OmniVision OA805 4K Video Camera SoC Supports 100 ms Boot Time, 4K HEVC Encoding

OmniVision OA805 4K Video Processor

OmniVision OA805 Arm Cortex-A5 4K video camera processor is specifically designed for battery operated security and surveillance cameras, including video doorbells, with the ability to encode 4K30p video streams with HEVC/H.265 video codec at very low power consumption. The processor also has a very short boot-up time of just 100ms, meaning it can go from completely powered off to fully functional upon trigger by a motion detection sensor. That short boot time removes the need for standby or sleep mode further lowering the power consumption and allowing the camera to have up to two years of battery life (albeit no mention of battery capacity was made…). OmniVision OA805 specifications: CPU Main CPU – Arm Cortex-A5 processor with NEON, 32KB I-cache, 32KB D-cache Secondary CPU (SPU) – Arm Cortex-A5 processor with NEON, 32KB I-cache, 32KB D-cache Media Processing Unit (MPU) – 32-bit RISC MCU with 8KB I-cache, 8KB D-cache System Memory […]

GreenWaves GAP9 IoT Application Processor Enables AI on Coin-cell Powered Devices

GAPuino Board

GreenWaves Technologies GAP8 multi-core RISC-V microcontroller was introduced last year for artificial intelligence (AI) at the edge at ultra-low power consumption. GAP8 AIoT SoC was shown to perform inference at 3.7mA against 60mA for the same workload on STM32F7 Arm Cortex-M7 MCU. The company has now expanded its GAP IoT application processor family with GAP9 that delivers five times lower power consumption compared to GAP8 microcontroller while enabling inference on neural networks 10 times larger. Greenwaves GAP9 will bring machine learning and signal processing capabilities to (coin cell) battery operated or energy harvesting devices such as IoT sensors in consumer and industrial markets, wearables, smart building, smart farming and so on. GAP9 is said to combine architectural enhancements with Global Foundries 22nm FDX process to achieve a peak cluster memory bandwidth of 41.6 GB/sec and up to 50 GOPS compute power while consuming only 50mW. The increased memory bandwidth (20x […]

Nordic Semi nRF5340 Dual Arm Cortex-M33 SoC Supports Bluetooth 5.1/Mesh, NFC, Thread & Zigbee

After introducing nRF52833 WiSoC with Bluetooth 5.1 direction-finding support last month, Nordic Semiconductors has now launched another multi-protocol wireless SoC with nRF5340 featuring two Arm Cortex-M33 cores and supporting Bluetooth 5.1, Bluetooth Mesh, NFC, Thread & Zigbee. One of the Cortex-M33 is an application core incorporating  1 MB Flash and 512 KB RAM, as well as Arm CryptoCell-312, Arm TrustZone technology, and Secure Key Storage for the highest level of security, and the other Cortex-M33 core is used for networking functions.  The company also announced nRF5340 PDK to get started with the new WiSoC. nRF5340 Dual-Core Multiprotocol SoC Key features and specifications: CPU Application core  – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 128/64 MHz with 1 MB Flash + 512 KB RAM, 8 KB 2-way set associative cache; CoreMark: 510/255; CoreMark/mA: 65/76 Network core –  Arm Cortex-M33 @ 64 MHz with 256 KB Flash + 64 KB RAM, 2 KB instruction cache; CoreMark: […]

Intel Unveils Tremont Low-power x86 Architecture, Lakefield Hybrid Processor

Intel LakeField Processor

Intel Tremont microarchitecture was first leaked in April 2018 as a successor to Goldmont Plus used in Gemini Lake processors among others. But Intel has now made it official and revealed details about Tremont architecture at Linley Fall Processor Conference in Santa Clara, California. The new architecture is said to deliver significant IPC (instructions per cycle) gains compared with Intel’s prior low-power x86 architectures. Tremont-based processors will target client devices, IoT products, 5G networking, efficient datacenter servers, etc… Tremont Architecture Some of the highlights of Tremont architecture include: Intel Core class branch prediction with long history,32 bytes based, L1 predictor (no penalty) and large L2 predictor Out of order fetch – 32KB instruction cache, 32 bytes/cycle, up to 8 outstanding misses 6-wide out of order instruction decode Dual 3-wide clusters Wide decode without the area of a uop cache Optional single cluster mode based on product targets 4 wide allocation […]

AAEON M.2 and mPCIe Cards for AIoT Acceleration Run Kneron KL520 AI SoC

The AAEON announcement of its AI Acceleration M.2 and mini-PCIe cards AAEON uses Kneron KL520 AI SoC dual Cortex-M4 on a series of new modules that are accelerating AI edge computing and that only need 0.5 Watt of power. The modules are M.2 and mini-PCIe AI acceleration cards, that offer a new way to come at AI acceleration. What AI Features are Enhanced The cards are meant to enhance and accelerate AI functions, like gesture detection, facial and object recognition, driver behavior in such AIoT areas as access control, automation, and security. History of the AAEON Development Previously AAEON has been offering the M.2 and mini-PCIe AI core modules for the Boxer computers that are based on the Intel Movidius Myriad 2 and Myriad X Vision Processing Units (VPU). Reporting was done on these previous releases in the articles on the UP AI core mini-PCIe card and the  AI Core […]

Orange Pi Zero LTS Allwinner H2+ SBC Gets More Efficient and Cooler

Allwinner H2+ SBC Low Power Consumption

Orange Pi Zero is a cool little Arm Linux board based on Allwinner H2+ processor for headless applications requiring WiFi and/or Ethernet that was first launched in November 2016 for $7 and up. It was not launched without controversy, as first users had various issues with the Allwinner XR819 WiFi module, but I had no such problem when I made an Orange Pi Zero Google Assistant smart speaker. Nevertheless, Shenzhen Xunlong Software is about to launch a newer version of the board – Orange Pi Zero LTS -, with the same specifications, but improvements in the design in order to reduce power consumption, and lower the board’s temperature. As the name implies, the company will commit to long term support (i.e. long term availability) for the board, but they did not tell me for how many years. Orange Pi Zero LTS v1.5 specifications: SoC – Allwinner H2+ quad-core Cortex A7 […]

NXP i.MX 7ULP Enters Mass-Production, EVK and Systems-on-Module Announced

Last year, we wrote about F&S Elektronik Systeme PicoCORE MX7 system-on-module (SoM) powered by NXP i.MX 7ULP processor manufactured with a 28nm FD-SOI process, and that was announced a year earlier. The official launch of the module was planned for Q3 2018, but there have been some delays as LinuxGizmos reports NXP has only started mass production of their i.MX7 ULP this June. With the official launch of i.MX 7ULP, the company also introduced the official i.MX 7ULP Evaluation Board (MCIMX7ULP-EVK) as showcased on Element14’s community and several other companies announced i.MX 7ULP systems-on-modules. Benefits of NXP i.MX 7ULP Processor The i.MX7 ULP family of processors is an extremely power-efficient series, that is utilizing lower power for more functions. The SoC is being touted as the most power-efficient processor that can be obtained that also houses a 3D GPU.  Although like the i.MX7, the i.MX 7ULP combines both Cortex-A7 and […]

Sony CXM1501GR ELTRES LPWAN Module Promises a Range of over 100 Km

While there are many LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) standards, three appear to dominate the news namely LoRaWAN, SigFox, and 3GPP NB-IoT/eMTC. They all offer long range and up to 10-year of battery life enabled by the use of low bitrate which is fast enough to send sensor data. We can now add another LWPAN standard to the list, as Sony has developed ELTRES wireless communication standard suitable for IoT networks, and announced their CXM1501GR ELTRES module with a range of over 100km, even while traveling at 100km/h. Key features and specifications: ELTRES Connectivity Antenna radiated power – 20mW Communication direction – Uplink only Frequency – 923.6 MHz to 928.0 MHz (23-channel frequency hopping) Main modulation system – π/2 Shift BPSK Sub-modulation system – Linear chirp modulation Transmission system – Four repeated transmissions of 0.4 sec or shorter packets Reduction of interference with other systems – CSMA (Carrier Sense […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC