Google Unveils Edge TPU Low Power Machine Learning Chip, AIY Edge TPU Development Board and Accelerator

AIY Edge TPU Dev Board

Google introduced artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts to hundreds of thousands of people with their AIY projects kit such as the AIY Voice Kit with voice recognition and the AIY Vision Kit for computer vision applications. The company has now gone further by unveiling Edge TPU, its own  purpose-built ASIC chip designed to run TensorFlow Lite ML models at the edge, as well as corresponding AIY Edge TPU development board, and AIY Edge TPU accelerator USB stick to add to any USB compatible hardware. Google Edge TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) & Cloud IoT Edge Software Edge TPU is a tiny chip for machine learning (ML) optimized for performance-per-watt and performance-per-dollar.  It can either accelerate ML inferencing on device, or can pair with Google Cloud to create a full cloud-to-edge ML stack. In either case, local processing reduces latency, remove the needs for a persistent network connection, increases privacy, and […]

SECO Q7-C25 / Q7-C26 QSeven SoMs Feature NXP i.MX 8M / i.MX 8Quad Processor

We’ve previously covered SECO’s SM-C12 SMARC 2.0 i.MX 8M system-on-module, but the company has just unveiled two new module families which are compliant with Qseven – another SoM standard – and powered by NXP i.MX 8M dual/quad core Cortex A53 processor and NXP i.MX 8Quad Cortex A53 or A72/A53 SoC with respectively Q7-C25 and Q7-C26 systems-on-module. SECO Qseven i.MX 8/8M System-on-Module Q7-C25 / Q7-C26 specifications: SoC Q7-C25 (one or the other) NXP i.MX 8M Quad 4x Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.5GHz, 1x Cortex-M4 F real-time core, Vivante GC7000Lite GPU, VPU NXP i.MX 8M Dual 2x Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.5GHz, 1x Cortex-M4 F real-time core, Vivante GC7000Lite GPU, VPU NXP i.MX 8M QuadLite 4x Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.5GHz, , 1x Cortex-M4 F real-time core, Vivante GC7000Lite GPU no VPU Q7-C26 (one or the other) NXP i.MX 8QuadMax 2x Cortex-A72 cores + 4x Cortex-A53 cores + 2x Cortex-M4F cores, 2x Vivante […]

Visual Studio 2017 with an Embedded Linux Arm Device

Toradex-Embedded-Linux

This is a non-sponsored guest post written by Marc Goodner: Principal Program Manager, Microsoft, and Jeremias Cordoba: Innovation Engineer, Toradex. Today many embedded devices run some flavor of Linux as their primary operating system. This poses a challenge to developers who run Windows on their development machine. This article explains a new way to use the latest Visual Studio for C++ development on an embedded Arm Devices from a Windows Host PC using containers for the build environment. The device we are deploying to is from the Toradex Colibri Family of System on Modules using the NXP i.MX 6ULL SoC, which features an Arm Cortex A-7. As a demo project, we will connect a Bluetooth Sensor with the Toradex Colibri Module. Please note that Visual Studio support for this case is in an early state, you will see improvements from Microsoft and Toradex in the coming months. Prerequisites Colibri i.MX 6ULL […]

VisionSOM-RT is an Industrial System-on-Module based on NXP i.MX RT Arm Cortex-M7 Processor

VisionSOM-RT NXP i.MX RT SoM

It’s hard to keep up with all the systems-on-module based on Arm Cortex-A “application class” processors, but so far I can’t remember seeing any Arm Cortex-M “microcontroller class” SoM. However, SoMLabs is currently working on VisionSOM-RT, a system-on-module based on NXP i.MX RT 1050 Arm Cortex-M7 processor clocked at 600 MHz. NXP i.MX RT series processors are actually promoted as a “crossover” processor delivering application processor performance with real-time capabilities right at the edge between the two classes of processors. VisionSOM-RT (SLS12Rx) module preliminary specifications: SoC- NXP i.MX RT Arm Cortex-M7 processor @ up to 600MHz with NXP PXP 2D graphics accelerator, and Graphics Engine PXP PiXel processing pipeline for imagine resize, rotation, overlay and color space conversion. Memory – 512kB on-chip RAM memory, up to 32MB SDRAM Storage – Up to 16MB QuadSPI flash, optional 4GB eMMC flash 200-pin SO-DIMM edge connector with Display Interface – 8/16/24-bit Parallel RGB […]

Linux 4.17 Release – Main Changes, Arm & MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds released Linux 4.17 last Sunday: So this last week was pretty calm, even if the pattern of most of the stuff coming in on a Friday made it feel less so as the weekend approached. And while I would have liked even less changes, I really didn’t get the feeling that another week would help the release in any way, so here we are, with 4.17 released. No, I didn’t call it 5.0, even though all the git object count numerology was in place for that. It will happen in the not _too_distant future, and I’m told all the release scripts on kernel.org are ready for it, but I didn’t feel there was any real reason for it. I suspect that around 4.20 – which is I run out of fingers and toes to keep track of minor releases, and thus start getting mightily confused – I’ll switch […]

Toradex Launches Apalis iMX8 Computer-on-Module based on NXP i.MX 8QuadMax SoC

Toradex-Apalis-i.MX8-SoM

Toradex Apalis iMX8 is another system-on-module powered by NXP i.MX 8QuadMax hexa core Arm Cortex A72 + 53 processor, which comes with 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, up to 16GB flash, and an on-board dual-band 802.11ac 2×2 MU-MIMO Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 ready module. The company has just opened early access for selected customers, so it has become possible to start developing products with the MXM3 computer-on-module. Apalix i.MX8 module specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8QuadMax hexa core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 cores @ 1.6 GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores @ 1.26 GHz, 2x Cortex-M4 real-time core @ 266 MHz, and dual Vivante GC7000XSVX GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 (64 Bit) Storage – Up to 16GB eMMC flash On-module Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet via Microchip KSZ9031 transceiver with low power features Dual-band 802.11ac 2×2 MU-MIMO Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 via Azurewave AW-CM276NF M.2 1216 LGA module Audio – NXP SGTL5000 low […]

Android Things 1.0 Released with Support for NXP i.MX 8M, Qualcomm SDA212/SDA624 and Mediatek MT8516 SoMs

Innocomm-WB10AT

Brillo Project was renamed to Android Things with the release of a developer preview back in December 2014, and the operating system enabling developers and companies to build and maintain Internet of Things devices at scale. The OS has now graduated so-to-speak with the release of Android Things 1.0 with long-term support for production devices, and this was to be expected as several Android Things devices were announced earlier this year. The new release adds supports for new system-on-modules (SoMs) based on the NXP i.MX8M, Qualcomm SDA212, Qualcomm SDA624, and MediaTek MT8516 SoCs. These modules are certified for production use with guaranteed long-term support for 3 years, and development hardware and reference designs for these SoMs will be available in the coming months. The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and NXP i.MX7D boards and system-on-modules are still supported, but support for NXP i.MX6UL devices will be deprecated. Check out the […]

Ubuntu Touch to Be Officially Supported on Librem 5 Open Source Smartphone

Ubuntu Touch looked really promising as a Linux mobile operating system supporting mobile desktop convergence, so eventually some people would have been able to use a single device for their mobile and desktop needs. If was not for lack of trying, but sadly Canonical had to end the development of Ubuntu Touch due to lack of interest from phone manufacturers and the community at large, focusing their resources instead of the cloud and IoT. But some people were still very enthousiastic about Ubuntu Touch, Unity and convergence, so since the code was open source, UBPorts continued working on Ubuntu Touch on their own.  UBPorts developers have now collaborated with Purism to make Ubuntu Touch one of the officially supported operating systems for the Librem 5 smartphone. Librem 5 will still ship with GNOME based PureOS, but Purism will support customers who want to easily install Ubuntu Touch or PureOS with […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC