Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on SoC Power Measurement with ARM Energy Probes and Linux EAP Tools

SoC Power Measurement with ARM Energy Probes and Linux EAP Tools

Andy Green, TI Landing Team lead at Linaro,  gave an interesting presentation entitled “How to measure SoC power” at Linaro Connect Europe 2012. This talk was specifically aimed at software engineers, so that they know how to properly measure power consumption, and take actions to optimize the software to decrease it. In the first part of the presentation, he gives an overview of electronics basics with definition of voltage, load, current and power, units used for power measurements (Clue: you need to use Watts), and how voltage, current and power can be measured with voltmeters and ammeters. When you want to measure power in a rail, you would usually insert a shun resistor, use a multimeter and derive the power from the resistance and the measured voltage (P=V2/R). He also gives details about regulator efficiency, choosing measurement sampling… There are 4 common measurements strategies: DC IN – Easiest way, gives the complete […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments on Wise Tivi Announces Three Android 4.2 Media Players based on Rockchip RK3066 Starting at $59.99

Wise Tivi Announces Three Android 4.2 Media Players based on Rockchip RK3066 Starting at $59.99

Wise Tivi is a new company that recently launched 3 Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) products based on what appears to be Rockchip RK3066 processor: Wise Tivi Camera ($89.99) – A set-top box with a front camera that can be conveniently placed on top of the TV. Wise Tivi Portable ($79.99) – The mini PC / PC-on-an-HDMI-stick version. Wise Tivi Box ($59.99) – A standard Android set-top box with IR remote control. According to the company website, all 3 devices share the following specifications: SoC – Dual Core ARM Cortex A9 1.6Ghz with Quad-core ARM Mali-400 MP (Rockchip RK3066) System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 4 GB Nand Flash (up to 16GB) and microSD card slot Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n Video Output – HDMI 1.3 (up to 1920×1080 resolution), USB –  1 x micro USB OTG, 1x SB 2.0 HOST and 1x micro USB for power. Video –  […]

ArmSoM CM5 Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Xibo for Android on Mele A1000 Set-top Box & WM8850-MID Tablet

Xibo for Android on Mele A1000 Set-top Box & WM8850-MID Tablet

Earlier this month, Xibo developers announced the beta version Xibo for Android was available for testing. Contrary to the Linux & Windows clients and servers which are open source, Xibo for Android is developed by Spring Signage and will available commercially. This sponsorship will help finance the development of Xibo open source software: the 2 clients (.net in Windows, Python in Linux), the server and API. The current beta version supports the most important features of the Windows client, but lacks support for Adobe Flash, Microsoft PowerPoint, Datasets, Microblog, Stats, Counter Media, Socket Listener, Lift/Serial Interface Support, Offline Update via USB Drive, Full Compositing (overlapping regions) and Video Transparency. If you want to test the Xibo client for android, you can register for the private BETA and download an APK (Xibo_Android_Clientv1.0.12.apk) to install on your Android devices. Being part of the BETA program will also guarantee you a price of […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on 2012 Embedded Market Study – Software Development & Processors

2012 Embedded Market Study – Software Development & Processors

I’ve just come across an Embedded System Study by UBM published in April 2012. The company surveyed over 1,700 professionals working on embedded systems who are mainly based in the US (56%),  but also in Europe (21%) and Asia (12%). The report is 87 long, but I found some of the slides are particularly interesting in regards to programming languages, operating systems and software life cycle, as well as processor/micro-controller choices. Unsurprisingly C (65%), C++ (20%) and assembler (5%) are still the main languages used for embedded software development. In this report, we also learn that the average team is composed of 14.5 members including 5.6 software engineers, 5.6 hardware engineers and 3.3 firmware engineers. 2012 was the first year they included QA Engineers and system integrators both with 2.6 members on average working on projects lasting from less than 6 months to over 25 months. UBM survey also provides a […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Antutu Benchmark 3.0 Release

Antutu Benchmark 3.0 Release

As I mentioned in the list of Android benchmarks, Antutu was going to release version 3.0 of the benchmarking tool on the 26th of November. This is now done, and if you go over Google Play, you can download Antutu Benchmark 3.0. They have improved a couple of things over 2.xx version mainly on the graphics side: New OpenGL ES 2.0 3D benchmark for 3D game performance test. Fully new 2D benchmark for 2D game performance test. Add compare page to compare scores with hot devices. Auto stop the benchmark if detected the app has been modified. Redesigned and adjustment app UI. Enhance SDCard path detection. Fixed some web page auto pop up bug. Fixed sometimes get stuck in splash screen. Fixed submit score page appear twice after benchmark. Update Italian and Ukraine translate. I have tried the new version on my WM8850-MID Tablet, and the first thing I’ve noticed […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Le Labo Citoyen Gasser – Raspberry Pi Based High Precision Pollution Monitoring System

Le Labo Citoyen Gasser – Raspberry Pi Based High Precision Pollution Monitoring System

“Le Labo Citoyen” is a recently founded French non-profit organization aimed at “promoting and experimenting with innovating and free technologies for the citizens and the environment”.  Their first project is to gather pollution data (NO2, O3, and SO2 levels) in Paris using 2 (soon to be) open source components: Gasser – Self-contained mobile sensor currently powered by the Raspberry Pi ThingStream – Open source IoT datastore which should be similar to iDigi Cloud, except you can just store data in your own server or on “Le Labo Citoyen” servers. Gasser has four main parts: Sensor(s) – Alphasense B4-series sensors (black and red component in the top left of the  main box) with accuracy of up to <10 ppb (parts-per-billion). Cost: ~110 Euros. They currently only use the NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) sensor. ADC & Computer – Raspberry Pi (Cost: ~30 Euros) & Delta-Sigma ADC (Cost: ~30 Euros). Communication Medium – Huawei […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs abd SoMs
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Big.LITTLE Processing Implementations and Current Status

Big.LITTLE Processing Implementations and Current Status

There was a big,LITTLE mini-summit during Linaro Connect Europe 2012, where an update was given on current big.LITTLE implementations and the results of measurement of power vs performance. Big.LITTLE Processing Implementations Overview As briefly mentioned in “Versatile Express TC2 (2xA15, 3xA7) Development Board at ARM Techcon 2012“, there are 2 big.LITTLE implementations: In-kernel switcher (IKS) This implementation is already available through Linaro and only required minimal changed to the kernel as it mainly an augmentation to DVFS (Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling) except instead of only adjusting voltage and frequency depending on the load, it will also move the load to different cores. The main drawback is that this implementation only uses half the cores. For example, on a 2x Cortex A15 / 2x Cortex A7 system, it can only use 2 cores at the same time (either A15 or A7 cores), as the load is managed between one type […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on List of Android Benchmarks, Optimizations Results & Benchmarks Analysis

List of Android Benchmarks, Optimizations Results & Benchmarks Analysis

Linaro Connect Europe occurred in Copenhagen on Oct. 29 – Nov. 2 2012 (LCE12) and included 3 mini-summits about Android, big.LITTLE and ARMv8. Linaro has recently posted the presentation slides and I’ll have a look at a few of those slides in details and try to post information that I feel can be interesting. Today. I’ll go over the “Benchmarking and Optimization Opportunities” slides, where we can learn which Android Benchmarks Linaro use, how they’ve decreased benchmark results variance, which parts of the system are actually tested by benchmarks (profiling), and what they plan to do to further optimize Android on ARM. When I do some reviews, I usually simply use Antutu and Quadrant benchmarks to assess the performance of the devices, but Linaro uses many more benchmarks which I’ll list below. I’ll provide 2 links for each benchmark. The first link is to the official website and the other […]

Boardcon Rockchip RK3588S SBC with 8K, WiFI 6, 4G LTE, NVME SSD, HDMI 2.1...