mwc 2017 News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

September 30, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Mediatek MT6739 Launched for Entry-Level 4G Smartphones with 18:9 Displays

India Mobile Congress 2017 took place in New Delhi this week, and at the event, Mediatek officially launched Helio P23 processor (in India), as well as a new MT6739 SoC with a quad core Cortex A53 processor, Imagination PowerVR GE8100 GPU, an a LTE Cat.4/5 modem for entry level 4G LTE smartphones. Mediatek MT6739 specifications: CPU – 4x ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked up to 1.5GHz GPU – Imagination PowerVR GE8100 GPU @ 570 MHz with System Memory – LPDDR3-667MHz up to 3GB Storage – eMMC 5.1 Flash Display – up to 1440 x 720 (18:9 aspect ratio) Camera – 13MP, dual camera supported Video Decoding – 1080p @ 30FPS, H.264/HEVC Video Encoding – 1080p @ 30FPS, H.264 Modem – 4G LTE Cat. 4 DL / Cat. 5 UL (FDD/TDD) up to 150Mbps download, 50Mbps upload, CDMA2000, L+G, L+W/L+L DSDS, eMBMS, HPUE, 600MHz band supported; Dual VolTE Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth […]

June 28, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 is a 14nm LTE “Mobile Platform” for Mid-Range Smartphones and Tablets

Qualcomm has a made several announcements at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2017, with processors like Snapdragon Wear 1200 Wearables SoC, as well as Snapdragon 450 octa-core mobile platform, allegedly the first 14nm processor made for mid-range mobile devices. Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 specifications: CPU – 8x ARM Cortex A53 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU – Adreno 506 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.1, OpenCL 2.0 Full, DirectX 12, GPU tessellation, geometry shading DSP – Hexagon 546 DSP Memory I/F – LPDDR3 Display – Full HD 1080p60; Qualcomm EcoPix,TruPalette, improveTouch technology Audio – Qualcomm Aqstic with VoLTE w/Ultra HD Voice (EVC), high-fidelity music playback (24-bit/192 KHz), Dolby 5.1 Modem – Snapdragon X9 LTE modem up to 300 Mbps download (Cat 7) and 150 Mbps uplink (Cat. 13) Wireless Connectivity – 802.11ac MU-MIMO, Gen8C Lite location technology, Bluetooth 4.1 LE USB – USB 3.0 interface Camera – Up to 13MP dual camera, […]

May 8, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Think Silicon Ultra Low Power NEMA GPUs are Designed for Wearables and IoT Applications

When you have to purchase a wearable device, let’s say a smartwatch or fitness tracker, you have to make trade offs between user interface and battery life. For example, a fitness tracker such as Xiaomi Mi Band 2 will last about 2 weeks per charge with a limited display, while Android smartwatches with a much better interface need to be recharged every 1 or 2 days. Think Silicon aims to improve battery life of the devices with nicer user interfaces thanks to their ultra-low power NEMA 2D, 3D, and GP GPU that can be integrated into SoCs with ARM Cortex-M and Cortex-A cores. The company has three family of GPUs: NEMA|p pico 2D GPU with one core 4bpp framebuffer, 6bpp texture with/out alpha Fill Rate – 1pixel/cycle Silicon Area – 0.07 mm2 with 28nm process Power Consumption – leakage power GPU consumption of 0.06mW; with compression (TSFSc): 0.03 mW NEMA|t […]

March 9, 2017March 9, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Auxens OXI Brings Windows Continuum Like Desktop Mode to Android Smartphones

Remix OS, Phoenix OS, LightBiz OS… are all Android based operating systems with desktop optimizations, but so far they mostly work on TV boxes, computers or tablets. If you want something that works on smartphones with a desktop mode while connected, your choice is more limited with solutions such as community based Maru OS, or the upcoming Remix Singularity. But there’s now a new player in town with Auxens OXI that works a little like Windows Continuum, but with modifications to the Android API. OXI is based on CyanogenMod 13.1, with work being done to switch to LineageOS 14.1, and offers a desktop-like environment for Android with support for multitasking, multi-window support with resizing, notification support, and so on. It works by connecting the smartphone to a secondary screen via MHL, DisplayPort, or Miracast to get a desktop environment, while still being able to use your phone. Apps do not […]

March 7, 2017March 8, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Avegant Glyph a Headphone with Two DLP Projectors Acting as Your Own Portable Home Theater

I reviewed my first and only Android VR headset last year, and while it was fun to use for short periods, I found it very uncomfortable to my eyes and head for periods of usage over 15 minutes, and would definitely not watch an entire movie on such device. Avegant’s engineers worked for a headset for the military that had to be used for long periods of time, and they found they could adapt their product for consumer use and create Avegant Glyph, and alternative to VR headset that looks like a stereo headset, but also includes two 720p DLP projectors placed right in front of your eyes, hereby creating your own private, and portable – home theater. Avegant Glyph specifications: Resolution – 1280x720p per eye via 2 million micro-mirrors Aspect Ratio – 16:9 Field of view – ~40° diagonal Diopter Adjustment – +1 to -7 range Adjustable IPD, and […]

March 6, 2017March 6, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

SD Association Introduces Class A2 Application Performance Class, and UHS-III Standard Supporting Up to 624 MB/s

Users of development boards booting from (micro) SD cards have often missed random I/O performance information to determine whether the device would performance well to run an operating system, but now that Google has implemented “adoptable storage” to let consumer run app from their micro SD cards, it has become an important differentiating factor for manufacturers, and the SD association announced A1 App performance class with minimum random I/O read/write performance and at least 10MB/s sequential write speed last year. The SD association has now unveiled Class A2 with better I/O performance with minimum requirements of 4000 IOPS for random reads, and 2000 IOPS for random writes, with the same 10 MB/s minimum sequential write speed. That means the application performance table now looks as shown below. Note that Class A2 is not available right now, and test requirements will be explained in SD 6.1 part 1 physical specification to […]

February 28, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Oppo’s Ultra-Thin Smartphone Dual Camera Comes with a 3x Optical Zoom, Supports 5x “Lossless” Zoom

Smartphones allow you to zoom in when taking a picture, but most of the time it’s achieved using a software based digital zoom, and quality suffers greatly as a results. Oppo has however designed a new smartphone camera module with a 3x optical zoom, and “image fusion” technology to bring the level of “lossless” zoom to 5 times. Some phones such as Asus Zenfone Zoom come with a 3x optical zoom, and you can purchase detachable zoom for your smartphone, but none of those are as quite as compact as Oppo solution, which from the outside looks like a standard dual camera since it’s so thin (5.7 mm). They’ve managed to keep the module compact by designing a periscope-style structure that divert light through a prism and into a telephoto lens nested inside the smartphone, set at a 90° angle to a rear-facing wide-angle lens. The camera also comes with […]

February 28, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Spreadtrum SC9861G-IA is an Octa-core Intel Airmont LTE SoC for Smartphones

Do you member Rockchip & Intel partnership about “SoFia” SoC for smartphones? It did not pan out so well, and but Intel has apparently not given up on the idea of partnering with Chinese companies to design and launch Intel based smartphone application processors, as Speadtrum has just announced SC9861G-IA octa-core Intel Airmont processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with an LTE Cat. 7 modem, and manufactured using Intel’s 14nm process technology. The Airmont architecture is also found in Intel’s own Cherry Trail and Braswell SoCs designed for respectively tablets and mini PCs, so they must have found some further power efficiencies in order to use it in a smartphone, and used some of technology developed for Intel canceled projects. SC9861G-IA withh support 5-mode full-band LTE (TDD-LTE / FDD-LTE / TD-SCDMA / WCDMA / EGG) Cat 7. as well as Carrier Aggregation and TDD/FDD hybrid networking, allowing for peak data […]