.1-specific features such as […]

STMicro adds more STM32U5 Cortex-M33 MCUs with NeoChrom 2.5D GPU, 128KB to 4MB flash, NIST certification, etc…

STM32U5 MCU family 2023

STMicro has added three new families to its STM32U5 Cortex-M33 microcontroller series with the entry-level STM32U535/545 with as little as 128KB flash, the STM32U595/5A5 with up to 4MB of Flash and 2,514KB of RAM, and the STM32U599/5A9 with similar features as the STM32U595/5A5 by adding the new NeoChrom 2.5D GPU plus TFT-LCD and DSI display interfaces. STMicro also announced that STM32U5 series MCUs were the first general-purpose MCUs to receive NIST-embedded random-number entropy source certification. As of now, along with the STM32U575/585 introduced in February 2021 with an optional Chrom-ART 2D GPU, STMicro offers eight product lines as part of the STM32U5 MCU series as shown in the table below. That means the STM32U5 microcontroller can address a wider range of applications with the STM32U535/545 targetting lower-cost applications with less flash and RAM, the “legacy” STM32U575/U585 for mid-range applications, and the STM32U59X/5AX for applications where more storage and memory is […]

URVE Board Pi RK3566 SBC comes with RTC, eMMC flash, and M.2 SSD socket

URVE Board PI SBC

URVE Board Pi is a single board computer (SBC) powered by a Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor, 2GB RAM, 8GB eMMC flash, plus the same interfaces as the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B as well as an RTC with a coin-cell battery and an M.2 SSD socket. More specifically, the Rockchip RK3566 board comes with a 4Kp60 capable HDMI 2.0 port, a MIPI DSI/LVDS display interface, a MIPI CSI camera connector,  Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0/2.0 ports, a dual-band WiFi 5.0 and Bluetooth 4.2 wireless module, and the usual 40-pin GPIO header. URVE Board Pi specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 Quad Core Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 GPU, 0.8 TOPS NPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4  (up to 8GB) Storage 8GB eMMC flash (up to 128GB) M.2 PCIe socket for 2242 NVMe SSD MicroSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 1.4/2.2, up to 4Kp60 4-lane […]

VVenC & VVdeC H.266 open source video encoder and decoder work on x86 and Arm

H.266 video decoder windowslinux macOS android

VVenC and VVdeC are open-source software H.266/VCC video encoder and decoder respectively that are optimized to use SIMD instructions on x86 (SSE42/SIMDe and AVX2) and Arm, and the decoder runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android. H.266, aka VCC (Versatile Video Coding) video compression standard was adopted in 2020 promising to reduce data requirements by around 50% compared to the previous H.265/HEVC standard at the same visual quality. H.266 should also outperform the royalty-free AV1 video codec. We hadn’t seen news since the announcement, but this may be changing with the Realtek RTD1319D processor unveiled with support for both 4K H.266 and AV1 video decoding last September, and progress made on the VVenC & VVdeC H.266 open-source software encoder/decoder as been discussed during FOSDEM 2023. The Fraunhofer HHI group has been working on VVdeC and VVenC since the specifications were finalized in 2022. Both are based on VTM reference software […]

9Tripod Pico Pi V2.0 SBC features Rockchip RK3588S SoC in Raspberry Pi 4 form factor

9Tripod Pico Pi V2.0 SBC

9Tripod Pico Pi V2.0 is the third Rockchip RK3588S SBC offering a powerful alternative to Raspberry Pi 4 while keeping the same form factor. It follows the Cool Pi 4 and Radxa ROCK5 Model A single board computers introduced in the last couple of months. The Pico Pi SBC, not to be confused with the Raspberry Pi Pico :), comes with 1GB to 32GB RAM, 4GB to 128GB eMMC flash, and pretty much the same port layout as the Raspberry Pi 4, except for one of the micro HDMI ports being replaced by a USB Type-C port with support for DisplayPort. 9Tripod Pico Pi V2.0 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.2-2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU –  Arm Mali-G610 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2,  OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 support VPU – 8Kp60 video […]

Android 14 developer preview brings enhancements to performance, privacy, security, and user customization

Android 14 developer preview

Google has just released the first developer preview of Android 14 with productivity improvements for developers, as well as enhancements to performance, privacy, security, and user customization. Android 14 aims to work better across devices and form factors with improved support for tablets and foldables and adds window size classes, sliding pane layout, Activity embedding, and box with constraints, etc… To help developers, the company also published “Get started with large screens” documentation and released a Cross-device SDK preview. The new version of the mobile operating systems also further streamlines background work to optimize system health and battery life and provide a better end-user experience. This is achieved through updates to JobScheduler and Foreground Services, optimized broadcasts most of which are internal to Android 14, and a new “Exact alarms” permission since it consumes more resources. Android 14 also introduced some user-facing changes with bigger fonts up to 200% with […]

VAR-SOM-AM62 System-on-Module features TI AM625x Cortex-A53/M4 SoC

Texas Instruments AM625x development board

Variscite VAR-SOM-AM62 is a System-on-Module (SoM) powered by a Texas Instruments Ti AM625x quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.4 GHz with a 400MHz Cortex-M4F cores and 333MHz PRU real-time co-processors to control I/Os. The module also supports up to 4GB RAM and 128GB eMMC flash, features a single or dual-band WiFi + BT/BLE5.2 module, and offers up to 3x CAN Bus, dual GbE, audio, camera in, and dual USB, among other interfaces. It is designed for industrial applications with a -40 to 85°C operating temperature range. VAR-SOM-AM62 specifications: SoC – Texas Instruments Sitara AM62x (AM6252 or AM6254) with Up to 4x Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.4 GHz 1x Ar, Cortex M4F up to @ 400 MHz 1x PRUSS up to @ 333 MHz (only in industrial-grade modules) GPUs – 3D GPU with OpenGL ES 3.1 & Vulkan1.2, 2D graphics engine System Memory – 512MB to 4GB DDR4-3200 RAM @ 800MHz […]

The Wi-R protocol relies on body for data communication, consumes up to 100x less than Bluetooth

Wi-R vs Bluetooth

The Wi-R protocol is a non-radiative near-field communication technology that uses Electro-Quasistatic (EQS) fields for communication enabling the body to be used as a conductor and that consumes up to 100x less energy per bit compared to Bluetooth. In a sense, Wi-R combines wireless and wired communication. Wi-R itself only has a wireless range of 5 to 10cm, but since it also uses the body to which the Wi-R device is attached, the range on the conductor is up to 5 meters. While traditional wireless solutions like Bluetooth create a 5 to 10-meter field around a person, the Wi-R protocol creates a body area network (BAN) that could be used to connect a smartphone to a pacemaker, smartwatch, and/or headphones with higher security/privacy and longer battery life.   One of the first Wi-R chips is Ixana YR11 with up to 1Mbps data rate, and they are working on a YR21 […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC