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NetBSD 9.0 Released with Aarch64 Support, Arm ServerReady Compatibility

Yesterday, we wrote about Raspberry Pi 4 getting UEFI+ACPI firmware for Arm SSBR compliance allowing the board to run operating systems designed for “Arm ServerReady” servers out of the box. NetBSD 9.0 was just released on February 14, 2020, with support for Aarch64 (64-bit Arm) which had been in the works for a few years, and includes support for “Arm ServerReady” compliant machines (SBBR+SBSA). NetBSD 9.0 main changes related to hardware support: Support for AArch64 (64-bit Armv8-A) machines Compatibility with “Arm ServerReady” compliant machines (SBBR+SBSA) using ACPI. Tested on Amazon Graviton and Graviton2 (including bare metal instances), AMD Opteron A1100, Ampere eMAG 8180, Cavium ThunderX, Marvell ARMADA 8040, QEMU w/ Tianocore EDK2 Symmetric and asymmetrical multiprocessing support (big.LITTLE) Support for running 32-bit binaries via COMPAT_NETBSD32 on CPUs that support it Single GENERIC64 kernel supports ACPI and device tree based booting Supported SoCs Allwinner A64, H5, H6 Amlogic S905, S805X, S905D, […]

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HardROCK64 SBC with Rockchip RK3399 Processor to Launch in April for $35 and Up

If you thought we didn’t have enough Rockchip RK3399 SBCs already, Pine64 is working on a smaller and cheaper version of the RockPro64 single board computer with HardROCK64 SBC powered by RK3399 processor and following Raspberry Pi form factor. HardROCK64 specifications: SoC –  Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.4 GHz, a Mali-T864 GPU, and a VPU with 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 decoding System Memory – 1GB, 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – SPI flash, eMMC flash socket, MicroSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0, AV port, MIPI DSI connector Audio – Analog stereo audio via AV port, digital audio via HDMI Camera – MIPI CSI connector Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band WiFi 5 (802.11ac) and Bluetooth 5.0 USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports Expansion – 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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ASUS Tinker Edge T SBC Launched for $168 and Up

ASUS unveiled Tinker Edge T & CR1S-CM-A SBCs based on Google Coral Edge TPU system-on-module featuring both NXP i.MX 8M processor and Google Edge TPU co-processor for AI acceleration in May 2019, but at the time none of the boards were available. But earlier this month, ASUS officially announced the board, and it can now be purchased on various sites including Provantage (~$168.35) and  Physical Computing (21,600 JPY ~ $200). It is also listed on Connection for about $198 but currently out of stock. Edge TPU module SoC – NXP i.MX 8M quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Cortex-M4F real-time core,  GC7000 Lite 3D GPU ML accelerator – Google Edge TPU coprocessor delivering up to 4 TOPS System Memory – 1 GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage – 8 GB eMMC Flash memory Wireless Connectivity – Wi-Fi 2×2 MIMO (802.11b/g/n/ac 2.4/5GHz) Bluetooth 4.2 Baseboard Storage – MicroSD card slot Networking – Gigabit […]

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Linux 5.5 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.5 has just been released by Linus Torvalds: So this last week was pretty quiet, and while we had a late network update with some (mainly iwl wireless) network driver and netfilter module loading fixes, David didn’t think that warranted another -rc. And outside of that, it’s really been very quiet indeed – there’s a panfrost driver update too, but again it didn’t really seem to make sense to delay the final release by another week. Outside of those, it’s all really tiny, even if some of those tiny changes touched some core files. So despite the slight worry that the holidays might have affected the schedule, 5.5 ended up with the regular rc cadence and is out now. That means that the merge window for 5.6 will open tomorrow, and I already have a couple of pull requests pending. The timing for this next merge window isn’t optimal […]

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ODYSSEY-STM32MP157C SBC Feature STMicro STM32MP157C Cortex-A7/M4 SoC

Seeed Studio has been working on a single board computer powered by STMicro STM32MP157C Arm Cortex-A7/M4 microprocessor, comprised of the Raspberry Pi inspired NPi-STM32MP157C baseboard, and SoM-STM32MP157C system-on-module. SoM-STM32MP157C SoM Module specifications: MPU (1) – STMicro STM32MP157C dual-core Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ 650 MHz, and Arm Cortex-M4F MCU System Memory (2) – 512MB DDR3 RAM Storage (4) – 4GB eMMC flash Host Connectors – 3x 70-pin board-to-board connectors with HDMI, USB, Gigabit Ethernet, audio GPIOs, etc… Misc – Power and USER LEDs PMU (3) – STPMIC1A power management IC Dimensions – 38mm x 38mm The module is said to targets consumer and industrial applications, white goods, medical equipment, and wearable devices. NPi-STM32MP157C baseboard   Key features and specifications: SoM Support – Compatible with SOM-STM32MP157C described above Storage – MicroSD card slot Display I/F – 1x MIPI DSI interface Audio – 3.5mm audio jack, WM8960 audio codec Camera I/F – 1x […]

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NVIDIA Jetson Nano Developer Kit-B01 Gets an Extra Camera Connector

Launched in March 2019, NVIDIA Jetson Nano developer kit offered an AI development platform for an affordable $99. The kit is comprised of Jetson Nano module and a carrier board, and the version I received last November ended with “A02”. Jetson Nano developer kit is now getting updated with B01 carrier board that adds an extra MIPI CSI connector and other few changes, including compatibility with NVIDIA Jetson Nano production module (with eMMC flash instead of MicroSD card). Jetson Nano developer kit-B01 specifications: B01 Jetson Nano CPU Module 128-core Maxwell GPU Quad-core Arm A57 processor @ 1.43 GHz System Memory  – 4GB 64-bit LPDDR4 @ 25.6 GB/s Storage  – microSD card slot Video Encode – 4K @ 30 | 4x 1080p @ 30 | 9x 720p @ 30 (H.264/H.265) Video Decode – 4K @ 60 | 2x 4K @ 30 | 8x 1080p @ 30 | 18x 720p @ 30 […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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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 […]

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Some Interesting Talks from FOSDEM 2020 Schedule

We wrote about IoT devroom call for proposals for FOSDEM 2020 a little while ago, and as the free open-source developer meetup is getting closer, FOSDEM 2020 organizers released the schedule. So I’ll look at some of the talks in the relevant devrooms such as the Internet of Things, hardware enablement, Embedded, Mobile and Automotive, as well as RISC-V and others to compose my own little virtual schedule for the 2-day event. Saturday, February 1 10:30 – 10:50 – How lowRISC made its Ibex RISC-V CPU core faster – Using open source tools to improve an open-source core – by Greg Chadwick Ibex implements RISC-V 32-bit I/E MC M-Mode, U-Mode, and PMP. It uses an in-order 2 stage pipe and is best suited for area and power-sensitive rather than high-performance applications. However, there is scope for meaningful performance gains without major impact to power or area. This talk describes work […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC