CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

August 8, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

MC HCK is a $5 ARM Development Board Powered by Freescale K20 MCU

MC HCK (pronounced McHack) is a tiny and cheap development board powered by Freescale K20 MCU (ARM Cortex M4) that can be easily programmed via USB. The board has been designed with KiCad, is fully open source hardware, and it’s supposed to cost as low as $5. The only problem, or main advantage, depending on how you look at it, is that it’s not available for sale (yet), but instead you’ll need to make it yourself. The actual cost of doing so will be well over $5 (About $35), but the BoM cost is about $5, and you can make 5 boards for this price, or about $7 per board. The detailed steps are explained on McHck blog, but they can summarized as follows: Order 10 PCB using the gerber files via services such as Seeedstudio or Iteadstudio Order 5 free samples of Freescale K20 MCU. Select MK20DX128VLF5 part, and […]

August 7, 2013August 8, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Miracast Adapters Coming Up with Mediatek MT8636 SoC

It’s already possible to use Android mini-PCs such as T428 as a Miracast adapters, and we’ve also seen low cost HDMI dongles based on Actions Semi ATV6003 and Rockchip RK2928 that should eventually work as Miracast adapters, and sell for less than $30 retail. But there’s now a new SoC targeting DLNA/Miracast adapter: Mediatek MT8636. I don’t have any details about the SoC itself, but I could find a few Chinese company working on the solutions, and the most common is the one shown below, which can be called W18, SH-18, or WFD-04 depending on the company. The device is said to have the following specifications: SoC – MT8636 highly integrated SOC System Memory – 128MB DDR3 (TBC) Storage – 128 MB Flash (TBC) Wi-Fi – MT7601 WiFi 802.11b/g/n with Wi-Fi direct Video Decode – 1080p H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) CBP, MP, HP at L1 to 4.1 Audio Decode – LPCM […]

August 7, 2013August 7, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

$199 MicroZed is a Low Cost Version of Zedboard ARM+FPGA Linux Development Board

ZedBoard is a low cost development board based on Xilinx Zynq-7020 SoC featuring two Cortex A9 cores and FPGA fabric, together with lots of ports and expansion I/Os, and running Linux. The problem is that “low cost” for this type of board still means $395 (or around $300 for academia), and you only get to this price because it’s been subsidized, and the normal price is actually $495… That’s why Avnet has just come with a new version of the evaluation kit called microZed that sells for $199 and targets applications such as general Zynq-7000 AP SoC evaluation and prototyping, embedded system-on-module (SOM) applications, embedded vision, test & measurement, motor control and software-defined radio. MicroZed technical specifications: SoC – Xilinx XC7Z010-1CLG400C (Zynq-7010) System Memory – 1 GB of DDR3 SDRAM Storage – 128 Mb of QSPI Flash + Micro SD card interface Connectivity 10/100/1000M Ethernet USB 2.0 USB-UART User I/O […]

August 7, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Emcraft Systems Announces Freescale Vybrid VF6 SoM With Cortex A5 CPU and Cortex M4 MCU

Emcraft Systems has recently announced Vybrid VF6 SoM, a System-on-Module powered by Freescale Vybrid VF6 dual core Cortex A5/Cortex M4 SoC with 128MB DDR3, and 512MB Flash, as well as a starter kit composed of VF6 SoM and a carrier board. Emcraft VF6 System-on-Module specifications: SoC – Freescale Vybrid VF6 dual-core microprocessor with the ARM Cortex-A5 (up to 500 MHz) and Cortex-M4 cores (up to 167 MHz). Either MVF61NN151CMK50 (No Security), or MVF61NS151CMK50 (with Security). System Memory – 128 MBytes DDR3 SDRAM; Storage – Up to 512 MBytes NAND Flash, 32 MBytes dual QSPI Flash; Connectivity – Two 10/100 Ethernet interfaces with L2 switch; External interfaces using two 80-pin 0.4 mm-pitch connectors: Two USB 2.0 OTG interfaces Serial console interface at the UART CMOS levels; JTAG interface to the Vybrid VF6 TFT LCD interface Synchronous audio interface (SAI) supporting I2S, AC97 and CODEC/DSP interfaces Multiple serial digital (UART, SPI, I2C, […]

August 6, 2013August 6, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

WeWi SOL Ubuntu Laptop is Powered by an Intel Atom Processor and Solar Energy

WeWi Telecommunications has designed a solaptop (Solar-powered laptop) with 4 foldable solar panels in order to recharge the battery. WeWi SOL is powered by Intel Atom D2500, with 4GB RAM, features a 13.3″ display, and runs Ubuntu. It will be sold for only $300 to $400. WeWi SOL specifications: CPU – Intel Atom D2500 @ 1.86 GHz Dual Core, Intel 945GSE + ICH7M GPU – Built-In Intel GMA3600 Graphics, 1080p HD Video System Memory – 2 to 4GB DDRIII SDRAM (Kingston) Storage – 2.5” SATA HDD 320GB (Seagate) + Card reader (SD/MS/MMC) Display – 13.3″ LCD, WXGA, 1366 x 768 Video Output – HDMI Audio – Realtek ALC661 HD Audio, built-in stereo speakers, internal mic + 3.5mm headphone jack Connectivity: 10/100M Ethernet 3G/4G World/multimode LTE Modem GPS (gpsOne Gen8A) WiFi – MIMO 802.11b/gn (2.4/5GHz) Bluetooth – Integrated Digital Core BT4.0 USB – 3x USB 2.0 Camera – 3MP Battery Operating Time […]

August 6, 2013August 6, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

LinuxCon North America 2013 Schedule

LinuxCon (North America) 2013 will take place on September 16 – 18, 2013 in New Orleans, LA. The event will be co-located with several other conferences: the Linux Plumbers Conference, the Xen Project User Summit, the OpenDaylight Mini-Summit, the Gluster Workshop 2013, the UEFI Plugfest, the Linux Wireless Summit, the Linux Security Summit, and CloudOpen 2013. LinuxCon consists of 3 days of keynotes, and legal, operations, and developers related sessions as well as tutorials and workshops. There will be around 150 sessions and keynotes during those 3 days. I’ve gone through developer sessions and selected one for each time period. Monday, September 16 10:35 – 11:25 – UEFI and Linux by Kirk Bresniker, HP UEFI has become ubiquitous on the PC client systems and is coming up on servers and ARM-based systems, it is becoming the converged firmware infrastructure. UEFI Secure Boot feature has attracted a lot of attention from […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

August 6, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

NI myRIO is an Education Platform Powered by Xilinx Zynq-Z7010

National Instruments has been working on a device called NI myRIO, an hardware & software platform that aims at giving engineering students the ability to design real systems quickly for automation, robotics, data logging or embedded systems. The hardware is based on Xilinx Zynq-7010 with a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and an FPGA with 28,000 programmable logic cells, and features 10 analog inputs, 6 analog outputs, audio I/O channels, and up to 40 lines of digital input/output (DIO). NI myRIO Hardware Specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq-7010 with a dual core Cortex A9 processor and FPGA with 28,000 cells System Memory – Unknown Storage – Unknown Expansion Ports: myRIO exPansion Ports (MXP) – Two identical ports (MXP A and MXP B) with 4 analog inputs, 6 digital inputs/outputs, 2 analog outputs, 1 quad encoder, 3 PWMs, 1 UART, 1 I2C and 1 SPI by default. Ports configuration is customizable with Labview […]

August 5, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

MINIX NEO X7Mini vs NEO X7 Android Media Players Comparison

MINIX officially announced their first quad core Android media player, named NEO X7, in early July, and it’s now available for around $140 on sites such as Aliexpress and Geekbuying. More recently, MINIX posted pictures and specifications for MINIX NEO X7mini, a cost down version of MINIX NEO X7. Let’s compare the two. The first (very obvious) difference is the lack of external Wi-Fi antenna on the MINIX X7mini, but that’s not all as shown in the comparison table below. NEO X7 NEO X7mini Processor Quad-Core Cortex A9 Processor (RK3188) Quad-Core Cortex A9 Processor (RK3188) GPU Quad-Core Mali-400MP Quad-Core Mali-400MP System Memory 2GB DDR3 2GB DDR3 Storage 16GB NAND Flash + SD/MMC Card Reader 8GB NAND Flash + SD/MMC Card Reader Connectivity Bluetooth, Ethernet, Dual-Band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Bluetooth, Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi External Antenna Yes No USB 3 x USB Ports + 1 x OTG 2 x USB Ports […]