Category: Broadcom BCMxxxx

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Linux 4.2 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linux 4.2 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 4.2 last Sunday: So judging by how little happened this week, it wouldn’t have been a mistake to release 4.2 last week after all, but hey, there’s certainly a few fixes here, and it’s not like delaying 4.2 for a week should have caused any problems either. So here it is, and the merge window for 4.3 is now open. I already have a few pending early pull requests, but as usual I’ll start processing them tomorrow and give the release some time to actually sit. The shortlog from rc8 is tiny, and appended. The patch is pretty tiny too. Go get it, Linus Some notable changes made to Linux 4.2 include: File systems New features for F2FS including per file encryption CIFS support SMB 3.1.1 (experimental) Cryptography – Jitter Entropy Random Number Generator, Chacha20 stream cipher and Poly1305 authentication (RFC7539),New RSA implementation. See lwn.net […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Raspberry Pi Model B+ Price Drops to $25

Raspberry Pi Model B+ Price Drops to $25

When Raspberry Pi 2 was launched, Raspberry Pi Model B+ kept getting sold for $35 despite the lower specifications, but a week later resellers started selling Model B+ for as low as $30 shipped. But the Raspberry Pi foundation now announced an official new price for Raspberry Pi Model B+, which now sells for just $25 on RS Components and MCM Electronics with other resellers to soon follow. This makes R-Pi Model B+ relevant again for applications that do not require the extra horse power or memory brought by R-Pi 2 quad core processor and 1GB RAM. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on Windows 10 IoT Preview for Raspberry Pi 2 and MinnowBoard Max

Windows 10 IoT Preview for Raspberry Pi 2 and MinnowBoard Max

When Raspberry Pi 2 Model B was released, we were promised a Windows 10 image for the board, and today, Microsoft released “Windows 10 IoT Core Insider Preview” for both the Broadcom BCM2836 based Raspberry Pi 2 and Intel Atom E3800 series based Minnowboard MAX boards. To get started with either board, simply go to Windows IoT – Getting Started page. I’ll quickly go through the instructions for Raspberry Pi 2. Beside the board, you’ll also need a PC running Windows 10 Insider preview (Virtual machine not supported), a 5V power supply, a HDMI cable (optional but recommended), an Ethernet cable, and a 8GB micro SD card, class 10 or better. The you’ll need to configure a connect account, where I had to accept two EULA including “Windows 10 IoT Core Insider Preview EULA”, and once this is done the area of the page for EULA should just be blank, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Tizen OS Ported to the Raspberry Pi 2

Tizen OS Ported to the Raspberry Pi 2

Tizen may not be overly used in devices, but there has been ports of the operating system on various ARM platform, mostly development boards, powered by Allwinner, Rockchip, Freescale SoCs, and more… Seeing the popularity of Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, Samsung Open Source Group decided to port Tizen to the latest version of the hobbyist board. The full instructions are rather long, and provided in the link above, but the main steps – using a Linux based computer – can be summarized as follows: Create a local copy of tizen-distro Add Raspberry Pi 2 BSP Meta repository Initialize the environment and modify some config files Start the build with Yocto: bitbake rpi-hwup-image. This should make a minimal headless? image Create an SD card image with tmp-glibc/deploy/images/raspberrypi2/rpi-hwup-image-raspberrypi2.rpi-sdimg using dd, an optional resize the parition with gparted or fdisk/resize2fs. Insert the SD card in to your Raspberry Pi 2, and have […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on ARDHAT adds Arduino Shield Compatibility, an ISM Band Radio to Raspberry Pi and ODROID-C1 Boards (Crowdfunding)

ARDHAT adds Arduino Shield Compatibility, an ISM Band Radio to Raspberry Pi and ODROID-C1 Boards (Crowdfunding)

NinjaBlocks created Pi Crust add-ons board adding a 433MHz radio and Arduino compatibility to the Raspberry Pi Model A & B a few years ago, but the product has since been removed from their store. But a startup called ubIQio has now created a similar product compatible with Raspberry Pi Model A+, B+ and B2, as well as ODROID-C1 which also comes with a 40-pin R-Pi header. The ARDHAT board is a HAT compatible add-on board with an Atmel MCU, Arduino headers, as well as an optional long range mesh ISM radio (433, 868 and 915 MHz) and various sensors. There are four versions of the board: Basic Ardhat, Ardhat-I, and Ardhat-W and Ultra, which share the following specifications: MCU – Atmel MCU @ 16MHz Headers and I/Os Arduino compatible header accepting 5V Arduino shields 12 ch PWM O/P, 6 ch analog I/P Real-time Clock Programmable Power/Navigation combo switch Programmable […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 28 Comments on Relative Performance of ARM Cortex-A 32-bit and 64-bit Cores

Relative Performance of ARM Cortex-A 32-bit and 64-bit Cores

Many people assume newer processors will be faster, or that 64-bit processor will provide a performance boost compared to 32-bit processors, but the reality can be quite different, and I’ve decided to have a look at ARM Cortex-A cores using ARMv7 (32-bit) and ARMv8 (64-bit) architecture, and see what kind of integer performance you can expect from each at a given frequency. To do so, I’ve simply use DMIPS/Mhz (Dhrystone MIPS/Megahertz) values listed on Wikipedia. Drystone benchmark has no floating-point operating, so it’s a pure integer benchmark. I’m only looking at ARM core here, and once integrated in an SoC, other parameters like memory bandwidth, amount of cache,  GPU, etc.. will greatly affect the overall system performance. The figure above are per MHz, and it does not mean for example that a Cortex A5 processor will be slower than a Cortex A7 processor, as can be seen by the comparison […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on PiJuice Battery HAT Module for the Raspberry Pi Boards Comes with an Optional Solar Panel (Crowdfunding)

PiJuice Battery HAT Module for the Raspberry Pi Boards Comes with an Optional Solar Panel (Crowdfunding)

The Raspberry Pi is a low power board that can be powered a few hours or a few days with batteries, and the easiest solution is probably to use a USB power bank connected to the micro USB port of the board, but the solution is not really integrated. That’s where PiJuice comes into play. It’s a HAT compatible module that connects nicely to the latest Raspberry Pi boards with 40-pin header (A+, B+ and B2), and include a 1,400 mAh battery that can be used as UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply), an RTC, and more. Key features of PiJuice HAT: 1400 mAh  Lipo battery, good enough to last up to 24 hrs in constant use. 5,000 mAh batteries are also said to be supported. Full UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) solution Integrated RTC (Real Time Clock) On board intelligent on/off switch Low power deep-sleep state with wake on interrupt/calendar event On […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Experimental Android 5.x Lollipop Port for Raspberry Pi 2?

Experimental Android 5.x Lollipop Port for Raspberry Pi 2?

When Raspberry Pi 2 was announced, I was quite hopeful Android would be ported to the board since it now had the processing power and memory requirements to run Android. But members of the Raspberry Pi foundation put a damper on this expectation directly in their Android forums by closing some Android related threads, and stating the mobile operating system does not bring anything to the educational goal of the Raspberry Pi. But yesterday, I’ve been informed that there was an experimental Android 5.1 port for ODROID-C1 and another Android 5.x port for Raspberry Pi 2. One of the key challenges to port Android to Broadcom BCM2836 is allegedly the large number of changes required for VideoCore 4 GPU’s buffer management, which was done by Broadcom internally for BCM2835, but never ported to the Raspberry Pi. So it does not quite seem an easy task. The README on github describes […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design