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March 2, 2017March 2, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Broadcom APDS-9500 Tiny Proximity & Gesture Sensor Supports up to 9 Gestures

You can use advanced methods to implement gesture control using devices like Leap Motion, or a camera with a computer vision program like OpenCV, but if you have cost and size constraints, and can work with a limited number of gestures, Broadcom APDS-9500 proximity & gesture sensor might be a useful component as it comes in a 18-pin package, and supports up to 9 gestures. The chip also provides proximity detection for sensing objects approaching or departing. Avago / Broadcom APDS-9500 key features: Gesture output – 9 gesture recognition: g move up, move down, move left, move right, move forward, move backward, circle-clockwise, circle-counterclockwise and wave Proximity output – Object brightness output and size output Cursor mode output – X and Y output Range – up to 60 cm Image output – SPI output; 30 × 30 pixels / 60 × 60 pixels; 9-bit gray scale Ambient light immunity I2C-bus interface compatible with […]

January 5, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Broadcom BCM4908 Router SoC Supports 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, and Up to 3.4 Gbps Combined WiFi Speeds

While most of us are still talking about megabit per second (Mbps) when it comes to Internet connectivity, some are already enjoying higher maximum speeds of one or more Gigabit per second (Gbps) with services like Google Fiber or Comcast Gigabit Pro (2Gbps) in the US. That means one of the bottleneck include Gigabit Ethernet in most home settings, so to address higher network speeds at home and at the office, Broadcom has designed and unveiled BCM4908 quad core 64-bit ARM SoC for high-end routers that includes an interface for a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet PHY, and supports the company’s BCM4366 wave 2 5G WiFi MU-MIMO for up to 3.4 Gbps combined WiFi transfer rates across multiple devices. Some key features of BCM4908 processor include: Quad core 64-bit ARM processor @ 1.8 GHz Zero CPU Wi-Fi offload to free up CPU resources BroadStream iQoS acceleration Dedicated security processor to enable hardware […]

November 18, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

RedBear Duo is a Breadboard-friendly Wi-Fi + BLE IoT Board Based on Ampak AP6212 Module (Crowdfunding)

I’ve taken apart lots of TV boxes and together with Realtek, Ampak are by far the most popular wireless modules to provide WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity in those devices. One startup decided to use Ampak AP6212 module, also found in NanoPi 2 board, to create a breadboard-friendly IoT board with Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11b/g/n connectivity. Redboard Duo has been designed with the same form factor as many other IoT boards such as NodeMCU or Spark Photon, and features the following: Ampak AP6212 module: STMicroelectronics STM32F205 ARM Cortex-M3 @120MHz, 128 KB SRAM and 1MB Flash Broadcom BCM43438 Wi-Fi 802.11n (2.4GHz only) + Bluetooth 4.1 (Dual Mode) combo chip Storage – On-board 16 Mbit (2 MB) SPI Flash Integrated chip antenna with the option to connect external antenna Expansion – Headers with 18 I/O pins Misc – RGB status LED Dimensions – 20.5mm x 39mm The company also made a small baseboard called RBLink with […]

January 14, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Broadcom Unveils BCM725x SoCs for STBs and TV Sticks

Broadcom has recently announced two new SoCs, namely BCM7250 and BCM72502, respectively targeted at OTT streaming media player form factor and HDMI stick or dongle applications. Both feature Broadcom’s Brahma-B15 ARMv7-A cores, support 10-bit H.265, HDMI 2.0, MHL 2.0, and up to to 4×4 5G WiFi via BCM4366 WiSoC. Key features listed by Broadcom for both SoCs: High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)/H.265 compression 6000 DMIPS B15 ARMv7-A CPU 1.0 Gpix/s OpenGL ES 3.0 3D GPU Supports HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 or MHL 2.0 digital video output PCIe connectivity to Broadcom BCM4366 4×4 carrier-grade 5G WiFi 480/576p30 transcode 1080p60 10-Bit HD HEVC decode and 4Kp60 upscale High Performance DDR3/DDR4 system memory interface Supports Android, Chromium, DIAL, DLNA CVP2, Miracast protocols Supports Broadcom Trellis Multi-Application Framework and DTVKit software stack The company can also provide reference platforms with 2×2 and 4×4 5G WiFi connectivity options via a high-speed PCIe interface, and announced […]

September 1, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Broadcom Introduces WICED Sense Bluetooth Low Energy Development Kit

Broadcom has recently announced a new development board for IoT applications using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) called WICED Sense. The kit consists of a “sense tag” powered by the company’s BCM20737S Bluetooth SIP Module with five micro-electromechanical sensors (MEMS), and Bluetooth 4.1 compatible WICED SMART software stack. The key features of WICED Sense devkit are as follows: Broadcom BCM20737 Bluetooth Smart system in package (SiP) module Five low-power MEMS sensors by ST Micro (part of the module): Gyroscope (L3GD20) Accelerometer (LIS3DSH) eCompass (LSM303D) Pressure sensor (LPS25H) Humidity Temperature sensor (HTS221) Bluetooth Smart connection covers distance of roughly 30 meters. USB – 1x micro USB connector to update applications Encryption, decryption, certificate signing, verification and various algorithms for increased privacy Secure Over-the-air (OTA) download capability to enable firmware updates from central device including smartphone, tablet and computers Misc – iBeacon, NFC, Wireless charging (Rezence A4WP) support. Power – Coin-cell battery The […]

August 1, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linaro 14.07 Release with Linux Kernel 3.16 and Android 4.4

Linaro 14.07 has just been released with Linux Kernel 3.16-rc6 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.50 (LSK), and Android 4.4.4. This month, Linaro has continued development on Juno 64-bit ARM development board, as well as other member boards from Broadcom (Capri), Qualcomm (IFC6410), Hisilicon D01, Samsung (Arndale / Arndale Octa), etc.. Android have been upgraded to version 4.4.4 with images released for Pandaboard, Arndale, Nexus 10, and Nexus 7, built with Linaro GCC 4.9. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.16-rc6-2014.07 released GATOR version 5.18 (same version as in 2014.04) updated basic Capri board support from Broadcom LT. Good progress in upstreaming the code: now the topic has 21 patch on top of v3.16-rc4 vs 53 patches on top of v3.15 in 2014.06 cycle removed cortex-strings-arm64 topic as the code is accepted into the mainline new topic from Qualcomm LT to add IFC6410 board support updated Versatile Express ARM64 […]

July 1, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Linaro 14.06 Release with Linux Kernel 3.15 and Android 4.4.3

Linaro 14.06 has been released last week with Linux Kernel 3.15 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.44 (LSK), and Android has been updated to 4.4.3. One interesting development this month is that Android for ARMv8 (64-bit ARM) is booting on the fast models using ARM Trusted firmware and U-Boot. SELinux has been enabled in Android. I could not see much new member hardware, except possibly B2120 (HDK) reference board for STMicro STiH407 “Monaco” STB SoC. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.15-2014.06 GATOR version 5.18 (same version as in 2014.04) updated basic Capri board support from Broadcom LT cortex-strings-arm64 topic (same as in 2014.02) updated Versatile Express ARM64 support (FVP Base and Foundation models, Juno) from ARM LT. updated Versatile Express patches from ARM LT more HiP0x Cortex A15 family updates from HiSilicon LT (hip04_eth, hip04_defconfig) updated LLVM topic Big endian support (same as in 2014.05) ftrace_audit topic from […]

May 28, 2014February 22, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Prpl Non-Profit Organization to Work on Linux, Android, and OpenWRT for MIPS based Processors

In what looks like an answer, albeit fairly late, to Linaro, the non-profit organization working on open source software for ARM based SoCs, a consortium of companies composed of Imagination Technologies, Broadcom, Cavium, Lantiq, Qualcomm, Ingenic, and a few others, has funded Prpl (pronounced Purple), “an open-source, community-driven, collaborative, non-profit foundation targeting and supporting the MIPS architecture—and open to others—with a focus on enabling next-generation datacenter-to-device portable software and virtualized architectures”. The Prpl foundation will focus on three key objectives: Portability – To create ISA agnostic software for rapid deployment across multiple architecture Virtualization & security – To enable multi-tenant, secure, software, environments in datacenter, networking & storage, home, mobile and embedded Heterogeneous Computing – To leverage compute resources enabling next generation big data analytics and mining Initially there will PEG (Prpl Engineering Group) to take of the following projects for 4 market segments (datacenter, network & storage, connected consumers, […]