Linux 5.9 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.9 release

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.9 on lkml: Ok, so I’ll be honest – I had hoped for quite a bit fewer changes this last week, but at the same time there doesn’t really seem to be anything particularly scary in here. It’s just more commits and more lines changed than I would have wished for. The bulk of this is the networking fixes that I already mentioned as being pending in the rc8 release notes last weekend. In fact, about half the patch (and probably more of the number of commits) is from the networking stuff (both drivers and elsewhere). Outside of that, the most visible thing is a reinstatement of the fbdev amba-clcd driver – that’s a noticeable patch, but it’s basically just mainly a revert. The rest is really really tiny (mostly some other minor driver updates, but some filesystem and architecture fixes […]

Gateworks Venice Industrial IoT SBC Family Features Dual Ethernet and mPCIe Sockets

Gateworks Venice GW7300 SBC

US-based Gateworks is known for its Ventana and Newport embedded networking single board computers, and the company has now introduced a third family with Venice SBC family based on NXP i.MX 8M Mini SoC with support for multimedia capabilities through MIPI-DSI, MIPI-CSI and I2S Audio headers, and targetting industrial IoT with dual Ethernet, and mini PCIe expansion sockets that can be used for 802.11ax/ac/b/g/n WiFi, 5G/4G/3G/CATM1 cellular modems, and more. The company plans to introduce four different models with GW7100, GW7200, GW7300, and GW7400 with an increase in size and feature set for each model, and mechanically compatible with previous Gateworks families. But at launch, only GW7300 SBC is available so we’ll focus our reporting on this particular model. Gateworks GW7300 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini single, dual or quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.6GHz, with Arm Cortex-M4 at 400+MHz, 3D GPU (OpenGL ES 2.0), 2D […]

TechNexion Unveils EDM and AXON SoM’s Powered by NXP i.MX8M Plus SoC

AXON-E-IMX8M-PLUS

A few days ago we wrote about Variscite’s NXP i.MX 8M Plus-powered AI systems-on-modules and devkits, and now it’s TechNexion’s turn to introduce its own SoM’s for artificial intelligence applications. Just like variscite, the company has two variants with EDM-G-IMX8M-PLUS following the EDM standard with a 260-pin edge connector, and AXON-E-IMX8M-PLUS part of the AXON family with board-to-board connectors better suited to vibration-prone applications. Besides the form factor and different default storage  capacities, both SoM’s share the same specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX8M Plus quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.8 GHz with Cortex-M7 real-time core @ 400 MHz, Vivante GC520L 2D GPU, Vivante GC7000UL 3D GPU, 1080p60 hardware decoder (HEVC, H.264, VP9, and VP8) and encode (H.265/H.264), and 2.3 TOPS NPU System Memory – Up to 8 GB LPDDR4 Storage AXON-E-IMX8M-PLUS – 32 GB eMMC flash by default EDM-G-IMX8M-PLUS – 16 GB eMMC flash by default Networking Chips Qualcomm […]

Raspberry Pi inspired MaaxBoard Mini SBC features NXP i.MX 8M Mini SoC

MaaXBoard Mini

Last year, Embest – an Avnet company – introduced MaaXBoard NXP i.MX 8M SBC mostly compatible with Raspberry Pi form factor and running Android 9.0 or Yocto Linux. The company has now launched MaaXBoard Mini with a 14nm NXP i.MX 8M Mini quad-core processor. In some ways, the new board follows more closely Raspberry Pi 3 Model B form factor with four USB 2.0 ports, instead of the two USB 3.0 ports found in the first version of the board, but it does so without HDMI output, leaving MIPI DSI as the only option for display output. MaaxBoard Mini (AES-MC-SBC-IMX8MINI-G) specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini Quad with 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores @ up to 1.8GHz, Cortex-M4F real-time core @ 400MHz, Vivante GCNanoUltra 3D GPU and GC320 2D graphics, 1080p H.264/H.265 VPU; System Memory – 2GB DDR4 Storage – eMMC socket for up to 64GB flash, MicroSD slot Display […]

NXP i.MX 8M Plus AI Systems-on-Modules and Devkits Launched by Variscite

NXP I.MX 8M Plus Development Kit

NXP i.MX 8M Plus processor was unveiled at the very beginning of the year as the first i.MX processor with AI hardware acceleration provided by a 2.3 TOPS Neural Processing Unit (NPU) embedded in the chip. Apart from the upcoming Wandboard 8MPLUS SBC, we had not seen hardware powered by the new processor, but Variscite has now announced two NXP i.MX 8M Plus systems-on-modules – VAR-SOM-MX8M-PLUS and DART-MX8M-PLUS – and corresponding development kits. VAR-SOM-MX8M-PLUS CPU Module & Development Kit Specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Plus single, dual or quad-core Cortex-A53 processor clocked at up to 1.6 (Industrial/Extended) or 1.8GHz (Commercial), Cortex-M7 real-time core @ 800 MHz, 1080p H265/H264 encode/decode, AI/ML acceleration up to 2.3 TOPS, GC7000UL 3D GPU, GC520L 2D GPU System Memory – 1 to 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 8 to 64GB eMMC flash Networking – 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n + BT 4.2/BLE module SO-DIMM Edge Connector Storage I/F – […]

JPEGDEC is a Faster JPEG Arduino Library Designed for 32-bit MCUs

In order to ensure software compatibility, Arduino libraries are supposed to work on various types of hardware from 8-bit microcontrollers with a limited amount of memory to more powerful 32-bit chips like STM32 Arm Cortex-M MCU or ESP32 dual-core Tensilica WiSoC that can access a larger amount of RAM. This is all good, but in some cases, this may affect performance. Larry Bank noticed this when looking for a JPEG viewers for Arduino and only found ones which sacrificed speed to work on MCUs with very little RAM. So he started to work on JPEDDEC JPEG Arduino library optimized for speed and compatible with any MCU with at least 20K of RAM. Optimizations go beyond just loading more data into memory, as Larry explains in a blog post, the library also performs the removal of stuffed bytes, optimize the Huffman decode and DCT parts, and more. Some of the key […]

SwiftIO Arm Cortex-M7 MCU Board Targets Apple Swift Programming Language

SwiftIO Board

Swift programming language has been developed by Apple for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Linux. The programming language works with Apple’s Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks, as well as existing Objective-C code written for Apple products. MadMachine has now created an Arm Cortex-M7 development board, named SwiftIO, specifically designed for Swift programming language through MadMachine IDE and SwiftIO framework. SwiftIO hardware specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX RT1052 Arm Cortex-M7 Crossover Processor @ 600MHz System Memory – 32 MB SRAM Storage – MicroSD card slot supporting standard and high capacity SD cards USB – 1x Micro USB connector for power, 1x Micro USB connector for serial communication Expansion – 2x 46 GPIO headers with 12x 12-bit analog to digital (ADC) converters, 4x UART, 2x CAN, 2x IIC, 2x SPI, 14x PWM Misc – On-board RGB LED, download and reset buttons Power Supply – 5V via Micro USB port Dimensions – […]

PicoCore RT1 System-on-Module Runs FreeRTOS on NXP i.MX RT1050 Crossover Processor

PicoCore RT1 i.MX RT1050 SoM

F&S Elektronik Systeme PicoCore RT1 is a System-on-Module powered by NXP i.MX RT1050 crossover processor designed to offer the real-time capabilities of microcontrollers and the performance of application processors thanks to an Arm Cortex-M7 core clocked at up to 600 MHz. The 40×35 mm module is also equipped with 32MB SDRAM, 256MB “high-reliability QSPI NOR flash, and 16KB EEPROM, and offers various interfaces including Ethernet, RGB LCD, and USB via board-to-board connectors. PicoCore RT1 (V1) SoM specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX RT1050 Arm Cortex-M7 processor @ up to 600 MHz with 32KB L2 cache, 2D graphics accelerator System Memory – 32MB SDRAM Storage – 256MB QSPI Flash, 16KB EEPROM; optional NAND flash 2x 80-pin board-to-board connector with Storage – SD Card Display – 16-bit RG interface, analog resistive and PCAP touch via I2C Networking – 1x 10/100M Ethernet Audio – Line-In, Line-Out, microphone, headphone, I2S USB – 1x USB 2.0 […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC