Atmel Introduces SAMA5D2 Cortex A5 SoC with Extended Temperature Range, Lower Power Consumption

Today, the news broke out that Atmel will be bought by Dialog Semiconductor for about $4.6 billion. The Anglo-German company is little known as their main products are PMIC, audio and connectivity chips, but they’ve still managed to get the financing to purchase Atmel. But that’s not the purpose of the post today, and instead I’ll cover a new SAMA5 Cortex A5 SoC recently announced by the company, targeting industrial Internet of Things, wearables and point of sale applications. SAMA5D2 key features and benefits: ARM Cortex-A5 core running at 500MHz (785DMIPS). Floating point unit (FPU) for high-precision computing and accelerated data processing. 128KB of L2 cache for system performance Low power consumption Less than 150mW in active mode at 500MHz with all peripherals activated Less than 0.5mW in low power mode with SRAM and registers retention Sub 200µA in retention mode with context preserved New backup mode with DDR in […]

MeegoPad T05, T06, T07 HDMI TV Sticks Feature Intel Atom X5 Processors, 2 to 4 GB RAM

Most low cost mini PCs based on Bay Trail or Cherry Trail processor come with only 2GB RAM, which may limit what you can do on such device, and limits multi-tasking abilities. MeegoPad T05 and T06 HDMI sticks will allow you to do more thanks to 4GB RAM connected to a quad core Intel Atom x5-Z8500 a x5-Z8500 processors, while MeegoPad T07 is still limited to 2GB RAM, and features the same x5-Z8300 processor found in Tronsmart Ara X5. MeegoPad T05, T06, T07 preliminary specifications [Update: the specs appear to change daily, see https://plus.google.com/+IanMORRISON/posts/T6MtT6PfVvV]: SoC T05, T06 – Intel Atom x5-Z8500 “Cherry Trail” quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz (Turbo frequency: 2.24 GHz) with Intel Gen8 HD graphics (2W SDP) T07 – Intel Atom x5-Z8300 “Cherry Trail” quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz (Turbo frequency: 1.84 GHz) with Intel Gen8 HD graphics (2W SDP) System Memory –  T05, T06: 4GB […]

Qualcomm Unveils Octa-core Cortex A53 Snapdragon 430 and 617 Processors

Qualcomm has unveiled two new octacore 64-bit ARM processors for mid-range smartphones with Snapdragon 430 and Snapdragon 617 Cortex A53 SoCs, both of which support the recently announced Quick Charge 3.0 standard and embed LTE connectivity. Snapdragon 430 Snapdragon 430 key features and specifications: CPU – 8x ARM Cortex A53 up to 1.2 GHz GPU – Qualcomm Adreno 505 GPU supporting up to OpenGL ES 3.1+ DSP – Qualcomm Hexagon 536 DSP Memory –  LPDDR3 800MHz Storage –  eMMC 5.1, SD 3.0 (UHS-I) Modem – Snapdragon X6 LTE – LTE Cat 4 (up to 150 Mbps DL/75 Mbps UL) Wireless Connectivity – WiFi 802.11n/ac  (Qualcomm VIVE 2-stream with MU-MIMO),  Bluetooth 4.1 + BLE, GPS (Qualcomm IZat Gen8C) Display – Up to 1080p on device and output Video – Up to 1080p at 30 FPS; Codecs: H.264 (AVC), H.265 (HEVC) Audio – Fluence HD noise cancellation technology Camera – Up to […]

Arbor HTab Android Tablet Powered by TI OMAP 4470 Targets Hospital Patients

Texas Instruments exited the consumer market a couple of years ago, to focus on higher margins industrial, automotive and healthcare markets. While you won’t find any recent consumer tablets with a Texas Instruments processor, Arbor recently launched Htab, a “bedside turn-key solution combining healthcare and patient entertainment service” powered by Texas Instruments OMAP4470 dual core Cortex A9 processor, and featuring a 10″ touchscreen display with 1280x 800 resolution. Some of Arbor HTab hardware specifications: SoC – Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 dual core Cortex A9 processor @ 1.5 GHz System Memory – 1GB LPDDR2 Storage – 8GB eMMC Flash + micro SD slot storage (Max. 32GB) Display – 10.1” LCD at 1280×800 resolution with 10-point projected capacitive multi-touch POE connectivity option reduces installation costs Micro USB for external device connectivity 2.0MP Webcam RFID Tag Support – ISO15693, ISO14443A/B, Felica, Mifare, Tag-it, ST LRI 1K and ST M24LRXX Complies with EN60601-1 & […]

Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 Promises to Charge Phones About 3x Faster Than Conventional Devices

Qualcomm has recently announced the latest version of its Quick Charge technology that allows to charge supported smartphones much faster than typical smartphones using a 5V charger. The company claims that Quick Charge 3.0 enabled smartphones can typicallly charge from zero to 80 percent in about 35 minutes compared to almost 90 minutes with conventional devices. Quick Charge 3.0 adds support for Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage (INOV), a new algorithm developed by Qualcomm Technologies that allows mobile devices to request optimal power transfer (3.6V to 20V in 200mV increments), while maximizing efficiency, which – together with other improvements – increases power efficient by 38% compared to Quick Charge 2.0, and allows charging the device twice as fast as possible with Quick Charge 1.0. That means the voltage and amperage will change during charging between 3.6V to 20V by 200mV increments, instead of 5V, 9V, 12V, and 20V for QC […]

Own-Mailbox is a Tiny, Secure, and Open Source Hardware Mail Server (Crowdfunding)

Email encryption has been around for a while, but virtually nobody uses it, because it’s quite complex to setup, and your recipients email clients, apps or browsers must also support encryption. Revolutek aims to simplify the setup and usage of encrypted email with their “Own-Mailbox” based on open source hardware and software technology. The hardware solution could have been based on the Raspberry Pi board in theory, but the popular board requires a closed source binary to boot, documentation about part of the hardware is lacking, and once the enclosure, and required accessories are included the price would have been higher. So instead they decided to design their own hardware based on an Allwinner processor: SoC – Allwinner A13 Cortex A8 processor @ 1GHz System Memory – 256 MB RAM Storage – (micro?) SD card slot with 16GB card included Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet (Lan9500A controller) USB – USB host […]

Zidoo Releases Kodi Source Code Modifications for Rockchip RK3368 and Allwinner H3

Kodi is a popular open source media center, but many companies will not simply install the version released on Kodi.org, and instead modify the source code to bring their own improvements. However most companies never release the source as they ought to as per the GPL license used by Kodi. The good news is that Zidoo released their modifications for Rockchip RK3368 and Allwinner H3. Their modifications include support for 3D MVC,7.1 Channel HD Audio pass through, and HW decoding for Rockchip RK3368, and 5.1 audio pass-through, 4K @ 30 fps, and H.265 hardware video decoding for Allwinner H3.  You can read the announcement on Kodi forums for RK3368 (Kodi 15.1) and H3 (Kodi 14.2). Kodi 15.1 source code for Rockchip RK3368 can be found on github (make sure to use zidoo-15.1 branch, and not master). In order to build Kodi yourself, you’ll however need the latest version of Rockchip […]

Open Hour Gecko 4K Android Player Features Hisilicon Hi3798M Processor

Cloud Media has just introduced yet another media player with Open Hour Gecko, an Android TV box powered by Hisilicon Hi3798M quad core Cortex A7 processor supporting H.265 and video output up to 4K @ 30Hz. Open Hour Gecko specifications: SoC – HiSilicon Hi3798M quad core ARM Cortex A7 processor @ 1.5GHz with a quad core ARM Mali-450MP GPU. System Memory – 1 GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND Flash + micro SD slot Video Out – HDMI up to 4K @ 30Hz, and 3.5 mm jack AV jack Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and optical S/PDIF Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, built-in 802.11 b/g/n WiFi with external antenna USB – 1x USB 3.0 port, 1x USB 2.0 host port Misc – Power switch (On/Off) Power Supply – 5V/2A Dimensions – N/A The device ships with a power adapter, HDMI and AV cables, a remote control with batteries, a Quick Start […]

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