Banana Pi BPI-M7 – A thin Rockchip RK3588 SBC with dual 2.5GbE, M.2 NVMe storage, HDMI 2.1, and more

Banana Pi BPI-M7

Banana Pi BPI-M7 SBC is powered by a Rockchip RK3588 SoC and comes with a low profile design that reminds me of boards from Khadas such as the Khadas Edge2 or VIM4 SBCs but with a few extra ports thanks to the larger form factor. The Banana Pi BPI-M7 single board computer is equipped with up to 32GB RAM and 128GB eMMC flash and features an M.2 2280 socket for one NVMe SSD, three display interfaces (HDMI, USB-C, MIPI DSI), two camera connectors, dual 2.5GbE, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, a few USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion. Banana Pi BPI-M7 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with CPU – 4x Cortex‑A76  cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex‑A55 core @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 “Odin” GPU Video decoder – 8Kp60 H.265, VP9, AVS2, 8Kp30 H.264 AVC/MVC, 4Kp60 AV1, 1080p60 MPEG-2/-1, VC-1, […]

Lichee Console 4A RISC-V devkit testing – Part 2: benchmarks and features in Debian 12

Sipeed Lichee Console 4A RISC-V devkit review

When checking out the hardware of the Lichee Console 4A portable RISC-V development terminal in the first part of the review, I noted that I had some troubles with the display that did not work properly. I did a little massage to “fix” the display, but unsurprisingly it ended up not being a long-term solution. So I had to open a case a few times and ended up breaking the wires to the fan… Each time I reassembled the device, the display only worked for a few seconds or minutes if at all. So I decided to test the system by keeping it open, as the display is working reliably that way. So I won’t be able to do a proper review testing the device on the go, but I still tested all features and benchmarked the T-Head TH1520 mini laptop with Debian 12, and will report my findings in […]

Vivante NPU (found in Amlogic A311D) gets its open-source driver upstreamed to Mesa

Vivante NPU open source

The Teflon project is an open-source TensorFlow Lite delegate that currently supports VeriSilicon Vivante NPU and aims to support several other AI accelerators over time. The project has recently been upstreamed to Mesa meaning AI inference with open-source software will work out of the box in supported hardware once Mesa 24.1 is released in May 2024. Teflon relies on the Etnaviv open-source driver better known for working with Vivante GPUs found, for instance, in NXP i.MX processors, but Tomeu Vizoso also worked on implementing Vivante NPU support since May 2022 thanks to a sponsorship from Libre Computer and documented the development progress on this blog. The VeriSilicon Vivante “VIPNano-QI.7120” 5 TOPS NPU is found in the Amlogic A311D processor, and Tomeu tested Teflon with the Etnaviv NPU drive on both the Libre Computer AML-A311D-CC Alta and Khadas VIM3 single board computers with decent performance although still slower than with the […]

GEEKOM Mini IT12 Review – Part 3: Ubuntu 22.04 Linux on an Intel Core i7-12650H mini computer

GEEKOM Mini IT12 mini PC Review Ubuntu 22.04 Linux

We first checked out the hardware of GEEKOM Mini IT12 with an unboxing and teardown, before testing the Intel Core i7-12650H mini PC with Windows 11 Pro in the second part of the review, and we’ve now had time to test the device with Ubuntu 22.04 to see how well (or not) it works with a Linux distribution. In the third part of the review, we will report our experience with installing Ubuntu 22.04 on the GEEKOM Mini IT12, checking all main features, and benchmarking the system to evaluate its performance. This includes some networking and storage performance tests, a stress test to check CPU temperature and cooling performance, and the measurement of the fan noise and power consumption. Ubuntu 22.04 installation on GEEKOM Mini IT12 Since we wanted to install Ubuntu 22.04 alongside Windows 11 Pro, we shrunk the Windows 11 partition by about half in the Disk Management […]

FOSDEM 2024 schedule – Open-source embedded, mobile, IoT, robotics, RISC-V, etc..

FOSDEM 2024

FOSDEM – which stands for Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting – is a free-to-participate event where thousands of developers meet in Brussels on the first week-end of February to discuss open-source software & hardware projects. FOSDEM 2024 will take place on February 3-4 with 880 speakers, 818 events, and 66 tracks. Although I won’t attend, I’ve created a virtual schedule like every year with sessions most relevant to the topics covered on CNX Software from the “Embedded, Mobile and Automotive” and “Open Hardware and CAD/CAM” devrooms, but also other devrooms including “FOSS Mobile Devices”, “ Energy: Reimagining this Ecosystem through Open Source”, “RISC-V”, and others. FOSDEM Day 1 – Saturday, February 3, 2024 10:30 – 10:55 – Screen Sharing on Raspberry Pi 5 Using VNC in Weston and Wayland with the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded by Leon Anavi In 2023, embedded Linux developers received eagerly awaited news: […]

LinkStar H28K is a compact travel router with dual gigabit Ethernet based on Rockchip RK3528 SoC

LinkStar H28K Compact Quad Core Travel Router

The LinkStar H28K is a compact travel router equipped with a Rockchip RK3528 processor. It offers two Gigabit Ethernet ports and comes with 4GB of memory and 8GB of eMMC storage, which can be expanded to 512GB using a microSD card. Additionally, it features a 12V Type-C connector with Power Delivery (PD) capability. Sadly this router does not offer Wi-Fi capabilities, but the LinkStar H68K does. We’ve also looked at other small yet powerful routers like the NanoPi R5S, FastRhino R68s, and the Radxa E25.  Additionally, we’ve written about the X88Pro 13 8K TV box built around the same RK3528 SoC as found in the H28K router. LinkStar H28K travel router specifications: Processor – Rockchip RK3528 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.5 GHz Memory – 4GB LPDDR4X Storage: Onboard 8GB eMMC MicroSD card slot (supports up to 512GB) Network: 1x PCIe Gigabit Ethernet port 1x RGMII Gigabit Ethernet Port USB Ports: 1x […]

Jetway launches the JF35-ADN1– A 3.5” Intel N97 SBC designed for industrial robotics applications

Jetway JF35-ADN1

Jetway, an AAEON-affiliated manufacturer, has released a new single-board computer, the JF35-ADN1, targeted at industrial robotics applications. The JF35-ADN1 is a subcompact, 3.5” board that is powered by the Intel N97 (formerly Alder Lake) processor. It features several high-speed interfaces and peripherals for its target applications including two 2.5GbE ports, a total of eight USB 2.0 ports (physical ports and internal connectors), two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (Type-A and Type-C), and supports up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM via a SO-DIMM socket. It can power up to three displays via two HDMI 2.0b ports and a DisplayPort over USB-C port. The Jetway JF35-ADN1 SBC is aimed at Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) applications, but it is stated to be versatile enough to accommodate other uses such as machine vision and payment systems solutions. The JF35-ADN1 features the same Intel N97 processor as AAEON’s Up Xtreme 7100 and is intended for […]

Firefly CT36L AI Smart Camera Features Rockchip RV1106G2 with 0.5 TOPS NPU, 100Mbps Ethernet with PoE support

CT36L AI Smart Camera with POE

Firefly CT36L AI Smart Camera (PoE) features a Rockchip RV1106G2 CPU with 0.5 TOPS NPU, a 5-megapixel ISP, and a 3-megapixel HD lens. It supports 100Mbps Ethernet with PoE and includes advanced image enhancements like HDR, WDR, and noise reduction, all while maintaining low power consumption and high image integration. We’ve previously explored various AI cameras such as Tokay Lite, EDATEC ED-AIC2020, ThinkCore TC-RV1126, Orbbec Persee+, M5Stack UnitV2 among others. Feel free to check them out for more information. Firefly CT36L AI Smart Camera (PoE) specifications: CPU – Rockchip RV1106G2 Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.2GHz, with Neon and FPU NPU – 0.5 TOPS, supports INT4/INT8/INT16, TensorFlow/MXNet/PyTorch/Caffe/Onnx NN ISP – 5MP high-performance, HDR, WDR, 3DNR, 2DNR, sharpening, defogging, fisheye and gamma correction, feature detection VPU – 3072×1728 (5M) @ 30fps H.265/H.264 encoding, 16M@60FPS JPEG snapshot RAM – 128MB DDR3 built-in Storage – 16MB SPI Flash built-in Camera specifications: Type – Color Camera Image Sensor – SC3336 CMOS Size […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC