AMD Unveils Ryzen Embedded R1000 Dual Core Processors

Ryzen Embedded R1000

Last year, AMD launched Ryzen Embedded V1000 series processor found in UDOO BOLT single board computer, industrial motherboards, and rugged mini PCs. The company has now introduced their second Ryzen Embedded processor family with AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 SoC based on the same Zen cores, and offering 3x the performance per watt against the previous AMD R-Series SoC, and 4x the performance per dollar compared to a system based on an Intel Core i3-7100U Kaby Lake processor. AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 processors all come with two cores / four thread configuration, 1MB L2 cache, 4MB L3 cache, VEGA 3 graphics, support for three 4K displays, 4K60 video decode & encode, dual 10Gbit Ethernet, and a TDP configurable between 12W and 25W. Two Ryzen Embedded R1000 processors have been announced so far: Ryzen Embedded R1606G with 2.6 GHz base frequency, 3.5 GHz one-thread boost frequency, and 1.2 GHz GPU Ryzen Embedded […]

Getting Started with balenaFin Developer Kit, balenaOS and balenaCloud

balenaFIN USB programming

balena Fin is a carrier board for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3/3+ designed specifically for industrial applications leveraging fleet management services provided by Balena. I received balenaFin developer kit last month, and in the first part of the reviewed shows how to assemble the kit. I’m now had time to spend more time with the kit, as well as BalenaOS Linux based operating system optimized for running Docker containers on embedded devices, and balenaCloud services to manage a fleet of devices from a web dashboard. I’ve mostly followed the instructions in the getting started guides here and there, and will document what I had to do to prepare the image, flash it to the board, and load a sample docker application locally, and through balenaCloud. Downloading and Configuring BalenaOS for balena Fin You’ll find BalenaOS in the download page. While we are using hardware based on a Raspberry Pi Compute […]

MINIX NEO Z83-4U Review – Ubuntu 18.04, Kodi 18, and Xibo Digital Signage

MINIX NEO Z83-4U Review

MINIX NEO Z83-4U is a Cherry Trail mini PC pre-loaded with Ubuntu 18.04. I received a sample a little while ago, and in the first part of NEO Z83-4U review I checked out the specifications and hardware that appears to be exactly the same a MINIX NEO Z83-4 Pro mini PC, except for the eMMC flash capacity that has increased from 32GB to 64GB. Since the mini PC comes with an older Atom X5-Z8350 processor, and is designed for commercial applications, I’ve decided to make a slightly different review. We already now how the system is supposed to perform thanks to benchmarks with NEO Z83-4 mini PC running Windows 10 Pro, so I’ll just check the main features are working as expected in Ubuntu 18.04, test audio & video support in Kodi 18.1, and try out Xibo Linux open source digital signage CMS and player on the mini PC. MINIX […]

ARBOR Introduces SOM-RP301 Rockchip PX30 SoM for Retail Kiosks

SOM-RP301 Rockchip PX30 SoM

Rockchip PX30 is a quad core Cortex-A35 processor with a dual VOP (Video Output Processor) in order to drive two independent displays, that has low power consumption, low thermal requirements, and that we previously found in some car infotainment systems. But the processor is also suitable for other applications, and ARBOR Technology recently launched SOM-RP301 system-on-module based on the PX30 processor, and specifically designed for fanless retail kiosks such as electronic restaurant menus, automated currency exchange machines, ticketing kiosks and more. SOM-RP301 system-on-module specifications: SoC – Rockchip PX30 quad core Cortex-A35 processor @ 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB LPDDR3 (Up to 4GB as option) Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash Connectivity – Fast Ethernet transceiver, 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 + Bluetooth 4.0 module Edge Connector – SO-DIMM connector with Display – LVDS or MIPI DSI Camera – MIPI CSI RX interface with 8MP ISP […]

ODROID-N2 GPU Drivers, Linux 5.0, and Impressive glmarks-es2 Score

Ubuntu 18.04 Gnome Wayland ODROID-N2

ODROID-N2 was announced last February for $63 (2GB RAM), and $79 (4GB RAM), but Hardkernel was not quite ready to take orders at the time. One of the good news is that the 4GB RAM is now available for pre-order with shipping scheduled to start on April 3. Another good news is on the software side with Hardkernel having released the userland Mali-G52 Wayland driver. It does not work well with Linux 4.9 due to incomplete DRM implementation, but it goes work with Linux 5.0 plus some modifications as further discussed in the aforelinked forum thread. The screenshot above, courtesy of odroid forum member memeka , shows ODROID-N2 running Ubuntu 18.04 + Gnome3 + Linux 5.0 on top of Wayland with GPU drivers providing acceleration as shown by glmark2-es2-wayland test program. The benchmark results are pretty impressive:

I’ve never seen such as high score (1,119 points) on Arm hardware. […]

AI Core XM2280 M.2 Card is Equipped with two Myriad X 2485 VPUs

AI Core XM2280

AAEON released UP AI Core mPCIe card with a Myriad 2 VPU (Vision Processing Unit) last year. But the company also has an AI Core X family powered by the more powerful Myriad X VPU with the latest member being AI Core XM2280 M.2 card featuring not one, but two Myriad X 2485 VPUs coupled with 1GB LPDDR4 RAM (512MB x2). The card supports Intel OpenVINO toolkit v4 or greater, and is compatible with Tensorflow and Caffe AI frameworks. AI Core XM2280 M.2 specifications: VPU – 2x Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU, MA2485 System Memory – 2x 4Gbit LPDDR4 Host Interface – M.2 connector Dimensions – 80 x 22 mm (M.2 M+B key form factor) Certification – CE/FCC Class A Operating Temperature – 0~50°C Operating Humidity – 10%~80%RH, non-condensing The card works with Intel Vision Accelerator Design SW SDK available for Ubuntu 16.04, and Windows 10. Thanks to the two […]

ZED Depth and Motion Tracking Camera Supports NVIDIA Jetson Nano Board

ZED depth camera Jetson Nano

When NVIDIA launched their low cost Jetson Nano development board earlier this week, one reader asked whether it would support binocular depth mapping. It turns out Stereo Labs has updated the SDK (Software Development Kit) for the ZED depth and motion tracking camera in order to support the latest NVIDIA developer kit. Jetson Nano can manage depth and positional tracking at 30 fps in PERFORMANCE mode with 720p resolution, and while the more powerful and expensive Jetson TX2 achieves doubles the performance at 60 fps, it does so at a much higher cost. ZED depth and motion tracking camera specifications: Video 2.2K @ 15 fps (4416×1242 resolution) 1080p @ 30 fps (3840×1080 resolution) 720p @ 60 fps (2560×720 resolution) WVGA @ 100 fps (1344×376 resolution) Depth Resolution – Same as selected video resolution Range – 0.5 to 20 m Format – 32-bits Stereo Baseline – 120 mm Motion 6-axis Pose […]

UP Xtreme Board to Feature Intel Whiskey Lake Processor

UP Extreme SBC

AAEON launched their UP board family back in 2015 with the original board featuring an Atom X5 Cherry Trail processor. Since then they’ve launched other models all based on processors with 10W or lower TDP (Thermal Design Power) such as UP Squared Apollo Lake development board. But the company has now upped the ante by going with Intel Core-U series Whiskey Lake processors (15W TDP) in their upcoming UP Xtreme single board computer (SBC) that will feature some of those Core i3/i5/i7 processors. UP Xtreme specifications: SoC- Intel Dual/Quad Core “Whiskey Lake” Core i3/i5/i7 processor @ 1.8 GHz (Boost frequnecy up to 3.9GHz for i3/i5, up to 4.6 GHz for i7) with Intel UHD graphics 620; 15W TDP System Memory – Up to 16GB dual-channel DDR4 memory (soldered on-board) Storage – 16GB to 128GB eMMC 5.1 flash, 1x SATA connector with power connector Video Output 1x eDP with backlight control […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC