Segger emPower is an embOS RTOS Evaluation Board with a J-Link OB Debug Interface

Segger, a company specializing in embedded software and hardware debugging tools, has recently launched Segger emPower, an evaluation board powered by Freescale Kinetis K66 Cortex M-4 MCU and including a J-LInk OB debug probe (JTAG/SWD), specially designed to evaluate the company’s embOS real-time operating system. emPower board hardware specifications: MCU – Freescale Kinetis K66 (MK66FN2M0VMD18) ARM Cortex M4F MCU @ 180MHz with with 256KB SRAM and 2MB flash memory Storage – 1Gbit NAND Flash + micro SD card connector Display I/F – 20-pin display adapter connector (5 V/3.3 V, SPI, PWM for backlight control) for small TFT displays Connectivity – Fast Ethernet USB – 1x USB device, 1x USB host (Full speed) Debugging On-board debug probe J-Link-OB with drag & drop (STM32F072, mini A/B-type connector); SWD/SWO only, no CDC/VCOM port support External debug interface (19-pin Cortex-M) including trace Expansion 3x Sensor Expansion Interface Devices (SExI) headers providing I2C, SPI buses, […]

OpenEmbed SOM6360 is a $69 Freescale i.MX6 SoloX System-on-Module

Apart from UDOO Neo development board, which is currently shipping Kickstarter backers, I hadn’t seen many Freescale i.MX 6SoloX based hardware so far. But Shenzhen OpenEmbed has now launched a system-on-module powered by Freescale Cortex A9 and Cortex-M4 SoC with their SOM6360 CPU module. OpenEmbed SOM6360 Rev. A computer-on-module specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX 6SoloX ARM Cortex-A9 core @ 1GHz with ARM Cortex-M4 Core @ 200 MHz, and 2D and 3D multimedia accelerators System Memory – 512MB DDR3L (1GB optional) Storage – 4GB to 32GB eMMC flash, 32MB QSPI  flash Video Input/Output 18-bit digital RGB 24-bit LVDS (up to WXGA) Analog/digital camera interface (YUV4:2:2 CCIR-656) Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet interfaces (2x on-board AR8033 PHYs) Other I/Os via 2x 120-pin connectors: 1x USB 2.0 host, 1x USB 2.0 device 5x serial,2x CAN 2.0 2x I2C, 2x SPI 2x SDIO PWM Optional 12-bit ADC PCIe 2.0 Misc – Watchdog Power Supply – […]

Kondor AX FPGA + ARM Networking Board Targets Base Stations, IoT Gateways and IP Cameras

Mikro Project, a company based in Zagreb, Croatia, has recently introduced Kondor AX “Advanced System Development Board” combining  Freescale i.MX6Solo processor with Lattice ECP5 FPGA, and targeting “low power applications at the network edge including HetNet (Heterogeneous Networks), Small Cells, Industrial IoT gateways and IP Cameras.” Kondor AX development board specifications: Category Lattice ECP5 LFE5UM-85F-BG756 FPGA Freescale i.MX6 Solo SoC Description 84.000 LUTs 207 Block RAMs 156 18×18 Multipliers 365 IO pins 4 SERDES channels (In/out) 400 MHz LPDDR3 Memory Support 4 PLLs, 4 DLLs ARM Cortex A9 @ 1 GHz 512 KB L2 cache GPU 3D – Vivante GC880 Video Decode: 1080p30 + D1 Video Encode: 1080p30 H.264 BP/ Dual 720p encode Programming options On-board USB JTAG interface 10-pin JTAG header Using i.MX6 processor Memory & Storage 512MB LPDDR3-1600 800 MHz Clock Rate 1x 32-bit channel 512 MB 32-bit DDR3 64Mbit SPI Flash 8GB eMMC Micro SD Card Connectivity  […]

Compulab Unveils CL-SOM-iMX7 Freescale i.MX7 System-on-Module and SBC-iMX7 Single Board Computer

After a few years of speculations and developments about i.MX7 and i.MX8 processors, Freescale announced Freescale i.MX7 family this summer. The new processors are based on one or two Cortex A7 cores coupled with a Cortex-M4 MCU for real-time tasks, and are a low power alternative to Freescale i.MX6 processors. But so far I had only seen a few announcements such Toradex i.MX7 SoM or Freescale 96Boards, without any product actually shipping, and Compulab claims to the first to market with a Freescale i.MX7 system-on-module, namely their CL-SOM-iMX7 SoM which will ship in quantities in early January 2016. CL-SOM-iMX7 system-on-module specifications: SoC Freescale i.MX 7Solo single core Cortex-A7 @ 800MHz with NEON SIMD and VFPv4 + ARM Cortex-M4 @ 200Mhz Freescale i.MX 7Dual dual core Cortex-A7 @ 1GHz with NEON SIMD and VFPv4 + ARM Cortex-M4 @ 200Mhz System Memory – 256MB to 2GB DDR3L-1066 Storage – 128MB – 1GB […]

Linux 4.3 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 4.3 last week-end: So it *felt* like the last week of the rc series was busy, to the point where I got a bit worried about the release. But doing the actual numbers shows that that really was just my subjective feeling, probably due to the kernel summit and travel back home from Korea. It wasn’t actually a particularly busy week, it’s just that the pull requests were more noticeable in the last couple of days. We had a network update and a late fix for a x86 vm86 mode bug introduced by the vm86 cleanups, but other than that it’s just a collection of various small one-liners all over. Ok, the vm86 mode thing was a one-liner too, it was just slightly more nerve-wracking because it looked scarier than it was before people (Andy) figured out what was going on. The changes from rc7 […]

Compulab Unveils CL-SOM-iMX6UL Freescale i.MX 6UltraLite System-On-Module and SBC-iMX6UL SBC

Compulab has launched a CL-SOM-iMX6UL system-on-module based on Freescale i.MX 6UltraLite ARM Cortex A7 processor with up to 1GB DDR3 and 32GB eMMC flash. The module can be coupled with SB-SOM-iMX6UL carrier board to form SBC-iMX6UL single board computer targeting industrial and embedded applications. CL-SOM-iMX6UL specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX6 UltraLite Cortex-A7 processor @ 528MHz System Memory – Up to 1GB DDR3 Storage – Up to 32GB on-board eMMC, Up to 1GB on-board SLC NAND, SPI flash, I2C EEPROM Connectivity – Dual-band, dual-antenna 2×2 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1 BLE (Ti WiLink 8), 10/100M Ethernet PHY (with optional bypass) Audio – WM8731 audio codec with stereo line-out, line-in, mic, S/PDIF input/output Other I/Os via 204-pin SODIMM edge connector Display Parallel 24-bit display interface up to 1366 x 768 Touchscreen 4/5/8-wire resistive touch-screen support Capacitive touch-screen support through SPI interface USB – 1x USB2.0 OTG + 4x USB2.0 host ports Up to […]

Brillo Android based OS for IoT Projects Supports ARM, Intel and MIPS Platforms

You’d think there are already enough lightweight operating systems that could provide a good enough platform for IoT and embedded projects, but Google decided to make their own Brillo operating system for IoT, based on Android, most probably to leverage the existing Android tools, and make it easier for app developers to move to the Internet of Things space. Brillo ‘s hardware requirements are pretty low as the operating system can run on devices with  32MB of RAM, and 128MB of storage. Google will provide a complete ecosystem with an embedded OS, core services, and a developer kit with tools to build, test, and debug. Just like in Android, three architectures will be be officially supports, starting with the following hardware platforms: ARM – TechNexion Pico-i.MX6UL system-on-module based on Freescale i.MX6 UltraLite and Broadcom BCM4339 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.0 wireless module, combined with PICO-DWARF baseboard. MIPS – Upcoming MIPS Creator […]

EzeeCube Linux Media Hub Unboxing and Teardown

EzeeCube is a Linux based Kodi Media Hub powered by Freescale i.MX6Quad processor with one internal 1TB hard drive and up to 8TB extra storage via four stackable 2TB hard drive module, as well as an option for a Blu-Ray player module. Beside playing video, it’s also designed to store your pictures and videos like a cloud service such as dropbox, but without privacy concerns since data is only stored in your own EzeeCube. The company launched an Indiegogo campaign in Q2 2014 which ended up being pretty successful having raised over $160,000, and as they are now shipping rewards to backers, I’ve also been sent a unit. Today, I’ll check out the hardware, and will review the unit probably sometimes next month. EzeeCube Unboxing The device came in a cardboard package with some EzeeCube branding, and some features like Freescale quad core processor, a 2TB hard drive (which finally […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC