NanoPi R2S Dual GbE IoT Board and Gateway Launched for $22 and Up

NanoPi R2S Dual Gigabit Ethernet SBC

We first covered NanoPi R2S SBC back in mid-January 2020. Specifically designed for headless and IoT application the board features a Rockchip RK3328 processor combined with 1GB RAM, and contrary to most competing platforms on the market such as Orange Pi R1 or NanoPi R1S, R2S comes with two true Gigabit Ethernet ports. At the time, the board was not available for sale, but now FriendlyELEC has started to take orders for just $22.00, and adding a yellow case adds $3 to the total. This is around $5 extra compared to NanoPi R1S gateway which was expected with extra RAM (1GB) and true dual GbE connectivity. But in the age of COVID-19, nothing runs quite as smoothly as it used to and the company expects shipping delays: Because of the epidemic, postal services in a lot of countries get delayed. Customers who need orders urgently need to choose DHL. EU […]

FriendlyELEC SOM-RK3399V2 CPU Module Gets 4GB LPDDR4 RAM Upgrade

SOM-RK3399V2 vs SOM-RK3399

Last year, FriendlyELEC launched SOM-RK3399 system-on-module (SoM) powered by Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor combined with 2GB DDR3 memory, 16to 64GB flash, and a built-in WiFi 5 module. Contrary to most SoM’s on the market, SOM-RK3399 could work in standalone mode thanks to two USB-C ports, although it could also be integrated into a carrier board to create a complete development board with more ports and interfaces. The company has now introduced an update with SOM-RK3399V2 CPU module with 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, as well as a small change in the layout for the LED’s and buttons, but the rest of the features remain the same. The company also appears to have changed the way they handle cooling with SOM-RK3399V2 shipping with a heatsink, while SOM-RK3399 cooling was handled by a heatsink + cooling connected to the carrier board. SOM-RK3399V2 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Cortex-A72 cores […]

V-Raptor Edge RK3399 Mini PC Runs Xubuntu 18.04 with EBBR Support

V-Raptor Edge PC

We previously wrote about XS LAB’s V-Raptor server equipped with SocioNext SC2A11 24-core Arm Cortex-A53 SoC, but the Korean company has been working on a different kind of project with V-Raptor Edge mini PC powered by Rockchip RK3399 processor and running Xubuntu 18.04 with an Arm EBBR-compliant UEFI bootloader. The mini PC was designed to work as a thin client for Cloud PC VDI service from SK Broadband, but XS Lab appears open to expand its use to other applications depending on interest from distributors. V-Raptor Edge PC preliminary specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash or 32GB MicroSD card Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K, and DisplayPort  via USB-C port; dual-independent display support up to 2x Full HD Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, […]

NetBSD 9.0 Released with Aarch64 Support, Arm ServerReady Compatibility

NetBSD 9.0

Yesterday, we wrote about Raspberry Pi 4 getting UEFI+ACPI firmware for Arm SSBR compliance allowing the board to run operating systems designed for “Arm ServerReady” servers out of the box. NetBSD 9.0 was just released on February 14, 2020, with support for Aarch64 (64-bit Arm) which had been in the works for a few years, and includes support for “Arm ServerReady” compliant machines (SBBR+SBSA). NetBSD 9.0 main changes related to hardware support: Support for AArch64 (64-bit Armv8-A) machines Compatibility with “Arm ServerReady” compliant machines (SBBR+SBSA) using ACPI. Tested on Amazon Graviton and Graviton2 (including bare metal instances), AMD Opteron A1100, Ampere eMAG 8180, Cavium ThunderX, Marvell ARMADA 8040, QEMU w/ Tianocore EDK2 Symmetric and asymmetrical multiprocessing support (big.LITTLE) Support for running 32-bit binaries via COMPAT_NETBSD32 on CPUs that support it Single GENERIC64 kernel supports ACPI and device tree based booting Supported SoCs Allwinner A64, H5, H6 Amlogic S905, S805X, S905D, […]

HardROCK64 SBC with Rockchip RK3399 Processor to Launch in April for $35 and Up

HardROCK64 SBC

If you thought we didn’t have enough Rockchip RK3399 SBCs already, Pine64 is working on a smaller and cheaper version of the RockPro64 single board computer with HardROCK64 SBC powered by RK3399 processor and following Raspberry Pi form factor. HardROCK64 specifications: SoC –  Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.4 GHz, a Mali-T864 GPU, and a VPU with 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 decoding System Memory – 1GB, 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – SPI flash, eMMC flash socket, MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0, AV port, MIPI DSI connector Audio – Analog stereo audio via AV port, digital audio via HDMI Camera – MIPI CSI connector Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band WiFi 5 (802.11ac) and Bluetooth 5.0 USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports Expansion – 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header […]

96Boards compliant Rock960 Development Board Gets a 5.0MP MIPI CSI Camera

96boards Rock960 MIPI CSI Camera

VAMRS Rock960 is a 96Boards compliant development board based on Rockchip RK3399 processor that was first unveiled in 2017, but last year it got a low-cost version with Rock960 model C selling for as little as $69. All variants of Rock960 come with MIPI CSI signals exposed via the 60-pin high-speed connector defined in 96boards specifications. So it needs a MIPI adapter board to connect the camera, and a couple of years ago, instructions were posted explaining how to use a MIPI CSI camera on 96boards such as Rock960. It now appears the MIPI adapter board is not for sale on eBay anymore, but that not an issue as e-Con Systems has just launched e-CAM50_CU96 5.0 MP camera designed to work with Rock960 board, and by extension, I assume, other 96boards compliant SBCs that expose a MIPI CSI interface. e-CAM50_CU96 is comprised of three main components: e-CAM55_CUMI0521_MOD camera module with […]

Linux 5.5 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.5 Changelog

Linux 5.5 has just been released by Linus Torvalds: So this last week was pretty quiet, and while we had a late network update with some (mainly iwl wireless) network driver and netfilter module loading fixes, David didn’t think that warranted another -rc. And outside of that, it’s really been very quiet indeed – there’s a panfrost driver update too, but again it didn’t really seem to make sense to delay the final release by another week. Outside of those, it’s all really tiny, even if some of those tiny changes touched some core files. So despite the slight worry that the holidays might have affected the schedule, 5.5 ended up with the regular rc cadence and is out now. That means that the merge window for 5.6 will open tomorrow, and I already have a couple of pull requests pending. The timing for this next merge window isn’t optimal […]

NanoPi R2S Dual Gigabit Ethernet SBC & Router is Powered by Rockchip RK3328 SoC

NanoPi R2S Dual Gigabit Ethernet SBC

FriendlyElec launched NanoPi R1S router with two Ethernet ports based on either Allwinner H3 or H5 processor coupled with 512MB RAM last November. Both ports are “Gigabit” Ethernet port, but one is implemented via a USB 2.0 to Ethernet controller with a maximum bandwidth of around 330 Mbps. If you’d like to get two Gigabit Ethernet reaching close to 1 Gbps each, and your target application would benefit from a bit more memory, the company is now working on NanoPi R2S based on Rockchip RK3328 processor with 1GB DDR4 memory, one Ethernet port using the GMAC from the chip, and one Ethernet port relying one a USB 3.0 to Ethernet controller. The rest of NanoPi R2S specifications are pretty similar to the earlier board except WiFi is also gone: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-450MP2 System Memory – 1GB DDR4 RAM Storage – MicroSD […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC