UCIe (Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express) open standard for Chiplets with heterogeneous chips

UCIe Open Chiplet platform-on-a-package

We first heard about Chiplet, chips that gather IP or chips from different vendors into a single chip, in 2020 with the now-defunct zGlue’s Open Chiplet Initiative, but the term recently came back to the forefront last month with Intel’s investment into the “Open Chiplet Platform” that aims to offer a modular approach to chip design through chiplets with each block/chiplet customized for a particular function. It turns out there’s now an official standard called the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) whose specification defines the interconnect between chiplets within a package, and not only backed by Intel, but also AMD, Arm, ASE, Google Cloud, Meta, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung, and TSMC. UCIe defines the Physical Layer (Die-to-Die I/O) and protocols to be used for the chiplet interfaces, currently PCIe and CXL (Compute Express Link), but more protocols will be added to the specification in the future. The goal is to provide […]

Samsung Exynos 2200 SoC features Xclipse 920 GPU with AMD RDNA 2 architecture

Samsung Exynos 2200

Samsung has just unveiled the Exynos 2200 Armv9 SoC equipped with Samsung Xplipse 920 GPU based on AMD RDNA architecture and promising console quality graphics on mobile devices. Manufactured with a 4nm process, the octa-core processor also features Arm Cortex-X2, Cortex-A710, and Cortex-A510 cores, a 5G modem for up to 7.35 Gbps downlink, 8K video encoding and decoding, as well as support for LPDDR5 memory and UFS 3.1 storage. Exynos 2200 specifications: CPU 1x Arm Cortex-X2 3x Arm Cortex-A710 4x Arm Cortex-A510 GPU – Samsung Xclipse 920 GPU built with AMD RDNA 2 technology enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing (RT) and variable rate shading (VRS), a first on mobile according to Samsung VPU Video decode – 8Kp60 10-bit HEVC (H.265), 8Kp30 10-bit VP9, AV1 Video encode – 8Kp30 10-bit HEVC(H.265), VP9 AI – AI Engine with Dual-core NPU and DSP up to 52 TOPS (TBC) Memory – LPDDR5 Storage – UFS […]

Samsung Galaxy Upcycling at Home program aims to repurpose older phones into IoT devices

Samsung Galaxy Upcycling light sensor

Electronics waste, also as known as e-waste, has been a problem talked about for years, and in 2015 we asked the question “What do you do with your old devices and boards?” as many devices just end up collecting dust or stored in a drawer. Some better ways include giving or selling them to others, or repurpose them. For instance, a cheap Arm HDMI dongle can make a torrent downloader, an old phone can be transformed into a surveillance camera, an ATX power supply could be converted into a bench power supply, etc… But repurposing devices require some technical skills which many of the smart CNX Software readers have, but it’s unrealistic to expect the typical consumer to be able to hack their old devices into new ones using some tutorials found on the Internet. Samsung Galaxy Upcycling Program aims to make recycling upcycling easier for owners of Galaxy smartphones, […]

Linux 5.12 – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.12

Linux 5.12 release was expected last Sunday, but Linus Torvalds decided to release one more release candidate, namely Linux 5.12-RC8, to “make sure things are all settled down“, so the latest Linux kernel is now expected this weekend.  Tihs should not yield any significant changes, so we can check what’s new in Linux 5.12, notably with regards to Arm, MIPS, and RISC-V architectures often used in SoC’s found in embedded systems. Around two months ago, the release of Linux 5.11 added support for Intel’s software guard extensions (SGX) and Platform Monitoring Technology (PMT), AMD “Van Gogh” and “Dimgrey cavefish” graphics processors, MIPI I3C host controller interfaces, and much more. Some interesting changes in Linux 5.12 include: Added support for ACRN hypervisor designed for IoT & embedded devices Added support for Playstation DualSense & Nintendo 64 game controllers, as well as Nintendo 64 data cartridges Dynamic thermal power management via a […]

Samsung Exynos 2100 5G mobile SoC offers Cortex-X1 core, LPDDR5 memory and more

Samsung Exynos 2100

Following the introduction of Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G premium processor last December, Samsung has now unveiled the Exynos 2100 5G mobile SoC with many of the same features and specifications. The new 5G processor notable features a similar eight-core design with one Cortex-X1 core, three Cortex-A78 cores, and four low-power Cortex-A55 cores, 26 TOPS of AI computing, support for 4K UHD displays, as well as a 5G modem built into the chip. Samsung Exynos 2100 key features and specifications: SoC – Octa-core processor with Single-core Cortex-X1 @ up to 2.9GHz Triple-core Cortex-A78 @ up to 2.8GHz Quad-core Cortex-A55 @ up to 2.2GHz GPU – Mali-G78 MP14 AI Accelerator – 26 TOPS triple NPU Memory – LPDDR5 (51.2GB/s) Storage – UFS 3.1 Display – 4K/WQUXGA @ 120Hz max, QHD+ @ 144Hz max; HDR10+ support Cellular Modem 5G NR Sub-6GHz 5.1Gbps (DL) /1.92 Gbps (UL) 5G NR mmWave 7.35Gbps (DL) /3.67 Gbps […]

Samsung Exynos 1080 Octa-core Cortex-A78/A55 5G SoC includes Mali-G78 GPU

Arm Cortex-A78 CPU core and Mali-G78 GPU were announced in March 2020, and yesterday we covered the first Cortex-A78 processor with MediaTek MT8195 that should feature a Mali-G57 GPU. But today, Samsung has announced the first SoC to combine both Cortex-A78 cores with Mali-G78 GPU. Exynos 1080 octa-core processor also includes a 5G NR modem, supports for LPDDR5 memory, UFS 3.1 storage, and manufactured with a 5nm process. Samsung Exynos 1080 key features and specifications: CPU Single-core Cortex-A78 @ 2.8 GHz Triple-core Cortex-A78 @ 2.6 GHz Quad-core Cortex-A55 @ 2.0 GHz GPU – Mali-G78 MP10 AI Accelerators – Neural processing unit (NPU) and Digital Signal Processor (DSP) Memory – LPDDR5 / LPDDR4x Storage – UFS v3.1 Display – WQHD+ @ 90Hz; FHD+ @ 144Hz; HDR10+ Camera – Single-camera Up to 200MP, dual-camera 32MP+32MP Video – 4K 60fps encoding and decoding with HEVC(H.265)/H.264/VP8/VP9 (10-bit only with HEVC & VP9) Connectivity Cellular […]

Linux 5.8 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS, and RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.8 Release

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 5.8: So I considered making an rc8 all the way to the last minute, but decided it’s not just worth waiting another week when there aren’t  any big looming worries around. Because despite the merge window having been very large, there really hasn’t been anything scary going on in the release candidates. Yeah, we had some annoying noise with header file dependencies this week, but that’s not a new annoyance, and it’s also not the kind of subtle bug that keeps me up at night worrying about it. It did reinforce how nice it would be if we had some kind of tooling support to break nasty header file dependencies automatically, but if wishes were horses.. Maybe some day we’ll have some kind of SAT-solver for symbol dependencies that can handle all our different architectures and configurations, but right now it’s just a manual […]

Samsung Exynos 880 SoC Targets Mid-Range 5G Smartphones

Samsung Exynos 880

5G used to be reserved for premium smartphones, but with processors such as Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G and Huawei/Hisilicon Kirin 820, 5G cellular connectivity is also coming to mid-range smartphones. Samsung Exynos 880 brings another option to the mid-range 5G handsets market. The octa-core Cortex-A77/A55 mobile processor comes with a Mali-G76 GPU, an NPU and a DSP for on-chip AI acceleration, and supports 5G downloads up to 3.55 Gbps, uploads up to 1.38 Gbps. Samsung Exynos 880 specification: CPU – Dual-core Cortex-A77 processor @ 2.0GHz, hexa-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G76 MP5 On-Device AI – Neural processing unit (NPU) and digital signal processor (DSP) System Memory Type – LPDDR4x Storage I/F – UFS 2.1, eMMC 5.1 Display – Up to Full HD+ (2520×1080) resolution Camera – Single-camera up to 64MP, Dual-camera up to 20MP+20MP Video – 4K UHD 30fps encoding and decoding with HEVC/H.265, H.264, and VP9 […]

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