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Getting Started with Sipeed M1 based Maixduino Board & Grove AI HAT for Raspberry Pi

Last year we discovered Kendryte K210 processor with a RISC-V core and featuring AI accelerators for machine vision and machine hearing. Soon after,  Sipeed M1 module was launched with the processor for aroud $10. Then this year we started to get more convenient development board featuring Sipeed M1 module such as Maixduino or Grove AI Hat. Seeed Studio sent me the last two boards for review. So I’ll start by showing the items I received, before showing how to get started with MicroPython and Arduino code. Note that I’ll be using Ubuntu 18.04, but development in Windows is also possible. Unboxing I received two packages with a Maixduino kit, and the other “Grove AI HAT for Edge Computing”. Grove AI HAT for Edge Computing Let’s start with the second. The board is a Raspberry Pi HAT with Sipeed M1 module, a 40-pin Raspberry Pi header, 6 grove connectors, as well […]

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Linaro Connect San Diego 2019 Schedule – IoT, AI, Optimizations, Compilers and More

Linaro has recently released the full schedule of Linaro Connect San Diego 2019 that will take place on  September 23-27. Even if you can’t attend, it’s always interested to check out the schedule to find out what interesting work is done on Arm Linux, Zephyr OS, and so on. So I’ve created my own virtual schedule with some of the most relevant and interesting sessions of the five-day event. Monday, September 23 14:00 – 14:25 – SAN19-101 Thermal Governors: How to pick the right one by Keerthy Jagadeesh, Software Engineer, Texas Instruments With higher Gigahertz and multiple cores packed in a SoC the need for thermal management for Arm based SoCs gets more and more critical. Thermal governors that define the policy for thermal management play a pivotal role in ensuring thermal safety of the device. Choosing the right one ensures the device performs optimally with in the thermal budget. […]

ArmSoM CM5 Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC
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Pine64 SoEdge-RK1808 AI Module Delivers 3.0 TOPS via Rockchip RK1808 SoC

A few weeks ago, Ameridroid reported Pine64 would soon launch SoRock and SoEdge systems-on-module, but at the time there was virtually no info except SoRock would be likely based on either RK3328 or RK3399 and work on the existing Clusterboard, while SoEdge would be an AI Neural module for Artificial Intelligence tasks, with up to 3 TeraFLOPS of performance. I did not write about it at the time, simply because there was so little information, but this morning I’ve just received some photos of SoEdge-RK1808 module fitted to a baseboard that looks to be SOPINE Model “A” carrier board. SoEdge-RK1808 SoM Let’s try to derive the specifications from the photos even though some components appear to be blurred out or just unclear: SoC – Rockchip RK1808 dual-core Cortex-A35 processor with 3.0 TOPS NPU (Neural Processing Unit) System Memory – 2GB RAM (2x 8GBit Micro DDR4-2400) but limited PC-2133 Storage – […]

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Arm Techcon 2019 Schedule – Machine Learning, Security, Containers, and More

Arm TechCon will take place on October 8-10, 2019 at San Jose Convention Center to showcase new solutions from Arm and third-parties, and the company has now published the agenda/schedule for the event. There are many sessions and even if you’re not going to happen it’s always useful to checkout what will be discussed to learn more about what’s going on currently and what will be the focus in the near future for Arm development. Several sessions normally occur at the same time, so as usual I’ll make my own virtual schedule with the ones I find most relevant. Tuesday, October 8  09:00 – 09:50 – Open Source ML is rapidly advancing. How can you benefit? by Markus Levy, Director of AI and Machine Learning Technologies, NXP Over the last two years and still continuing, machine learning applications have benefited tremendously from the growing number of open source frameworks, tools, […]

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Project Athena Specification 1.0 – Fast Response Times and Long Battery Life

Project Athena innovation program aims to provide a set of guidelines for Windows or Chrome OS always-on always-connected laptop powered by Intel processor. At the time of the first announcement at CES 2019 few details were provided, but Intel has now released Project Athena 1.0 target specification which gives clearer details of what such laptops will have to offer. Intel also introduced new “key experience indicators” (KEI) aligned with real-world conditions in order to provide to best experience to end-users. Project Athena 1.0 target specification defines six key areas of innovation: Instant Action – Modern Connected Standby and Lucid Sleep (feature of Chrome OS) features implement fast wake with a simple lid-lift, push of a button or quick fingerprint recognition. System wake from sleep must occur in less than 1 second Performance and Responsiveness – Systems based on Intel Core i5 or i7 processors with Intel Dynamic Tuning Technology, a […]

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Rockchip RK1808 Datasheet, TRM, Schematics and Linux SDK Released

Rockchip RK1808 is the first chip from the company fully dedicated to artificial intelligence applications. The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) features an accelerator delivering up to 3.0 TOPS and is coupled with two low power Arm Cortex-A35 cores allowing it to run Linux. We’ve had the specifications for RK1808 for a while, but the company has recently posted hardware and software resources on their open source website. On the hardware side we’ve got: RK1808 Technical Reference Manual (TRM) RK1808 datasheet PDF Schematics for the company’s official RK1808-EVB On the software side we can get the Linux SDK from Github as explained in the Wiki:

Finally configure the build and start the build process:

After a while, or more accurately close to two hours on a Laptop with Ryzen 7 2700U processor, 8GB RAM, and hard drive, we’ll get U-boot, Linux, buildroot based rootfs, and firmware files and in […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs abd SoMs
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Intel adds Three 7W Amber Lake-Y Processors

Intel announced their Amber Lake family of low power high performance processors, officially known as Intel Core Y-Series processor last year with three SKUs: Core m3-8100Y, Core i5-8200Y, Core i7-8500Y which are all dual core/quad thread processor offering different base and boost CPU frequencies, and sporting the same UHD 615 graphics. As I browsed Intel’s Ark “previously Amber Lake Y”  page this morning, I found out the company added three more processors to the family in Q1 2019. The new processors also come with two cores and four thread, but at higher frequency, and TDP is fixed to 7W, while the first three model at a 5W TDP configurable up to 7 or 8 Watts or down to 3.5 or 4.5 Watts. They are also equipped with Intel UHD Graphics 617 graphics that appears to only offer a higher boost frequency to 1.05 GHz instead of 900/950 MHz for UHD […]

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Intel Optane memory H10 M.2 Card Combines Optane Memory with QLC NAND Flash

Nearly exactly two years ago, Intel announced the first commercial Optane memory M.2 cards that provide excellent random read/write performance, and can greatly boost boot times and app loading times. That means you need to insert an extra card in your system, and for compact laptops, or mini PCs the extra socket is simply not there due to lack of space. To solve this issue, Intel has just announced Optane Memory H10 M.2 card that combines Optane Memory high IOPS with the lower cost and higher capacity associated with QLC NAND flash since it combines both technologies into a single card. In the press release, Intel explains 8th Generation Intel Core U-series mobile platforms featuring Intel Optane memory H10 will become available through OEMs this quarter, and provide the following benefits:everyday users will be able to: Launch documents up to 2 times faster while multitasking. Launch games 60% faster while […]

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