arm

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on M2.COM is a Standard for IoT Sensors Based on M.2 Form Factor

M2.COM is a Standard for IoT Sensors Based on M.2 Form Factor

The IoT ecosystem really feels like a jungle now, not because of a lack of standards, but because everybody thinks about doing their own, so we’ve ended up with a wide range of communication protocols, initiatives, and consortia, and it will take some time until the winners and losers are sorted out. One the of the latest standard is M2.COM platform form factor for sensors that “adopts the standardized M.2 form factor and is defined as an evolutionary module that combines general wireless connectivity with additional built-in computing ability powered by MCU”. M2.COM architecture diagram above describes both software and hardware requirements, but the specifications themselves only define the form factor, as well as mechanical and electrical characteristics: Consistent with M.2 standard Module size: 22 mm x 30 mm PCB thickness: 0.8 mm ± 10% Pin count: 75 pins Module input voltage: 3.3V DC-in Connector mating force: 30N Maximum Connector […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Telechips TCC898x (Alligator) 64-bit ARM SoC is Designed for High-end 4K Set-Top Boxes

Telechips TCC898x (Alligator) 64-bit ARM SoC is Designed for High-end 4K Set-Top Boxes

Telechips processors were often found in consumer devices such as Android tablets, mini PCs and TV Sticks a few years ago, but it’s been a while since I have seen a devices based on Telechips. So after seeing an automotive SoC from the company, I decided to visit the company website to check if they were still designing processors for the consumer market, and found TCC898x quad core Cortex A53 processor for “Smart Stick, IP-Client and STB with 4K 60fps decoding” with some interesting features. Telechips TCC898x SoC specifications: CPU- Quad core Cortex A53 processor with NEON, TrustZone, 32KB/32KB L1 cache and 512KB L2 cache MCU – Cortex-M4 micro-controller GPU 2D – Vivante GC420 composition processing core for 4K user interfaces 3D – ARM Mali-400MP2 VPU – Multi-format VPU and 4K VPU with HEVC and VP9 support Memory I/F – DDR3/4 Storage I/F – NAND controller (60-bit ECC), SD/eMMC controller […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Linux 4.5 Released – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linux 4.5 Released – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 4.5 on Sunday: So this is later on a Sunday than my usual schedule, because I just couldn’t make up my mind whether I should do another rc8 or not, and kept just waffling about it. In the end, I obviously decided not to,but it could have gone either way. We did have one nasty regression that got fixed yesterday, and the networking pull early in the week was larger than I would have wished for. But the block  layer should be all good now, and David went through all his networking commits an extra time just to make me feel comfy about it, so in the end I didn’t see any point to making the release cycle any longer than usual. And on the whole, everything here is pretty small. The diffstat looks a bit larger for an xfs fix, because that fix has […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments on LeMaker Cello 96Boards EE Board Powered by AMD Opteron A1120 Processor Targets Server Applications

LeMaker Cello 96Boards EE Board Powered by AMD Opteron A1120 Processor Targets Server Applications

There are two versions of Linaro’s 96Boards specifications the Consumer Edition (CE) and the Enterprise Edition (EE) with higher hardware requirements, and while several boards mostly compliant with 96Boards CE are available such as DragonBoard 410c and Hikey boards, the only board announced to be compliant with 96Boards EE specifications was AMD Huskyboard based on Opteron A1100 series processor and is yet to be available for sale. LeMaker has now designed a similar EE boards called Cello. LeMaker Cello board specifications: Processor – AMD Opteron A1120 quad core Cortex A57 processor @ 1.7 GHz with 2MB L2 cache, 8MB L3 cache System Memory – 2x DDR3 SO-DIMM sockets Storage – 2x SATA 3.0 ports, micro SD slot Connectivity – 1x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports Expansions x16 PCIe G3 slot 40-pin Low Speed (LE) expansion header Debugging – micro USB port for console access, 10-pin […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on 64-bit ARM (Aarch64) Instructions Boost Performance by 15 to 3012 Compared to 32-bit ARM (Aarch32) Instructions

64-bit ARM (Aarch64) Instructions Boost Performance by 15 to 30% Compared to 32-bit ARM (Aarch32) Instructions

Yesterday was quite an eventful day with the launch of two low cost 64-bit ARM development boards, namely Raspberry Pi 3 and ODROID-C2, and as usual there were some pretty interesting discussions related to the launch of the boards in the comments section. One of the subject that came is that while Raspberry Pi 3 board is using a 64-bit processor, the operating systems are still compiled with 32-bit instructions (Aarch32) and even optimized for ARMv6, and they intend to keep it that way according to Eben Upton interview: Eben readily admits that not all the capabilities of the new parts are going to be used at launch, however. “Although it is a 64‑bit core, we’re using it as just a faster 32-bit core,” he reveals about the Pi 3’s central processing unit. “I can imagine there’d be some real benefits [to 64-bit code]. The downside is that you do […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on ARM Unveils Ultra-efficient Cortex-A32 32-bit Processor Based on ARMv8 Architecture

ARM Unveils Ultra-efficient Cortex-A32 32-bit Processor Based on ARMv8 Architecture

So far you could safely equate 64-bit ARM processors with ARMv8 architecture. Not anymore. A few months after introducing Cortex A35 low power ARMv8 64-bit processor, ARM has now announced Cortex-A32 processor, even more power efficient, support ARMv8-A architecture, and designed for 32-bit embedded and IoT applications. Key features of Cortex-A32 cores: Architecture – ARMv8-A (AArch32) Multicore – 1-4x SMP within a single processor cluster, and multiple coherent SMP processor clusters through ARM AMBA 4 ACE, AXI 4 or AMBA 5 CHI technology ISA Support A32+T32 with full backward compatibility with ARMv7-A ARM TrustZone security technology ARM NEON Advanced SIMD DSP & SIMD extensions VFPv4 Floating point Hardware virtualization support Debug & Trace – ARM CoreSight DK-A32 So they’ve got rid of AArch64 instruction set out of ARMv8 architecture in order to improve power efficiency, while keeping the 100 new instructions part of Aarch32 to improve performance, and keeping ARMv7-A […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on ARM Cortex-R8 Real-Time Processor targets SSDs, LTE Advanced and 5G Modems, and Other Embedded Applications

ARM Cortex-R8 Real-Time Processor targets SSDs, LTE Advanced and 5G Modems, and Other Embedded Applications

ARM Cortex-A processor may get all the media buzz as they are found in popular consumer devices such as smartphones, but ARM also provides Cortex-R processors with real-time capabilities that are found in cars, hard drives, and other embedded systems requiring high reliability, fault tolerance, and deterministic real-time responses. The company has just announced Cortex-R8 real-time core that should double the performance of Cortex-R7 core, and targeting mainly storage devices such as SSDs and HDDs, as well as next generation LTE and 5G modems. Cortex-R8 key features: Microarchitecture – 11-stage pipeline with instruction pre-fetch, branch prediction, superscalar and out of order execution, register renaming, parallel execution paths for load-store, MAC, shift-ALU, divide and floating-point. Also features a hardware divider and is software compatible with the ARM9, ARM11, Cortex-R4, Cortex-R5 and Cortex-R7 embedded processors. Instruction Set – ARMv7-R architecture with Thumb-2 and Thumb. Support for DSP extensions, as well as an […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Linaro Connect 2016 Bangkok Schedule – March 7-11, 2016

Linaro Connect 2016 Bangkok Schedule – March 7-11, 2016

Linaro Connect Bangkok (BKK16) will take place on March  7 – 11, 2016, and the schedule is now available for the 5-day event with keynotes and sessions. Whether you’re going to attend or not, it’s always interesting to check the schedule to find out what’s going on in terms of ARM Linux development. The five days will focus on work by different Linaro groups, but really sessions are mixed for any given day, and I’ve created a virtual schedule for each day with available information, as Linaro has become a little more closed to the outside than when it was launched a few years ago. Monday 7 – LITE (Linaro IoT & Embedded Group) 1400 – 14:50 – Evolution of the Reference Software Platform Project The Reference Software Platform lead project was introduced in Linaro Connect San Francisco 2015, and since then it evolved and matured with the completion of […]

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