There seems to be a lot a development going on around dual core A9 + FPGA SoCs from Xilinx or Altera these days, and Terasic has recently announced SoCKit, a development board based on Altera Cyclone V SX SoC with 2GB RAM (1GB for ARM cores, 1GB for FPGA), 110K logic elements, etc… Here are the specifications listed on Terasic website: FPGA Device – Cyclone V SX SoC—5CSXFC6D6F31C8NES: 110K LEs, 41509 ALMs 5140 M10K memory blocks 6 FPGA PLLs and 3 HPS PLLs 2 Hard Memory Controllers 3.125G Transceivers ARM-based hard processor system (HPS) @ 800 MHz, Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore Processor with 512 KB of shared L2 cache, 64 KB of scratch RAM, Multiport SDRAM controller (DDR2, DDR3, LPDDR1, and LPDDR2), and 8-channel direct memory access (DMA) controller Configuration and Debug: Quad Serial Configuration device – EPCQ256 for FPGA On-Board USB Blaster II (micro USB type B connector) Memory […]
MC HCK is a $5 ARM Development Board Powered by Freescale K20 MCU
MC HCK (pronounced McHack) is a tiny and cheap development board powered by Freescale K20 MCU (ARM Cortex M4) that can be easily programmed via USB. The board has been designed with KiCad, is fully open source hardware, and it’s supposed to cost as low as $5. The only problem, or main advantage, depending on how you look at it, is that it’s not available for sale (yet), but instead you’ll need to make it yourself. The actual cost of doing so will be well over $5 (About $35), but the BoM cost is about $5, and you can make 5 boards for this price, or about $7 per board. The detailed steps are explained on McHck blog, but they can summarized as follows: Order 10 PCB using the gerber files via services such as Seeedstudio or Iteadstudio Order 5 free samples of Freescale K20 MCU. Select MK20DX128VLF5 part, and […]
$199 MicroZed is a Low Cost Version of Zedboard ARM+FPGA Linux Development Board
ZedBoard is a low cost development board based on Xilinx Zynq-7020 SoC featuring two Cortex A9 cores and FPGA fabric, together with lots of ports and expansion I/Os, and running Linux. The problem is that “low cost” for this type of board still means $395 (or around $300 for academia), and you only get to this price because it’s been subsidized, and the normal price is actually $495… That’s why Avnet has just come with a new version of the evaluation kit called microZed that sells for $199 and targets applications such as general Zynq-7000 AP SoC evaluation and prototyping, embedded system-on-module (SOM) applications, embedded vision, test & measurement, motor control and software-defined radio. MicroZed technical specifications: SoC – Xilinx XC7Z010-1CLG400C (Zynq-7010) System Memory – 1 GB of DDR3 SDRAM Storage – 128 Mb of QSPI Flash + Micro SD card interface Connectivity 10/100/1000M Ethernet USB 2.0 USB-UART User I/O […]
$149 Hardkernel ODROID-XU Octa Core big LITTLE Development Board
Just a few days after noticing code for ODROID-XU in hardkernel repository, the company has now launched ODROID-XU development board powered by Exynos 5410 octa core processor with 2GB RAM, USB 3.0, and more for just $149 (as long as you order in August, $169 after that). Here are ODROID-XU hardware specifications: SoC – Samsung Exynos5 Octa Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 big.LITTLE processor with PowerVR SGX544MP3 GPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 RAM Storage – micro SD slot, eMMC 4.5 connector Video Output – micro HDMI + MPI LCD interface and Touch screen I2C ports (IPEX-40PIN) Audio – micro HDMI, headphone jack, MAX98090 Audio Codec Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet via USB 2.0 (LAN9730) USB – 1x USB 3.0 Host, 1x USB 3.0 OTG, and 4x USB 2.0 Host Expansion Header – 30 pins (GPIO/IRQ/SPI/ADC) Misc – PWM connector for Cooler, Power Supply – 5V/4A (Plug specification is inner diameter 2.1mm and […]
Hardkernel is Working on ODROID-XU Development Board Based on Exynos 5410 Octa Core Processor
Hardkernel have already done a good job at bringing low cost, high performance development boards based on Exynos 4 Quad processor with boards such as ODROID-X, ODROID-U2, or ODROID-X2. But it appears they are not stopping here, and have recently committed code to support ODROID-XU development board based on Exynos 5410, the 8-core big.LITTLE SoC from Samsung, used in devices such as Galaxy S4. The committed code linked above point the device tree files in arch/arm/boot/dts/ (exynos5410-odroidxu.dts and exynos5410-pinctrl.dtsi) where we can see the board will have 2 GB RAM, and the Cortex A15 cores with be clocked at 1.6 GHz. Exynos5410-odroidxu.dts has been removed from 3.11 branch, so the link above points to an earlier commit. Exynos 5410 might have been the first big.LITTLE processor ever available, but it comes with a major flaw, as it only supports cluster migration (all 4 Cortex A15 or all 4 Cortex A7 […]
$55 Phytec Cosmic Boards Feature Freescale Vybrid SoCs
Freescale Vybrid SoC family has been announced at the beginning of last year, with the low-end VF3xx and mid-end VF4xx featuring a single Cortex A5 CPU, and the higher-end VF6xx and VF7xx providing a multi-core processor with Cortex A5 and Cortex M4 cores, for respectively performance, and real-time/low power tasks. Phytec has just announced the Cosmic board featuring Freescale Vybrid VF6xx single core Cortex A5 processor, and Cosmic+ board with Vybrid VF6xx Cortex A5 + Cortex M4 processor. Both boards are comprised of a baseboard coupled with a Phytec phyCORE-Vybrid system-on-module (SoM), and can be used for Linux and MQX (Freescale RTOS) development. Cosmic / Cosmic+ boards specifications: Processor VF5xx ARM Cortex-A5 @ 500MHz (Cosmic) VF6xx ARM Cortex-A5 @ 500MHz + ARM Cortex-M4 @ 167 MHz (Cosmic+) System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – 512 MB NAND + micro SD slot USB – HS USB OTG / HS USB […]
Waxberry Pi2 Development Board Based on Rockchip RK3066
The other days I announced CubieTech and Olimex were working on low cost Rockchip development boards, but it turns out there’s already one on the market called Waxberrry Pi2, or WB-RK3066, made by Waxberry, a Chinese company. Here are the specifications of this development board: SoC – Rockchip RK3066 dual core Cortex-A9 processor @ 1.6GHz with Mali-400 MP4 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 8GB NAND Flash + micro SD card slot USB – Standard USB OTG + Micro USB OTG; Connectivity: 10/100M Ethernet; WIFI 802.11b/g/n (MediaTek MT5931) Bluetoothv2.1+EDR (MediaTek MT6622) Video Output – HDMI + AV Debugging – Serial port Misc – IR Sensor Dimensions – 72mm x72mm The board comes with a Mini HDMI cable, a 5V/2A power supply, a USB Data cable, and a USB-serial board for debug. There’s also a CD with the board schematics, Android 4.1.1 SDK and Linux Kernel 3.x source […]
Freescale SABRE Lite i.MX6 Development Board Unboxing, Wandboard Quad Comparison, and Quick Start Guide
Freescale SABRE Lite is a development board powered by i.MX6 Quad processor with 1GB RAM, SATA, GbE Ethernet, and more. You can get SABRE Lite specifications in my first post about the board. I recently participated in Element14’s “brainteaser” competition for the 4th birthday of their community, where the company offered 9 SABRE Lite development kit to randomly selected participants, and I got lucky. The board can be purchased for $179 from Element14 (MCIMX6Q-SL). I’ll start by showing what in the package, followed by a side-by-side comparison with Wandboard Quad, and show how to getting started by following the Quick Start Guide provided with the board. SABRE Lite i.MX6 Development Kit Unboxing I received the board about 5 days after I provided my address in a large staple carton box with a few goodies. Beside SABRE Lite devkit, the package comes with Element14’s T-Shirt (not my size), double walled tumbler, […]