Radxa Orion O6 is an Arm mini-ITX motherboard with performance similar to Apple M1 and Qualcomm 8cs Gen3 platform thanks to the Cix P1 12-core Armv9 processor with four Cortex-A720 cores clocked at 2.8 GHz, four Cortex-A720 cores at 2.4GHz, and four low-power Cortex-A520 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. The Cix P1 SoC also features an Arm Immortalis-G720 GPU for graphics and AI computing, a 30 TOPS AI accelerator for a combined 45 TOPS of AI inference performance, an 8Kp60 video decoder, and an 8Kp30 video encoder. The Orion O6 SBC ships with up to 64GB LPDDR5, features a 4Kp60 HDMI 2.0 port, a 4Kp120 DP 1.4 connector, two 5Gbps Ethernet ports, M.2 socket for storage and wireless, a PCIe x16 slot, and more. Radxa Orion O6 specifications: SoC – Cix P1 (Codename: CD8180, not the CP8180 variant for AI PCs) 12-core DynamIQ processor 4x Cortex‑A720 big cores @ up […]
Orange Pi CM5 “Tablet” Base Board drops Ethernet for WiFi 5, adds battery support, M.2 socket, 26-pin GPIO header…
The Orange Pi CM5 was launched as an alternative to Raspberry Pi CM4/CM5 last July with a Rockchip RK3588S octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC, up to 16GB LPDDR4x, 256GB eMMC flash, and three board-to-board connectors maintaining partially compatibility with the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. At the time, Orange Pi also introduced the Orange Pi CM5 Base Board with HDMI 2.1, one Gigabit Ethernet port, two 2.5GbE ports, USB 3.0/2.0 ports, four camera connectors, and more. The company has now launched the Orange Pi CM5 “Tablet” Base Board without Ethernet ports, making use of WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 for networking instead. It keeps many of the same features but adds a 26-pin GPIO header, an M.2 Key-M socket for SSD storage, DP 1.4 and MIPI DSI display interfaces, and various audio interfaces. However, it does with “only” three camera interfaces. It’s quite thick to be used in a typical tablet, but […]
$249 NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit targets generative AI applications at the edge
NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit is an upgrade to the Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit with 1.7 times more generative AI performance, a 70% increase in performance to 67 INT8 TOPS, and about half the price, making it a great development platform for generative AI at the edge, mostly robotics. We’ve seen several AI boxes and boards in the last year capable of offline generative AI applications like the Firefly AIO-1684XQ motherboard or Radxa Fogwise Airbox which I reviewed with Llama3, Stable diffusion, Imgsearch, etc… A product like the Fogwise Airbox delivers up to 32 TOPS (INT8) and sells for around $330 which was very competitive then (June 2024). However, the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit will certainly disrupt the market with over twice the performance, a lower price, and a larger developer community. NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super specifications: NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 8GB Module CPU […]
Nuvoton NuMicro MA35D1 SoM and SBC target industrial control, edge IoT gateway, and HMI applications
Forlinx Embedded OK-MA35-S21 SBC is based on the company’s FET-MA35-S2 SoM powered by a Nuvoton Numicro MA35D1 Arm Cortex-A35/M4F microprocessor, and offered with up to 1GB RAM and an 8GB eMMC flash. Designed for applications such as charging piles, HMI, industrial control, medical equipment, new energy, edge gateways, smart buildings, and smart agriculture, the MA35D1 SoM supports dual Gigabit Ethernet, CAN FD, up to 17x UART, 16x analog input, etc.. and the SBC further integrates RS485 and RS232 terminal blocks, WiFi and Bluetooth, and optional 4G LTE connectivity Forlinx FET-MA35-S2 SoM Specifications: SoC – Nuvoton NuMicro MA35D1 CPU 2x Arm Cortex-A35 cores at up to 800 MHz Arm Cortex-M4 processor core at up to 180 MHz GPU – 2D Graphic Engine (GFX) VPU – H.264 video decoder up to 1920×1080 @ 45 Hz; JPEG Image Decoder System Memory – 512MB/1GB DDR3L Storage – 8GB eMMC flash Carrier board interfaces – […]
iKOOLCORE R2 Max review – Part 2: 10GbE on an Intel N100 mini PC with OpenWrt (QWRT), Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04 and pfSense 2.7.2
I’ve already checked out iKOOLCORE R2 Max hardware in the first part of the review with an unboxing and a teardown of the Intel N100 system with two 10GbE ports and two 2.5GbE ports. I’ve now had more time to test it with an OpenWrt fork, Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04, and pfSense, so I’ll report my experience in the second and final part of the review. As a reminder, since I didn’t have any 10GbE gear so far, iKOOLCORE sent me two R2 Max devices, a fanless model and an actively-cooled model. I was told the fanless one was based on Intel N100 SoC, and the actively-cooled one was powered by an Intel Core i3-N305 CPU, but I ended up with two Intel N100 devices. The fanless model will be an OpenWrt 23.05 (QWRT) server, and the actively cooled variant be the device under test/client with Proxmox VE 8.3 server […]
STM32-powered MM6108-EKH05 Wi-Fi HaLow evaluation kit supports Bluetooth, Camera, and Qwicc/MikroBus modules
Morse Micro has recently launched the MM6108-EKH05 Wi-Fi HaLow Evaluation Kit designed to reduce the development and deployment time of IoT products. Built around the Morse Micro MM6108 HaLow SoC, this kit combines long-range, low-power wireless connectivity with a range of integrated sensors, making it ideal for IoT engineers and developers. Key features include Wi-Fi HaLow connectivity, an STM32U585 Cortex-M33 MCU, integrated sensors (temperature, humidity, accelerometer), 16 MB of SPI Flash memory, programmable GPIOs, power measurement tools, and WPA3 security for reliable and secure communication. The kit also includes alternative power options including USB, battery, or external power, and embeds support for a camera, MikroBus and Qwicc expansion modules, Bluetooth, and current measurement circuitry. All these features make this kit useful for applications including smart homes, industrial automation, and agricultural monitoring. MM6108-EKH05 specifications: MCU – STM32U585 Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller @ 160 MHz with TrustZone, 2 MB Flash Storage – 16Mbit […]
How to use iperf3 in multi-thread mode for 10Gps+ Ethernet testing
With 10GbE becoming more widespread and often found in entry-level hardware, the CPU may become the bottleneck, so I’ll explain how to use iperf3 in multi-thread mode to fully saturate the 10GbE bandwidth even with a system based on a relatively low-end multi-core processor.
For this tutorial, I use two iKOOCORE R2 Max mini PCs with two 10GbE interfaces each and an Intel N100 quad-core processor running an OpenWrt fork (QWRT) and Proxmox VE (Debian) respectively. I will show how I can fully saturate the 10GbE interfaces using multithreading, but not with a typical iperf3 single-core test.
HUNSN RJ42 and RJ43 Intel N150 fanless network appliances and mini PCs come with four 2.5GbE ports, four video outputs
We’ve previously seen the new Intel N150 “Twin Lake” processor in mini PCs such as Beelink EQ14 and ASUS NUC 14 Essential among others, but the new quad-core CPU is now also found in HUNSN RJ42 and RJ43 fanless network appliances with four 2.5GbE RJ45 ports. They also double as mini PCs with multiple video outputs and USB ports. The mini PCs ship with up to 32GB RAM and 512GB of storage, support four independent displays through HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB-C interfaces, and offer five USB Type-A ports for expansion. The HUNSN RJ42 and RJ43 offer a similar set of features as previous Intel N100 network appliances with 2.5GbE ports such as the iKOOLCORE R2 and INCTEL N100, but with a slightly faster Intel N150 “Alder Lake-N Refresh” or “Twin Lake” processor thanks to higher clock speeds, and extra interfaces. HUNSN RJ42/RJ43 specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N150 quad-core “Twin […]