Android 5.0 Lollipop Coming to Allwinner A33 & A80, Rockchip RK3288, and More…

I can often see questions requesting whether SoC XYZ will support Android 5.0 Lollipop. The good news is that last week, I’ve read lots of news about Android 5.0 support on various devices including Nvidia Shield tablet, Motorola G & X smartphones, and of course the Google Nexus devices. A developer (Nanik T.) also ported Android Lollipop to ODROID U3 development board based on Exynos 4412, and he mentioned that “porting was pretty straight forward as KK and 5.0 does not have a lot of differences in terms of HAL”, which means there’s hope for more recent devices and SoCs getting the update. Chinese SoC vendors are also getting the word out that they are working on Android 5.0. Rockchip announced Lollipop support for RK3288 processor (original news in Chinese) probably coming to tablets first, and Android TV boxes later. They used their reference platforms in the provided pictures, and […]

$99 ODROID-XU3 Lite Development Board Powered by Exynos 5422 Octa Core Processor

Hardkernel is known for their low cost Exynos based ODROID boards such as the $59 ODROID U3 board based on Exynos 4412 quad core SoC, and with ODROID-XU3, they also have a more powerful Octa-core Exynos 5422 board which sells for a premium price of $179. The company has now decided to offer a cheaper version of the board, which they call “ODROID-XU3 Lite” and lacks DisplayPort, the current and voltage sensors, and uses an Exynos 5422 processor clocked at 1.8/1.3 GHz instead of 2.0+/1.4 GHz for the original board. Price? A cool $99. ODROID-XU3 Lite specifications: SoC – Samsung Exynos 5422 quad core ARM Cortex-A15 @ 1.8GHz quad core ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1.3GHz in big.LITTLE configuration with Mali-T628 MP6 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 / 2.0 / 1.1 and OpenCL 1.1 Full profile System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 RAM PoP (933Mhz, 14.9GB/s memory bandwidth, 2x32bit bus) Storage – Micro […]

Samsung Officially Announces Exynos 7 Octa big.LITTLE ARM Cortex A53/A57 Processor

Samsung started to commit code related to Exynos 7 processor to mainline kernel in August, but at the time details were scarce, and many tech websites referred to a Exynos 5433 64-bit processor from Samsung. Exynos 5433 for a Cortex A53/A57 SoC did not make much sense as the company recently announced Exynos 5430 based on Cortex A15 and A7 cores, so finally Exynos 5433 has been renamed to Exynos 7 Octa. Here’s what we know about Exynos 7 Octa from information on Exynos 7 Octa page and an older Anandtech article about Exynos 5433: CPU – 4x Cortex A57 cores @ 1.9 GHz , 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.3 GHz GPU – Mali-T760 @ 700 MHz Memory Controller – 2x 32-bit @ 825MHz (13.2GB/s b/w) Display – Up to WQHD (2560 x 1440) / WQXGA (2560 x 1600) resolutions Video – Advanced multimedia format codec (MFC) including support […]

Samsung Gear S SmartWatch and Tizen SDK for Wearables

Albeit Tizen struggle in the smartphone market widely reported by the tech press, devices from cameras to smartwatches, all made by Samsung, are currently selling with the new mobile operating system. Announced about two weeks ago, Samsung Gear S is the latest Tizen product launched by the company. The smartwatch features a 2″ curved display (Samsung likes curved displays), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.. and it can also make phone calls and access the internet over 2G/3G cellular networks. Samsung Gear S specifications: SoC – Dual core processor @ 1.0 GHz (Maybe Exynos 3250 like in Gear 2?) System Memory – 512MB Storage – 4GB internal storage Display –  2.0” Super AMOLED touchscreen display with 360×480 resolution Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, A-GPS/Glonass Cellular Network 900/2100 or 850/1900 (3G) 900/1800 or 850/1900 (2G) USB – micro USB 2.0 Audio Codecs – MP3/AAC/AAC+/eAAC+ Audio Formats – MP3, M4A, WMA, AAC, OGG […]

Samsung Unveils Galaxy Note 4 and Note Edge with Curved Display

IFA 2014 tradeshow is just starting today, and will last until the 9th of September, but several companies have made announcements just before the show. One of them is Samsung which announced Gear VR virtual reality kit, Tizen based Gear S smartwatch, as well as two new smarthones, Galaxy Note 4 and Note Edge, which will be the subject of this post. Samsung Galaxy Note Edge Galaxy Note Edge is much different from most other phones thanks to its curved display on one side of the phone. Other specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon S805 quad core Krait 400 processor @ 2.7 GHz with Adreno 420 GPU System Memory – 3GB RAM Storage – 32 or 64 GB internal memory + micro SD slot (up to 64GB) Display – 5.6″ Quad HD+ Super AMOLED (2560 x 1440 + 160) Cellular Networking: 2.5G (GSM/ GPRS/ EDGE): 850 / 900 / 1800 / […]

Samsung Exynos 7 ARM Cortex A57 Processor Linux Code Submitted

Samsung has not announced any 64-bit processor yet, but according to a recent patchset Exynos 7 may be their first 64-bit ARM SoC, and it will be based on the faster Cortex A57 cores. A quick way to learn a little more is to check the device tree file (exynos7.dtsi). Here’s an interesting snippet:

As it stands, Exynos7 would be a single core Cortex A57 processor. This sounds unlikely that a company would launch a single core processor at this stage, so it’s probably early code that may not support all cores just yet.  We also know Samsung uses ESPRESSO board for development with Samsung Exynos 7 processor and 3 GB RAM. Thanks to David for the tips. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time […]

Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2014 Schedule – IoT, ARM vs x86, Optimization, Power Management, Debugging…

The Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELC 2014), CloudOpen, and LinuxCon Europe will jointly take place at the Congress Centre Düsseldorf, in Germany on October 13 – 15, 2014. The 3-day events will consists of keynotes, presentations, and tutorials. Each day will open with two or three keynotes by speakers including  Jim Zemlin (Executive Director, Linux Foundation), and Jono Bacon (XPRIZE), followed by presentation and tutorials. There will be 45 presentations for ELCE, 58 for LinuxCon, and 47 for CloudOpen, I’ll make a virtual schedule with a few sessions part of the Embedded Linux Conference Europe “track”. Monday, October 13 11:15 – 12:05 –  Performance Analysis Using the Perf Suite by Mans Rullgar, Consultant When faced with a performance problem, the initial steps towards a solution include identifying the sections of code responsible and the precise reasons they are time-consuming. To this end, the ‘perf’ profiling tools provide valuable insight into the […]

Samsung Announces Exynos 5430 SoC, Manufactured with 20nm Process

Samsung already have a few octa-core big.LITTLE SoCs part of Exynos 5 Octa family with Exynos 5410, Exynos 5420, and Exynos 5422/5800, all based on 28nm process. The company has just announced a new Exynos 5 Octa processors with Exynos 5430, but this time manufactured using 20nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process technology providing 25% less power consumption compared to 28nm Exynos SoCs. Exynos 5430 SoC will feature four ARM Cortex A15 cores at 1.8 GHz, four Cortex A7 cores at 1.3 GHz, supports WQHD (2560×1440) and WQXGA (2560 x 1600) displays using hibernation display and Mobile Image compression (MIC) in order to lower power consumption. It also said to support HDMI, come with a Multi Format Codec (MFC) supporting HEVC/H.265 decoding, as well as an enhanced dual ISP, and up to 17GB/s of memory bandwidth. That’s about all the information I could get at this point. The CPU core […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC