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December 31, 2019December 31, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Year 2019 in Review – Top 10 Posts and Stats

2019 is closing to an end, or you may already be into 2020 while reading this post. In any case, that means it’s time to look back at 2019 and look forward to the events and new products to take place next year. While 2018 was a boring year for new processors, 2019 brought us some interesting new chips such as Amlogic S922X / A311D, or the first Arm Cortex-A55 only processors such as Amlogic S905X3. Rockchip RK3399Pro was promising when it was announced last year, but it never really took off. It was a pretty quiet year for Allwinner as well. RISC-V architecture has been ramping up with the first general-purpose RISC-V MCU: GD32V, WCH CH572 Bluetooth LE MCU, the launch of more SiFive RISC-V cores, and Kendryte K210 RISC-V AI processor announced last year has found its way into more and more boards. There have also been the […]

December 31, 2019January 2, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

OnLogic Introduces Four Apollo Lake Pico-ITX SBC’s with Integrated Heatsink

We previously covered some Apollo Lake Pico-ITX boards with the likes of GIGABYTE GA-PICO3350 or AAEON PICO-APL3 motherboards, but there are now more options with OnLogic – formerly known as Logic Supply – recently launching four Apollo Lake Pico-ITX SBC’s. OnLogic EPM160, EPM161, EPM162, and EPM163 are powered by either an Intel Celeron N3350 dual-core processor or an Intel Pentium N4200 quad-core SoC with different memory capacities, display and networking options. OnLogic EPM16x specifications: SoC EPM160, EPM161, EPM162 – Intel Celeron N3350 dual-core Apollo Lake processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.4 GHz (Burst frequency) with Intel HD Graphics 500 EPM163 – Intel Pentium N4200 quad-core Apollo Lake processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.5 GHz (Burst frequency) with Intel HD Graphics 500 System Memory / Storage EPM160 – 1 GB LPDDR4-2133, MicroSD card slot, mSATA (shared PCIe Mini Card slot) EPM161 – 2 GB LPDDR4-2133, 8GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot, […]

December 23, 2019April 27, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-F2S Industrial SBC Launched for $58 with Linux 4.19 based Debian or Fedora OS

Last month we covered Banana Pi BPI-F2S single board computer (SBC) for industrial, IoT, and smart audio application that was powered by the intriguing SunPlus SP7021 “Plus1” processor featuring four Cortex-A7 cores, one ARM9 ARM9 real-time core, and one 8051 I/O controller core, as well as up to 512MB built-in DDR3 RAM. At the time, the board was not available, and we had limited information about software support, except the company would provide a Yocto-based Linux distribution. The good news is that you can now buy Banana Pi BPI-F2S industrial SBC on Aliexpress for $58 and Taobao for 390 RMB, and the company released source code and OS images for the board. Here’s a reminder of Banana Pi BPI-F2S specifications: SoC – Sunplus SP7021 “Plus1” with a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.0 GHz, one Arm A926 microprocessor, an 8051 core to handle I/Os, and 128MB or 512MB DDR3 DRAM. Storage […]

December 11, 2019 by Stephen Vicinanza - 7 Comments

EEPD Launches AMD Ryzen Embedded NUC Boards & Mini PCs

EEPD SBC Profive follows embedded NUC Standard Electronic Equipment Production and Distribution, also known as EEPD, has just released its latest Embedded SBCs based on the AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 and V1000 platforms. Respectively they are the SBC Profive NUCR and NUCR both designed for industrial uses. The NUCv has 4 variants with 2 different V1000 series CPUs to choose from, while the NUCR has two R1000 variants. eNUC and Integrated Graphics All variations and types of SBCs and BoxPCs use the embedded NUC standard utilizing the AMD Ryzen embedded platform and series with Radeon Vega Graphics integrated into the system. SBC Profive NUCR specifications AMD Series R1000 Processors – R1606G / R1505G Integrated GPU – AMD Radeon Vega 3 Graphics Up to 32 GB dual-channel DDR4 memory 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports (Intel I210 with IEEE1588) 1x MicroSD card slot 3x M.2 Type B, Type E, Type M sockets M.2 SATA […]

December 9, 2019December 10, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Testing NVIDIA Jetson Nano Developer Kit with and without Fan

A few weeks ago I received NVIDIA Jetson Nano for review together with 52Pi ICE Tower cooling fan which Seeed Studio included in the package, and yesterday I wrote a getting started guide showing how to setup the board, and play with inference samples leveraging the board’s AI capabilities. I’ll now test the board with the stock heatsink in both 5W and 10W modes, and see if thermal throttling does occur, and then I’ll fit the tower cooling fan to find out if we can extract more performance that way and how much lower the CPU temperature is. Jetson Nano Stress Tests with Stock Heatsink Let’s install SBC-Bench testing utility,

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ThomasKaiser/sbc-bench/master/sbc-bench.sh
chmod +x sbc-bench.sh

1 2	wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ThomasKaiser/sbc-bench/master/sbc-bench.sh chmod +x sbc-bench.sh

check it’s properly installed,

sudo ./sbc-bench.sh -m
Time        CPU    load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq   Temp
15:05:06:  922MHz  0.05   5%   1%   2%   0%   0%   0%  35.0°C
15:05:11:  922MHz  0.13   3%   1%   1%   0%   0%   0%  35.0°C
15:05:16:  922MHz  0.12   3%   1%   1%   0%   0%   0%  34.8°C

sudo ./sbc-bench.sh -m

Time CPU load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq Temp

15:05:06: 922MHz 0.05 5% 1% 2% 0% 0% 0% 35.0°C

15:05:11: 922MHz 0.13 3% 1% 1% 0% 0% 0% 35.0°C

15:05:16: 922MHz 0.12 3% 1% 1% 0% 0% 0% 34.8°C

and run it in 5W mode:

sudo nvpmodel -m 1

sudo ./sbc-bench

sbc-bench v0.6.9

Memory performance:
memcpy: 3685.3 MB/s 
memset: 8555.4 MB/s 

7-zip total scores (3 consecutive runs): 2877,2885,2854

OpenSSL results:
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes  16384 bytes
aes-128-cbc     284837.64k   525113.11k   639412.05k   706251.09k   728449.02k   729841.66k
aes-128-cbc     284316.13k   525028.93k   634287.70k   704675.84k   728088.58k   728973.31k
aes-192-cbc     262002.90k   458230.17k   544725.93k   588999.68k   604075.35k   604607.83k
aes-192-cbc     261583.66k   458583.96k   538986.92k   588138.84k   602303.15k   604067.16k
aes-256-cbc     247370.60k   405101.35k   466444.29k   501432.32k   512816.47k   513370.79k
aes-256-cbc     247650.51k   405270.40k   469783.72k   502266.54k   513187.84k   512977.58k

Full results uploaded to http://ix.io/23rg. Please check the log for anomalies (e.g. swapping
or throttling happenend) and otherwise share this URL.

sudo nvpmodel -m 1

sudo ./sbc-bench

sbc-bench v0.6.9

Memory performance:

memcpy: 3685.3 MB/s

memset: 8555.4 MB/s

7-zip total scores (3 consecutive runs): 2877,2885,2854

OpenSSL results:

type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes 16384 bytes

aes-128-cbc 284837.64k 525113.11k 639412.05k 706251.09k 728449.02k 729841.66k

aes-128-cbc 284316.13k 525028.93k 634287.70k 704675.84k 728088.58k 728973.31k

aes-192-cbc 262002.90k 458230.17k 544725.93k 588999.68k 604075.35k 604607.83k

aes-192-cbc 261583.66k 458583.96k 538986.92k 588138.84k 602303.15k 604067.16k

aes-256-cbc 247370.60k 405101.35k 466444.29k 501432.32k 512816.47k 513370.79k

aes-256-cbc 247650.51k 405270.40k 469783.72k 502266.54k 513187.84k 512977.58k

Full results uploaded to http://ix.io/23rg. Please check the log for anomalies (e.g. swapping

or throttling happenend) and otherwise share this URL.

The temperature never went over 44.5°C, and no throttling occurred. tegrastats during 7-zip multi-core test:

CPU [100%@1428,100%@1428,off,off] EMC_FREQ 3%@1600 GR3D_FREQ 0%@76 APE 25 PLL@41.5C CPU@43.5C PMIC@100C GPU@43.5C AO@52.5C thermal@43.5C POM_5V_IN 3348/2567 POM_5V_GPU 0/0 POM_5V_CPU 1549/912
RAM 1211/3956MB (lfb 515x4MB) SWAP 0/1978MB (cached 0MB) IRAM 0/252kB(lfb 252kB) CPU [100%@1428,100%@1428,off,off] EMC_FREQ 3%@1600 GR3D_FREQ 0%@76 APE 25 PLL@41.5C CPU@44C PMIC@100C GPU@43.5C AO@52C thermal@43.5C POM_5V_IN 3348/2568 POM_5V_GPU 0/0 POM_5V_CPU 1549/912
RAM 1239/3956MB (lfb 508x4MB) SWAP 0/1978MB (cached 0MB) IRAM 0/252kB(lfb 252kB) CPU [100%@1428,100%@1428,off,off] EMC_FREQ 3%@1600 GR3D_FREQ 0%@76 APE 25 PLL@41.5C CPU@44C PMIC@100C GPU@43.5C AO@52.5C thermal@43.5C POM_5V_IN 3348/2569 POM_5V_GPU 0/0 POM_5V_CPU 1549/913
RAM 1265/3956MB (lfb 502x4MB) SWAP 0/1978MB (cached 0MB) IRAM 0/252kB(lfb 252kB) CPU [100%@1428,100%@1428,off,off] EMC_FREQ 3%@1600 GR3D_FREQ 0%@76 APE 25 PLL@41.5C CPU@43.5C PMIC@100C GPU@43.5C AO@52.5C thermal@43.5C POM_5V_IN 3348/2571 POM_5V_GPU 0/0 POM_5V_CPU 1510/914

CPU [100%@1428,100%@1428,off,off] EMC_FREQ 3%@1600 GR3D_FREQ 0%@76 APE 25 PLL@41.5C CPU@43.5C PMIC@100C GPU@43.5C AO@52.5C thermal@43.5C POM_5V_IN 3348/2567 POM_5V_GPU 0/0 POM_5V_CPU 1549/912

RAM 1211/3956MB (lfb 515x4MB) SWAP 0/1978MB (cached 0MB) IRAM 0/252kB(lfb 252kB) CPU [100%@1428,100%@1428,off,off] EMC_FREQ 3%@1600 GR3D_FREQ 0%@76 APE 25 PLL@41.5C CPU@44C PMIC@100C GPU@43.5C AO@52C thermal@43.5C POM_5V_IN 3348/2568 POM_5V_GPU 0/0 POM_5V_CPU 1549/912

RAM 1239/3956MB (lfb 508x4MB) SWAP 0/1978MB (cached 0MB) IRAM 0/252kB(lfb 252kB) CPU [100%@1428,100%@1428,off,off] EMC_FREQ 3%@1600 GR3D_FREQ 0%@76 APE 25 PLL@41.5C CPU@44C PMIC@100C GPU@43.5C AO@52.5C thermal@43.5C POM_5V_IN 3348/2569 POM_5V_GPU 0/0 POM_5V_CPU 1549/913

RAM 1265/3956MB (lfb 502x4MB) SWAP 0/1978MB (cached 0MB) IRAM 0/252kB(lfb 252kB) CPU [100%@1428,100%@1428,off,off] EMC_FREQ 3%@1600 GR3D_FREQ 0%@76 APE 25 PLL@41.5C CPU@43.5C PMIC@100C GPU@43.5C AO@52.5C thermal@43.5C POM_5V_IN 3348/2571 POM_5V_GPU 0/0 POM_5V_CPU 1510/914

Only two Cortex-A57 cores are used even under load, and power […]

December 5, 2019 by Stephen Vicinanza - No Comments

Versalogic Owl Small Form Factor Apollo Lake Embedded Computer Targets Military & Industrial Applications

VersaLogic Owl VL-EPU-4012 Embedded System Computer In October 2019 we reported on the VersaLogic Harrier computer that was slightly bigger than a credit card. Just announced by the company is a new embedded computer system is being developed, the Owl. Basics of the VersaLogic Owl The intended uses are again industry and military-grade applications. The system uses ECC memory and the Embedded Processing Unit (EPU) format. The processing unit is an Intel Atom E39xx Platform, 5th Gen Apollo Lake processor with dual or quad-core options. Strength and Resilience The ECC memory is fixed to the board and can be up to 8 GB in size. This reduces the damage that can be caused by vibration and shock, making the system tough and resilient. Available Ports and Security Hardware-based security is through a TDM 2.0 chip. There are onboard power conditioning, mini-PCIe expansion sockets, analog inputs, standard USB 3.0 and 4x […]

December 4, 2019December 4, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

ROCK PI N10 RK3399Pro SBC Sells for $99 and up

Rockchip RK3399Pro processor is based on the popular Rockchip RK3399Pro hexa-core Arm Cortex-A72/A53 processor plus an embedded neural processing unit (NPU) delivering up to 3 TOPS for AI acceleration. So far you had to spend over $200 to get either Toybrick RK3399Pro board or 96Boards RK3399Pro development kit to get started with the processor. Some other companies announced their own RK3399Pro SBC such as Pine64 RockPro64-AI, or Khadas Edge board, but those are not available yet. But there’s now a more affordable Rockchip RK3399Pro SBC courtesy of Radxa’s Rock Pi N10 available on Seeed Studio in three variants: $99 model A with 4GB RAM (3GB for CPU/GPU + 1GB for NPU), 16GB eMMC flash $129 model B with 6GB RAM (4GB for CPU/GPU + 2GB for NPU), 32GB eMMC flash $169 model C with 8GB RAM (4GB for CPU/GPU + 4GB for NPU), 64GB eMMC flash Rock Pi N10 specifications: […]

December 1, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

Run Raspberry Pi 4 Cooler with a New Firmware & One Easy Trick

Raspberry Pi 4 launched last June with a lot of buzz as it offered much better performance, more memory, and faster I/Os compared to Raspberry Pi 3 model B+. Benchmarks confirmed the improved performance but also revealed a heatsink was necessary to ensure optimal performance under heavy loads. Some companies also launched an oversized heatsink+fan combo for the board, but it’s really over the top and absolutely not necessary unless possibly in higher room temperature (50°C?). The Raspberry Pi Foundation also worked on improving the video to lower CPU temperature and power consumption, and a few days later released a beta version of VLI firmware that dropped the temperature by 3 to 5°C. Good effort but sadly the updated VLI firmware (used for the PCIe to USB controller) also had the side-effect of much slower USB performance. A new VLI firmware was released in September offering both a lower temperature […]