CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 13, 2016July 30, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 52 Comments

Mini M8S II TV Box (Amlogic S905X) Review – Part 1: Unboxing and Teardown

Amlogic S905X powered TV boxes have now hit the market, and compared to existing Amlogic S905 devices add VP9, and provided your TV can handle it, HDR (High Dynamic Range) support. GearBest sent me one of the cheapest S905X TV Box with Mini M8S II, and in the first part of the review, I’ll take some picture of the device, and tear it down, while the second part will be posted later, and focus on testing the firmware. MINI M8S II Unboxing The package was slightly damaged, but nothing to bad. The top reads “Mini TV Box” with some icons describing the main feaures like 4K & H.265/HEVC support, WiFi, and so on. I’ve recently realized that logos and trademarks may cause problems with customs in some countries, and the package does have several potentially problematic trademarks like HBO and Netflix, as well as logos for Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo…. In […]

July 13, 2016July 13, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

sModule SBC-x6818 Development Kit based on Samsung S5P6818 Processor Includes a 7″ Touchscreen

For some reasons, Samsung S5P4418 and S5P6818 quad and eight Cortex A53 core processors – likely made by Nexell – have been quite popular with embedded systems companies based in China. So after Graperain, Boardcon, and FriendlyARM, there’s at least one another company offering solutions with either processor, as sModule, a subsidiary of CoreWind, has now launched systems-on-module, single board computers, and development kits with the 64-bit ARM SoCs. In this post, I’ll cover one of their development kit including their CORE6818 CPU module, a baseboard, and an optional 7″ capacitive touch display.. sModule SBC-x6818 development kit specifications: CORE6818 CPU module SoC – Samsung S5P6818 octa-core ARM Cortex A53 processor @ 1.4 to 1.6 GHz with Mali-400MP 3D GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 (2GB optional) Storage – 8GB eMMC Flash (4 & 16GB optional) Ethernet – Realtek RTL8211E Gigabit Ethernet transceiver 180-pin “interface” to baseboard Power Supply – 3.7 […]

ArmSoM CM5 - Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC

July 13, 2016July 14, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Puck.js Bluetooth 5.0 Ready Beacon is Programmable with JavaScript (Crowdfunding)

I first found out about Bluetooth LE tags in 2012 with SticknFind project, and since then many other companies have designed their own Bluetooth beacon mostly to find objects such as your keys or pets. Puck.js is also a Bluetooth 4.2 LE beacon, but has many more features including compatibility with the upcoming Bluetooth 5.0 standard, and some GPIOs programmable with JavaScript (Espruino implementation), and corresponding visual programming editor. Puck.js hardware specifications: Bluetooth Smart SoC – Nordic Semi nRF52832 ARM Cortex-M4F micro-controller @ 64 MHz Connectivity Bluetooth 4.2 LE/smart, Bluetooth 5.0 Ready; up to 80 meters range in open space On-chip NFC support Expansion – 8x through holes with 6x GPIOs, and 2x power signals Sensors – MAC3110 magnetometer, on-chip temperature sensor Misc – 1x tactile button, 4x LEDs (R, G, B, IR) Battery – CR2032 210mAh battery good for about a year (application dependent) Dimensions – 35mm diameter, 10mm […]

July 13, 2016July 13, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

Ugoos UT3+ Android TV Box with HDMI Input, Rockchip RK3288 Processor Launched

Ugoos has finally announced the official release of Ugoos UT3+ TV Box based on Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A19 processor with a much improved HDMI input function thanks to a Toshiba chip, and now supports DVR and PiP (Picture-in-picture) functions. Ugoos UT3+ specifications have not changed, but I’ll still reproduce them since it’s been 9 months since the device was unveiled: SoC – Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A17 @ 1.8 GHz with ARM Mali-T764 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB NAND Flash + micro SD slot up to 32 GB Connectivity – 100/1000M Ethernet, dual band WiFi 802.11 b/g/n (2.4GHz/5GHz) and 802.11ac with external Wi-Fi antenna Video I/F Output – HDMI 1.4 output up to 4k2k @ 30 fps Input – HDMI input up to 1080p60 Audio I/F – HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack, and optical S/PDIF USB – 3x USB host ports Power Supply – […]

July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

SiFive Introduces Freedom U500 and E500 Open Source RISC-V SoCs

Open source used to be a software thing, with the hardware design being kept secret for fear of being copied, but companies such as Texas Instruments realized that from a silicon vendor perspective it would make perfect sense to release open source hardware designs with full schematics, Gerber files and SoM, to allow smaller companies and hobbyists, as well as the education market, normally not having the options to go through standard sales channels and the FAE (Field Application Engineer) support, to experiment with the platform and potentially come up with commercial products. That’s exactly what they did with the Beagleboard community, but there’s still an element that’s closed source, albeit documented: the processor itself. But this could change soon, as SiFive, a startup founded by the creators of the free and open RISC-V architecture, has announced two open source SoCs with Freedom U500 processor and Freedom E300 micro-controller. Freedom […]

July 12, 2016May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

BPI-M64 Development Board is the first 64-bit Banana Pi Board

Sinovoip has gone on the Allwinner A64 and 64-bit ARM bandwagon, announcing a Pine A64+ competitor, with Banana Pi BPI-M64 (or just Banana Pi M64) with 2GB RAM, 8GB eMMC flash, Gigabit Ethernet, and more. Banana Pi BPI-M64 board specifications: SoC – Allwinner A64 quad core ARM Cortex A53 processor @ 1.2 GHz with Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash (16, 32 and 64GB options), micro SD slot up to 256 GB Video Output / Display interface – HDMI 1.4 up to 4K resolution @ 30 Hz, MIPI DSI interface Audio – HDMI, 3.5 mm headphone jack, built-in microphone Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet + 802.11 b/g/n WiFi & Bluetooth 4.0 (AP6212) USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB OTG port Camera – MIPI CSI interface (which I guess you support parallel cameras via some kind of bridge) Security – Hardware security […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

July 11, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Qualcomm Introduces Snapdragon 821 SoC with 2.4 GHz CPU Cores

Qualcomm has just introduced an upgrade to its Snapdragon 820 processor, with Snapdragon 821 (MSM8996 Pro) with basically the same features, but the CPU frequency boosted from 2.2 GHz to 2.4 GHz for the performance cores, and from 1.6 to around 2.0 GHz for the low power cores, as well as a likely boost to the GPU clock, resulting to about 10% improvement in performance. The new SoC with feature the same Snapdragon X12 LTE modem delivering up to 600 Mbps. It’s unclear at this point which smartphone models will feature Snapdragon 821 processor.

July 11, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Nuvoton NUC970 ARM9 Microprocessor Gets Mainline Linux Support

As I checked out the latest email on the ARM Linux kernel mailing list, one thread somehow caught my attention: “[PATCH v2 00/10] ARM: NUC900: Add NUC970 SoC support” with the following introduction: This patch series added Nuvoton new SoC NUC970 development board support, this nuc970 belongs to nuc900 series, but many features are not compatible with old nuc900 SoCs like nuc910, nuc920. I could not quite remember ever having heard about Nuvoton, and it turns out it’s a fairly recent Taiwan company, founded in 2008 as a spinoff and fully own subsidiary of the better known Winbond Electronics. Their website shows ARM Cortex M0/M4 & 8051 micro-controllers, as well as ARM7 and ARM9 micro-processors, and some other application specific audio and video SoCs. But when I checked for MUC970 I could not find anything on their website, even in NUC900 series page. But Google came to the rescue and […]