MaxLinear has just announced the availability of the first three AnyWAN broadband SoCs featuring Intel Atom cores with the MxL25641, URX850, and URX851 processors designed for 5Gbps and 10 Gbps broadband routers and gateways, usually referred to as CPEs (customer premise equipment). When I first read the news of MaxLinear releasing Intel Atom SoCs, I could not quite compute how it was possible, as I can’t remember any third-party releasing Intel processors and I thought it might be a system-in-package instead. But MaxLinear keeps calling those Intel Atom SoCs, and the reason is that the company acquired Intel’s Home Gateway Platform Division in 2020. MaxLinear AnyWAN x86 SoCs key features and specifications: AnyWAN URX850/URX851 (for 10Gbps systems) CPU – 4x Intel Atom CPU cores @ 2 GHz Memory – Up to 16GB LPDDR4 or DDR4 Storage – eMMC 5.1 flash Networking 4x 2.5GE PHYs XFI WAN Packet processor for full […]
Radair mini gateway – A 3-in-1 LoRaWAN gateway, Helium miner, and environmental monitoring station
Radair mini gateway is a multiple-purpose gateway with LoRaWAN, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth and Ethernet connectivity, a Quectel GNSS module, the ability to connect to the Helium network to mine HNT cryptocurrency, as well as a 4-in-1 Bosch environmental sensor to monitor temperature, humidity, pressure, and air quality. Radair mini gateway specifications: SoC – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 “crypto” CPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card socket Connectivity WM1302 LoRa concentrator for LoRaWAN support Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port 802.11 b/g/n/ac/ax Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 via Mediatek MT7921AU module Dual Antenna – Wi-Fi 6E, LoRa GPS – Quectel GNSS module 4-in-1 Bosch environmental sensor Temperature & Humidity Pressure (Altitude accuracy +/- 1M) Air Quality (Carbon Monoxide, Bacteria, Smoke, Sulfur, Hydrogen) USB – 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type C port (in front) for external accessories HW security – Microchip Technologies ECC608 secure element Misc – Reset/Bluetooth […]
Nordic Semi nRF7002 is a dual-band WiFi 6 companion IC for nRF52, nRF53, and nRF91 wireless chips
Nordic Semiconductor nRF7002 dual-band WiFi 6 companion chip is the first WiFi chip from the company and is designed to add Wi-Fi connectivity to solutions based on nRF52840 and nRF5340 wireless SoCs, and nRF9160 cellular IoT SiP, as well as non-Nordic host microcontrollers. The nRF7002 also adds Wi-Fi-based locationing (SSID sniffing of local Wi-Fi hubs) when used alongside Nordic’s existing products, and the launch means Nordic is now one of the rare companies offering chips for Bluetooth, 802.15.4 (Matter/Thread), Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT (NB-IoT, LTE Cat M). This was made possible with the acquisition of the development team, core Wi-Fi expertise, and Wi-Fi IP assets of Imagination Technologies Group in 2020. Nordic Semi nRF7002 key features specifications: Complies with 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz dual-band Wi-Fi 6 Station (STA) 1 Spatial Stream (SS) 20 MHz channel bandwidth 64 QAM (MCS7), 86 Mbps PHY throughput OFDMA (Downlink and Uplink) BSS […]
ACTAMID M8S – An Intel Pentium N6005 palm-sized PC with dual Gigabit Ethernet, 3x HDMI ports (Crowdfunding)
ACTAMID M8S is a palm-sized 3.4-inch mini PC powered by an Intel Pentium N6005 Jasper Lake processor with up to 16GB LPDDR4 memory, 1TB M.2 2242 SSD. The M8S is bigger than the recently announced 2.7-inch PIX NII mini PC based on the same processor, but that’s for a good reason since it offers more ports with three HDMI outputs, dual Gigabit Ethernet, and three USB 3.0 ports. The mini PC also features WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity, a quiet fan, and a 7-color LED backlight for good effects… Win Element Technology Co., Ltd, the Hong Kong company owning the ACTAMID brand, says the mini PC ships preinstalled with an activated version of Windows 11, but also supports Linux distributions such as Ubuntu 20.04. ACTAMID M8S specifications: SoC – Intel Pentium N6005 quad-core processor @ 2.0GHz / 3.3GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD graphics @ up to 900 MHz; […]
Allwinner H618 processor powers Android 12 TV boxes
Allwinner H618 processor has started to show up in several TV boxes running Android 12, and capable of playing 6K/4K VP9 and H.265 videos with devices such as T95Z Plus and T95 Max, which may be confusing, as companies are reusing those model numbers over and over. Featuring a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, an Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU, and 6K video support, the Allwinner H618 looks exactly like the Allwinner H616 processor except it can run the more recent Android 12 operating system. There’s not much public information about Allwinner H618 at the time of writing, but let’s check T95Z Plus specifications to see if we can find any other new hidden features: SoC – Allwinner H618 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.5GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB or 4GB RAM Storage – 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card socket Video Output HDMI […]
ZOTAC ZBOX PI336 PICO mini PC gets an Elkhart Lake upgrade with Intel Celeron N6211
The last time we wrote about the ZOTAC ZBOX PICO PI336 mini PC it featured an Intel Celeron N4100 Gemini Lake processor, but the company appears to have launched an upgrade with an Intel Celeron N6211 Elkhart Lake processor instead. The new ZBOX PI336 PICO fanless mini PC also gets more storage up to 128GB eMMC flash, but the rest of the specifications remain pretty much the same with 4GB RAM, HDMI & DisplayPort video outputs, three USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFI, and Bluetooth, although some of the interfaces got a version bump for additional performance. ZOTAC PI336 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N6211 dual-core Elkhart Lake processor up to 1.2/3.0 GHz with 16EU Intel UHD Graphics @ up to 750 MHz; 6.5W TDP System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4x 3200MT/s Storage – 128GB eMMC flash, microSD card socket Display HDMI 2.0 up to 3840×2160 @ 60Hz DisplayPort 1.4 up to […]
PIX NII is a pocket-sized mini PC powered by an Intel Pentium N6005 processor (Crowdfunding)
PIX NII pocket-sized mini PC features an Intel Pentium N6005 Jasper Lake processor that should provide a nice upgrade to existing 2.4-inch mini PCs based on Gemini Lake processors such as Larkbox. The tiny computer is slightly larger (2.7×2.6 inch) than the previous 2.4-inch models, but ships with up to 16GB RAM, up to a 1TB NVMe SSD, and offers two 4K-capable HDMI 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet & WiFi 6 connectivity, as well as a few USB 3.2 ports, plus a 3.5mm audio jack. PIX NII specifications: SoC – Intel Pentium N6005 quad-core processor @ 2.0GHz / 3.3GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD graphics; 10W TDP System Memory – 8GB or 16GB DDR4 RAM Storage SATA or NVMe SSD with 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB capacity (up to 520MB/s with SATA, 1,000MB/s with NVMe) MicroSD card socket Video Output – 2x HDMI 2.0 ports up to 4Kp60 Audio – 3.5mm audio jack, […]
Rock 5B RK3588 SBC preview – What works, what doesn’t in Debian 11
I’ve recently received an early sample of Radxa ROCK5 Model B (aka ROCK 5B) SBC part of the “Developer Edition” batch with 16GB RAM, and already showed the hardware and it booting successfully in Debian 11.
I’ve now spent more time with the board, and as part of the “debug party” tested performance and features in Debian 11. As one would expect, some things work fine, providing excellent performance, but others still need improvements.