First introduced in 2022, the Khadas VIM4 SBC will now sell with an Amlogic A311D2-N0D Cortex-A73/A53 processor equipped with a 3.2 TOPS NPU, and the version without AI accelerator will be phased out. I reviewed the Khadas VIM4 with both Android 11 and Ubuntu 22.04 last year, and really liked the user experience notably thanks to the OOWOW system that makes it really easy to try different operating systems downloaded from Khadas servers, although some features like support for GPU acceleration still needed to be worked on at the time. One thing missing compared to the previous generation Khadas VIM3 SBC was an on-chip NPU to accelerate AI workloads, and the latest revision of the Amlogic A311D2 processor (with N0D suffix) fixes that on the Khadas VIM4. “Khadas VIM4 with NPU” specifications: SoC – Amlogic A311D2-N0D octa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A73 cores @ up to 2.2 GHz and 4x […]
Orange Pi 800 Keyboard PC gets 128GB flash storage
The Orange Pi 800 keyboard PC, launched as an alternative to the Raspberry Pi 400 last year with a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core Cortex-A72/A53 processor and 4GB RAM, has gotten an upgrade to 128GB of eMMC flash instead of just 64GB. The keyboard PC still comes with HDMI 2.0 and VGA video outputs, built-in speakers and microphone, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5 connectivity, a few USB ports, and a 78-key QWERTY keyboard, plus a 26-GPIO connector accessible without opening the device. Orange Pi 800 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 cores up to 1.8GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.4GHz, and an Arm Mali-T860MP4 GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 128GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 VGA port up to Full HD resolution Audio 3.5mm audio (headphone+mic) jack Integrated speaker(s) and microphone Digital […]
MangoPi mCore-R818 module powers CyberPad 3.1-inch handheld android “tablet”
mCore-R818 is the first time that MangoPi adopts the design combination of a core-lite module and a carrier board. As its name suggests, it is an AllWinner R818 SoM whose SoC integrates an Imagination PowerVR GE8300 GPU for UI rendering, can drive MIPI DSI, LVDS, and RGB displays, as well as cameras through a MIPI CSI interface, 8MP/5MP/2MP interfaces. The Allwinner R818 system-on-module powers a feature-rich carrier board as well as an upcoming Cyberpad Android “tablet” with a 3.1-inch display. MangoPi mCore-R818 The package design of the processor itself is small, so the MCore-R818 core board is only 3x3cm in size, but still contains four components with the Allwinner R818, the eMMC flash, LPDDR4 memory, and the AXP717 PMU. MangoPi provides two hardware configurations: 2GB DDR with 16GB eMMC flash, and 4GB DDR with 32GB eMMC flash. MCore-R818 Core Lite Specifications: SoC – Allwinner R818 CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 […]
NXP i.MX 91 single-core Cortex-A55 SoC to power Linux-based cost-optimized edge devices
NXP has just unveiled the NXP i.MX 91 single-core Cortex-A55 processor following the introduction of the i.MX 93 in 2021, and designed for cost-optimized edge devices running Linux. The NXP i.MX 93 processor comes with up to two Cortex-A55 cores, a Cortex-M33 real-time core, and an Ethos U65 microNPU, but targeting entry-level Linux systems, the NXP i.MX 91 processor does without the real-time core and the AI acceleration, while still integrating NXP EdgeLock Secure Enclave, and the company highlights support for multiple wireless connectivity options through companion chips such as the IW612 that supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, 802.15.4, and the new Matter protocol. NXP i.MX 91 specifications: CPU – Arm Cortex-A55 running at up to 1.4GHz with 256KB L2 cache System Memory – Up to 2.4GT/s x16 LPDDR4 with Inline ECC Storage 3x SD 3.0, SDIO 3.0, eMMC 5.1 1x Octal SPI including support for SPI NOR and SPI […]
Review of BIGTREETECH Pad 7 Klipper pad with Creality Ender-3 Pro S1 3D printer
I received the BIGTREETECH Pad 7 7-inch Klipper pad and tablet PC for review earlier this month. I’ve already tested it with a Raspberry Pi CM4 as a Linux tablet PC with touchscreen, and I’ve now reinstalled the BTT CB1 Allwinner H616 system-on-module to run the pre-install Klipper OS and connect the Pad 7 to a Creality Ender-3 Pro S1 3D printer. When I first booted the Pad 7 it ended up with an error message from Klipper complaining about a missing configuration file. I connected to WiFi and update all software packages, but it didn’t help. It’s just because the Pad 7 needs to be configured for a specific printer. We can do so through the web dashboard accessible through a web browser going to http://btt-pad7.local (unless you’d changed the hostname in the system) We’ve got the same error shown in the web interface as Klipper needs to be […]
SMARC 2.1 system-on-module is powered by an Intel Alder Lake-N Atom x7000E, Processor, or Core i3 processor
TQ-Embedded TQMxE41S is a SMARC 2.1 system-on-module (SoM) powered by an Intel Alder Lake-N Atom x7000E, Processor Nxxx, or Core i3 processor with a TDP ranging from 6W to 15W TDP, up to 16GB LPDDR5-4800 memory and up to 256GB industrial iNAND eMMC flash. The Alder Lake-N system-on-module exposes two 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, four PCIe, USB 3.2, and SATA through its 314-pin edge connector as per SMARC 2.1, while the 12th generation Intel UHD Graphics in the SoC supports AVX256 and advanced AI instruction sets (VNNI) making it suitable for fast AI inferencing and media transcoding. The company expects the module to be integrated into applications in healthcare, IoT, industry/robotics, retail, and video & conferencing. TQEmbedded TQMxE41S specifications: Alder Lake-N SoC (one or the other) Intel Core i3-N305 – 8C/8T, (1.8 – 3.8 GHz); 6 MB Smart Cache, 15W TDP or 9W cTDP, 32 EU, Intel UHD Graphics (up to […]
ARIES FIVEberry – A Community RISC-V SBC powered by Renesas RZ/Five processor
ARIES Embedded has unveiled the FIVEberry 64-bit RISC-V community board for fast prototyping fitted with an OSM-compatible MSRZFive system-in-package (SiP) powered by a 1GHz Renesas RZ/Five microprocessor. The board is equipped with a module with 512 DDR4, a 128MBit SPI NOR flash, a microSD card on the bottom of the board, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a micro USB port for serial console, and a JTAG header for further debugging, as well as a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion. FIVEberry specifications: SoM – ARIES Embedded MSRZFive-A0A system-on-module SoC – Renesas RZ/Five R9A07G043F01GBG single-core RISC-V AX45MP processor @ to 1.0 GHz System Memory – 512MB DDR4 RAM Storage – 128Mbit SPI NOR flash 332 contacts as per OSM Size-S specifications Storage – MicroSD card slot Networking – 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x micro USB 2.0 OTG port Expansion – 40-pin GPIO […]
Snagboot is an open-source cross-vendor recovery tool for embedded targets
Bootlin has just released the Snagboot open-source recovery tool for embedded platforms designed to work with multiple vendors, and currently STMicro STM32MP1, Microchip SAMA5, NXP i.MX6/7/8, Texas Instruments AM335x and AM62x, and Allwinner “sunxi” processors are supported. Silicon vendors usually provide firmware flashing tools, some closed-source binaries, that only work with their hardware. So if you work on STM32MP1 you’d use STM32CubeProgrammer, while SAM-BA is the tool for Microchip processors, NXP i.MX SoC relies on UUU, and if you’ve ever worked on Allwinner processors you’re probably family with sunxi-fel. Bootlin aims to replace all those with the Snagboot recovery tool. The Python tool is comprised of two parts: snagrecover using vendor-specific ROM code mechanisms to initialize external RAM and run the bootloader (typically U-Boot) without modifying any non-volatile memories. snagflash communicates with the bootloader over USB to flash system images to non-volatile memories, using either DFU, USB Mass Storage, or […]