Allwinner R818 SoC is made for smart speakers with a screen

Allwinner R818

We’ve previously covered several Allwinner R-Series processors designed for smart speakers such as Allwinner R328 and R329 dual-core Cortex-A53 processors with the latter include a small AI accelerator from Arm China. But the Chinese company has recently a new more powerful quad-core processor with Allwinner R818 suitable for smart speakers with a screen, also called “smart displays”. Allwinner R818 specifications: CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.6 GHz with 32KB L1 I-cache + 32KB L1 D-cache per core, 512KB L2 cache, and CoolFlex power management architecture GPU – Imagination PowerVR GE8300 with support for OpenGL ES3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 1.2 Memory I/F – DDR3/DDR3L/DDR4/LPDDR3/LPDDR4, 32-bit width, up to 4GB Storage I/F – eMMC 5.1, 8-bit parallel NAND Flash, SPI NAND flash Video Unit H.265 video decoder 4K @ 30fps, H.264 video decoder 4K @ 30fps, VP9 video decoder 720p @ 30fps H.264 video encoder 1080p @ 60fps MJPEG/JPEG Baseline encoder […]

Xilinx Introduces Kria K26 SoM and vision AI devkit based on Zynq Ultrascale+ XCK26 FPGA MPSoC

Kria V260 Vision AI Starter Kit

Silicon vendors will usually focus on chip design, and provide an expensive evaluation kit to early customers, leaving the design of cost-optimized boards and system-on-modules to embedded systems companies. But Xilinx has decided to enter the latter market with the Kria portfolio of adaptive system-on-modules (SOMs) and production-ready small form factor embedded boards starting with Kria K26 SoM powered by Zynq UltraScale+ XCK26 FPGA MPSoC with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor, up to 250 thousand logic cells, and a H.264/265 video codec designed for Edge AI applications, as well as computer vision development kit. Kria K26 System-on-Module Kria K26 module specifications: MPSoC – Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ custom-built XCK26 with quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor  up to 1.5GHz, dual-core Arm Cortex-R5F real-time processor up to 600MHz, Mali-400 MP2 GPU up to 667MHz, 4Kp60 VPU, 26.6Mb On-Chip SRAM, 256K logic cells, 1,248 DSP slices System Memory – 4GB 64-bit DDR4 (non-ECC) Storage – […]

Mecool KT1 4K AV1 capable Android TV STB ships with DVB-T2 tuner

Mecool KT1

Amlogic S905X4 TV boxes such as Mecool KM6 have already been available for a few months with the main selling being support for 4K AV1 video hardware decoding. But if you’d like to watch AV1 YouTube or Netflix videos, and also get free-to-air channels using older codecs, Mecool KT1 adds a DVB-T2 TV tuner that works in the EMEA region, some Asian countries, Oceania, and a few other countries that adopted the standard. Mecool KT1 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X4 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G31MP2 supporting OpenGL ES3.2, Vulkan 1.1, and OpenCL 2.0 System Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, MicroSD/SDXC card socket Video & Audio Output HDMI 2.1 up to 4K @ 60Hz with CEC, HDCP2.2, HDR AV output with composite video and analog stereo audio Video Playback Codecs AV1 up to 4K @ 60 fps H.265 HEVC […]

Zoom i.MX 8M Mini Development Kit supports power usage monitoring

Beacon EmbeddedWorks iMX8M Som & Devkit

NXP i.MX 8M Mini 14nm Cortex-A53/M4 processor has been around for a couple of years, and several SoM-based development kits are available including Variscite Symphony starter kit, HummingBoard Ripple SBC, or congatec conga-SEVAL007010 evaluation board. Beacon EmbeddedWorks’ Zoom i.MX 8M mini development kit is based on the company’s i.MX 8M Nano System on Module (SOM) and offers features not found on most other devkits or single board computers such as power usage monitoring and control through their Wattson power measurement application. Zoom i.MX 8M mini development kit key features & specifications: System-on-Module SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor with up to four Arm Cortex-A53 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz, an Arm Cortex-M4 real-time core at up to 400 MHz, Vivante 3D & 2D GPU’s System Memory – Up to 8GB of 32-bit wide LPDDR4 memory Storage – eMMC flash, QSPI NOR flash Networking Gigabit Ethernet PHY Wireless module […]

Quartz64 Model B SBC revealed, Model A gets hit by production delays

Quartz64 Model B

Pine64 unveiled the Quartz64 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3566 processor a few months ago. More specifically they provided details about Quartz64 Model A at the time, a featured-rich variant with SATA, PCIe, multiple display outputs, etc… During the announcement, Pine64 also indicated a Raspberry Pi-sized Quartz Model B was in the works but did not have a prototype to showcase just yet. In the latest Pine64 April update, the community showcased the new board,  reported software progress, and information about production delays for Model A. Quartz64 Model B Specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor up to 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1, 0.8 TOPS NPU for AI acceleration System Memory – 2GB to 8GB LPDDR4 Storage 128 Mbit SPI Flash optional eMMC module from 16GB up to 128GB capacity bootable SDHC/SDXC MicroSD card up to 2TB Video Output / Display […]

AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 series on COM Express Compact (Sponsored)

conga-TCV2 AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 COM Express

8 cores for heterogeneous edge computing Tasks at the embedded edge are getting more and more complex. Supporting up to 8 cores and 16 threads, the recently-launched AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 processors are paving the way for x86-based embedded designs with unprecedented compute density and performance per watt. congatec is offering the new Zen 2 based processor generation, which complements V1000 processor technology with 6- and 8-core versions, on COM Express Compact modules. As the trend towards more IIoT connectivity and digitization continues, embedded systems must handle a growing number of tasks. Additional tasks include the collection of application data that needs to be transcoded, and sometimes analyzed locally using artificial intelligence (AI). In parallel, data must be exchanged with customers’ enterprise clouds and other OEM apps, and this communication must be highly secure, because new pay-per-use models turn the devices, machines, and systems into an OEM revenue source that […]

T95 Plus Android 11 TV Box features Rockchip RK3566 AIoT processor, 8GB RAM

T95 Plus RK3566

Last month, we wrote about the first Rockchip RK3566 TV box we had seen so far with a new version of the H96 Max TV box running Android 11 with up to 8GB RAM. While Rockchip RK3566 processor has multimedia capabilities with 4K HDR video playback and output, it has many other interfaces such as native PCIe and SATA that would not make it as cost-effective as TV Box SoC’s like Rockchip RK3328 or Amlogic S905X4. But this does not stop companies from making TV boxes with the AIoT processor, and T95 Plus TV box offers another option, again with up to 8GB RAM. T95 Plus specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 EE GPU, 0.8 TOPS NPU/AI accelerator System Memory – 4GB, 6GB, or 8GB RAM Storage – 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0a […]

Google releases the source code for Lyra low bitrate speech codec

Lyra source code

Google showcased Lyra audio codec for high-quality voice calls at a low 3 kbps bitrate last February. But at the time, it was only for our eyes to see, or rather our ears to listen to, as the company did not release any software, but only audio samples with excellent quality compared to Speex @ 3 kbps or Opus @ 6 kbps. Google has now released the Lyra source code, written in C++ for optimal speed, efficiency, and interoperability and relying on both the Bazel build framework and the GoogleTest framework. The beta release provides the tools and APIs needed for Lyra encoding and decoding, and is currently optimized for the 64-bit Arm Android platform, but can also be run in Linux x86 64-bit. There is also an example app – lyra_android_example – that integrates with the Android NDK and offers a minimal GUI with two buttons to either record […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design