CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 20, 2022April 26, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

NVIDIA NVDLA AI accelerator driver submitted to mainline Linux

A large patchset has been submitted to mainline Linux for NVIDIA NVDLA AI accelerator Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) driver, accompanied by an open-source user mode driver. The NVDLA (NVIDIA Deep Learning Accelerator) can be found in recent Jetson modules such as Jetson AGX Xavier and Jetson AGX Orin, and since NVDLA was made open-source hardware in 2017, it can also be integrated into third-party SoCs such as StarFive JH7100 Vision SoC and Allwinner V831 processor. I actually assumed everything was open-source already since we were told that NVDLA was a “complete solution with Verilog and C-model for the chip, Linux drivers, test suites, kernel- and user-mode software, and software development tools all available on Github’s NVDLA account.” and the inference compiler was open-sourced in September 2019. But apparently not, as developer Cai Huoqing submitted a patchset with 23 files changed, 13243 insertions, and the following short description: The NVIDIA Deep […]

April 20, 2022April 20, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Volla Phone 22 runs Ubuntu Touch or a Google-free Android OS (Crowdfunding)

Volla Phone 22 is a 6.3-inch smartphone powered by a MediaTek Helio G85 processor that focuses on privacy and runs either Ubuntu Touch from UBPorts, Volla OS Android fork without Google Play services or apps (YouTube, Gmail, etc…), or others operating through a multi-boot. Hardware-wise, the Volla Phone 22 is a mid-range smartphone with 4GB RAM, 128GB storage, and it also comes with features not found on most recent smartphones including a user-replaceable battery, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a microSD card socket. Volla Phone 22 specifications: SoC – Mediatek Helio G85 octa-core processor with Arm Cortex-A75 cores @ up to 2.0 GHz, Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz, Arm Mali-G52 MC2 GPU up to 1.0 GHz System Memory – 4GB RAM Storage – 128GB eMMC flash, microSD card socket Display – 6.3-inch Full HD display with 410 ppi pixel density. Audio – 3.5mm jack, built-in microphone and speaker […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

April 19, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

WCH CH343 USB to serial chips support 1.8V to 5V IO voltage, 6 Mbps baud rate, custom VID/PID

WCH CH340 family of USB to serial chip is very popular, and often found on development boards for debugging/access to the serial console, but the company has now introduced the CH343 “Gen3” chip – just like CH9102F apparently – with a higher 6 Mbps baud rate, support for 1.8V, 2.5V, 3.3V, and 5V IO voltage, and the ability to request custom USB VID/PID numbers. Three variants exist with CH343P, CH343G, and CH343K with different packages: QFN16, SOP16, and ESSOP10 respectively. CH343P contains an EEPROM for easy customization, while CH343G and CH343K PID/VID can still be customized for larger orders. CH343 key features and specifications: Full-speed USB 2.0 device interface Hardware full-duplex serial UART interface with baud rate varies from 50bps to 6Mbps. Automatic identification and dynamic adaptation of common communication baud rate of 115200bps and below. Supports 5, 6, 7, or 8 data bits, as well as odd, even, space, […]

April 19, 2022April 25, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 51 Comments

ROC-RK3588S-PC is the first Rockchip RK3588S SBC, supports up to 32GB RAM

Rockchip RK3588S processor, a cost-down version of Rockchip RK3588 SoC with fewer interfaces, has made its way into Firefly ROC-RK3588S-PC SBC (single board computer) about the size of a credit card and equipped with up to 32GB RAM. The compact SBC also comes with up to 128GB eMMC flash, and offers support for NVMe storage, up to four video outputs through HDMI, USB-C and MIPI DSI interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, two MIPI CSI camera interfaces, and more. Firefly ROC-RK3588S-PC specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores, Arm Mali-G610 MP4 quad-core GPU with OpenGL ES3.2 / OpenCL 2.2 / Vulkan1.1 support, 6 TOPS NPU, and an 8Kp60 H.265/VP9/AVS2 video decoder, 4Kp60 decoder, 8Kp30 H.265/H.264 video encoder System Memory – 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or 32GB LPDDR4/LPDDR4x/LPDDR5 Storage 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB eMMC flash M.2 (PCIe 2.0) socket for […]

April 19, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

SkiffOS minimal Linux for embedded containers now supports Sipeed Nezha RISC-V board

SkiffOS minimal Cross-compiled Linux for embedded containers has just added support for Sipeed Nezha RISC-V single board computer, and work on the smaller Sipeed Lichee RV board has started. Wait… What is SkiffOS? I’ve never heard about it… That’s how the abstract from the white paper describes it: Embedded Linux processors are increasingly used for real-time computing tasks such as robotics and Internet of Things (IoT). These applications require robust and reproducible behavior from the host OS, commonly achieved through immutable firmware stored in read-only memory. SkiffOS addresses these requirements with a minimal cross-compiled GNU/Linux system optimized for hosting containerized distributions and applications, and a configuration layering system for the Buildroot embedded cross-compiler tool which automatically re-targets system configurations to any platform or device. This approach cleanly separates the hardware support from the applications. The host system and containers are independently upgraded and backed-up over-the-air (OTA). In other words, that’s […]

April 18, 2022April 18, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

PICO-TGU4-SEMI is a Tiger Lake mini PC for robotics and industrial IoT applications

AAEON recently launched the PICO-TGU4-SEMI compact, rugged mini PC based on the company’s PICO-TGU4 Pico-ITX SBC powered by a choice of Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Tiger Lake UP3 processors, and designed for robotics and industrial IoT applications. The PICO-TGU4-SEMI embedded computer comes with up to 32GB RAM, SATA storage, support for SATA or NVMe SSD storage, HDMI output, 2.5GbE networking, two USB 3.2 ports, and more. PICO-TGU4-SEMI specifications: Tiger Lake SoC (one or the other) Intel Core i7-1185G7E quad-core/8-thread processor @ 1.8GHz / 4.4GHz (Turbo) with Intel Iris Xe graphics; 15W TDP Intel Core i5-1145G7E quad-core/8-thread processor @1.5GHz / to 4.1GHz (Turbo) with Intel Iris Xe graphics; 15W TDP Intel Core i3-1115G4E dual-core/4-thread processor @ 2.2GHz / 3.9GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD graphics; 15W TDP Intel Celeron 6305E dual-core processor @ 1.8GHz with Intel UHD graphics; 15W TDP System Memory – Up to 32GB LPDDR4x 3200 MHz onboard memory with optional […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

April 18, 2022April 30, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

FOMO (Faster Objects, More Objects) enables real-time object detection on low-end embedded systems

FOMO used to stand for “Fear Of Missing Out” in my corner of the Internet, but Edge Impulse’s FOMO is completely different, as the “Faster Object, More Objects” model is designed to lower the footprint and improve the performance of object detection on resource-constrained embedded systems. The company says FOMO is 30x faster than MobileNet SSD and works on systems with less than 200K of RAM available. Edge Impulse explains the FOMO model provides a variant between basic image classification (e.g. is there a face in the image?) and more complex object detection (how many faces are in the image, if any, and where and what size are they?). That’s basically a simplified version of object detection where we’ll know the position of the objects in the image, but not their sizes. So instead of seeing the usual bounding box while the model is running, the face position will be […]

April 18, 2022April 19, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 47 Comments

7-inch tablet with Intel Atom Z3735G processor sells for $55

Hardware platforms based on Atom Z3735G or Z3735F Bay Trail processors were all the rage in 2014-2016, as the processors were found in tablets, mini PCs, and single board computers sold at price points that provided alternatives to Arm platforms that may not be as well supported. But time has passed and those processors are really slow by today’s standard, so I was surprised to find out some companies were still selling products based on Bay Trail processors with the “MOMO7W” 7-inch tablet powered by an Intel Atom Z3735G quad-core processor, coupled with 1GB RAM and 16GB flash. MOMO7W tablet specifications: SoC – Intel Atom Z3735G quad-core Bay Trail processor @ up to 1.33 GHz / 1.83 GHz (Turbo) with Intel HD graphics; 2.2W SDP. Note: it’s indeed discontinued. Storage – 1GB SDRAM Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot up to 32GB Display – 7-inch capacitive touch […]