Rockchip RK1808 Datasheet, TRM, Schematics and Linux SDK Released

Rockchip RK1808 Block Diagram

Rockchip RK1808 is the first chip from the company fully dedicated to artificial intelligence applications. The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) features an accelerator delivering up to 3.0 TOPS and is coupled with two low power Arm Cortex-A35 cores allowing it to run Linux. We’ve had the specifications for RK1808 for a while, but the company has recently posted hardware and software resources on their open source website. On the hardware side we’ve got: RK1808 Technical Reference Manual (TRM) RK1808 datasheet PDF Schematics for the company’s official RK1808-EVB On the software side we can get the Linux SDK from Github as explained in the Wiki:

Finally configure the build and start the build process:

After a while, or more accurately close to two hours on a Laptop with Ryzen 7 2700U processor, 8GB RAM, and hard drive, we’ll get U-boot, Linux, buildroot based rootfs, and firmware files and in […]

Nitrogen8M_Mini Single Board Computer Launched for $135 and Up

Nitrogen8M_Mini NXP i.MX 8M Mini Board

Last month we write about Nitrogen8M_Mini, the First NXP i.MX8 8M Mini SBC, but at the time, it was not available for purchase just yet. Boundary Devices has now announced the official release of the board and is taking orders / pre-orders for $135 and up. Nitrogen8M_Mini SBC Two versions are being offered either with the board only, or as part of a devkit with a 5V power supply, an 8GB microSD card with Linux OS, a battery, and serial console cable: Nit8MQ_Mini_2r8eWB with WiFi and Bluetooth, currently in stock, and sold for $155 (board only), or $175 (devkit) Nit8MQ_Mini_2r8e without wireless module, to ship in a few weeks, and sold for $135 (board only), or $155 (devkit) Nitrogen8M_Mini specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini with 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.5 to 2.0 GHz max, 1x Cortex-M4F real-time core, Vivante GCNanoUltra 3D GPU, Vivante GC320 2D GPU System […]

4Kopen UHD Video Development Platform Features STMicro STiH418 Media Processor

4Kopen

Back in 2016, I read news about STMicro exiting the set-top box chipset market, so I just assumed all their STiHxx processors would be phased out, and I was surprised to come across 4Kopen, described as an open 4K UHD video development platform powered by STMicro STiH418 media processor, especially it was just showcased at 2019 Integrated Systems Europe (ISE 2019) at the beginning of the month. The development board comes with 2 GB RAM, HDMI 2.0 output, HDMI 1.4 input, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, a mini PCIe slot fitted with an 802.11b/g/n WiFi module, an eSATA connector and more. 4Kopen (B2264) hardware specifications: SoC – STMicro STiH418 quad-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor @ 1.2 GHz,  quad-core Mali-400 GPU, and 4x ST231 DSP (Each Core Quad issue) @ 650 MHz System Memory – 2 GB DDR3 @ 2133 MHz Storage – micro SD socket, eSATA port Video & Audio I/O Output […]

Nitrogen8M_Mini is the First NXP i.MX8 8M Mini SBC

Having just written about one of the first NXP i.MX 8M Mini systems-on-module, let’s stay with NXP’s latest 14-nm processor as Boundary Devices have been working on a variant of their Nitrogen8M SBC based on MXP i.MX 8M Mini processor and aptly called Nitrogen8M_Mini. The board is also known as the less human-friendly Nit8MQ_Mini_2r8e SBC, and comes with the following specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini with 4x Cortex A53 cores, 1x Cortex-M4F real-time core, Vivante GCNanoUltra 3D GPU, Vivante GC320 2D GPU System Memory –  2GB LPDDR4 (Optional 4GB version) Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, expandable up to 128GB, UHS SD card slot Display – 4-lane MIPI DSI interface up to 1080p Video Encode / Decode – 1080p H.264, VP8/1080p60 H.265, H.264, VP8, VP9 Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, analog MIC jack, 2W audio amplifier, L&R speaker headers Camera Interface – 1x 4-lane MIPI-CSI interface Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet […]

F&S Elektronik PicoCore MX8MM System-on-Module Features NXP i.MX 8M Mini Processor

FS i.MX 8M Mini SoM

Embedded World 2019 will take place at the end of this month on February 26-28 in Nuremberg, Germany, and we can expect plenty of news related to embedded systems. It’s very likely NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor will officially be launched, and we’ll see several modules and boards announced with the lower cost 14-nm processor. F&S Elektronik Systeme has already been promoting their upcoming PicoCore MX8MM system-on-module based on NXP i.MX 8M in their newsletter ahead of Embedded World, where they’ll showcase their solutions at booth 621 in hall 2. PicoCore MX8MM specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini single, dual, quad core Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.8 GHz processor, Cortex-M4 real-time core @ 400 MHz, 512KB L2-Cache, 2D/3D GPU System Memory – Up to 8GB LPDDR4 Storage – Up to 512MB SLC NAND flash or up to 32GB eMMC flash Video Decode – 1080p60 HEVC H.265, VP9, H.264, VP8 Connectivity 802.11ac […]

FOSDEM 2019 Open Source Developers Meeting Schedule

FOSDEM 2019

FOSDEM – which stands for Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting – is a free-to-participate event where developers meet on the first week-end of February to discuss open source software & hardware projects. FOSDEM 2019 will take place on February 2 & 3, and the schedule has already been published with 671 speakers scheduled to speak in 711 events themselves sorted in 62 tracks. Like every year, I’ll create a virtual schedule based on some of the sessions most relevant to this blog in tracks such as  open hardware, open media, RISC-V, and hardware enablement tracks. February 2 10:30 – 10:55 – VkRunner: a Vulkan shader test tool by Neil Roberts A presentation of VkRunner which is a tool to help test the compiler in your Vulkan driver using simple high-level scripts. Perhaps the largest part of developing a modern graphics driver revolves around getting the compiler to […]

Buildroot For NanoPi NEO4 RK3399 SBC

NanoPi NEO4 Buildroot

NanoPi NEO4 is the smallest and cheapest RK3399 board so far, featuring the hexa-core processor into a $45 60×45 mm single board computer.  FriendlyELEC usually provides decent documentation and software support for their boards, but Flatmax was not satisfied with the build system provided by Rockchip / FriendlyELEC. So he took the matter into his own hands, worked on and released a buildroot external tree for building NanoPi NEO4 SD card images. Flatmax mentioned this is the first completely contained build system for the NanoPi NEO4. The build process is explained on Github, and basically goes like this: Clone buildroot

Install dependencies

Clone NEO4 buildroot external tree

Build the system

Flash it to the micro SD card

Just replace /dev/sdX with your actual SD card device. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software […]

Amlogic A311D Media Processor Features Cortex A73/A53 Cores, an Arm Mali-G52 MP4 GPU

As far as processors are concerned, it’s been pretty quiet in the TV box space in this year with for example, devices based on Amlogic S922 yet to launch, and new TV boxes are normally launched with processors such as Amlogic S905X/Z/W or S912, as well as Rockchip RK3328 or RK3229. But this morning,  I’ve been informed that Amlogic is working on a more powerful media processor based on info from buildroot release notes  Amlogic A311D is an hexa-core processor featuring four Arm Cortex A73 cores, two Cortex A53 cores, and an Arm Mali-G52-MP4 GPU. Amlogic A311D specifications known so far: CPU – 4x Arm Cortex A73 @ TBD GHz, 2x Arm Cortex A53 GPU – Arm Mali-G52 MP4 Memory I/F – DDR3/4; LPDDR3/4 Storage I/F – eMMC, SD/SDHC/SDXC Video Output – HDMI Tx up to 4K2K @ 60 Hz with CEC & HDR support, CVBS Video Processing Unit (VPU) […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC