Raspberry Pi at ARM Techcon 2011

Raspberry Pi Foundation is currently at ARM Techcon 2011 showcasing their 25 USD ARM11 Linux Computer unveiled last May. The board is build around Broadcom BCM2835 (ARM11 @ 700Mhz + GPU) application processor with 128/256MB “soldered” on top of the processor (Package on package (PoP) technology) and a USB Hub/Ethernet adapter chip and that’s it. The board features an Ethernet 10/100 RJ45 connector, 2 USB 2.0 port, an Audio out, HDMI and composite video output and an SD card slot. They currently only have the larger alpha board, the final board will be shrunk to the size of a business card and should be available in November 2011 (but most probably December). They believe the board will have better multimedia performance than the Beagleboard. I’m not convinced of that yet, but we’ll see. There will be two versions: Without network and 128 MB RAM – 25 USD Network support (Ethernet) and […]

Archos 80/101 G9 Firmware Version 3.2.6.1 Released

Archos has just released a new firmware for Archos 80 G9 / 101 G9. The most important fix is for Android Marketplace that did not work properly for everybody. Here’s the changelog: Version 3.2.61 – October 21st, 2011 Google apps: new Honeycomb release 4 integrated. It contains the new Market (v3.1.7) that solves the issue of some Google accounts not being able to install applications. Power save: disable 3G USB host port by default Power: fix device sometimes not rebooting properly MTP: fix Video folder listed empty from host PC happening sometimes Audio: better volume management when a notification occurs during music playback Input method: disable switch to Arabic keyboard when Android default keyboard gets killed The firmware can be downloaded at http://update.archos.com/9/gen9/gen9_3.2.61/firmware_archos_it4.aos

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

Yocto Project Release 1.1 Announced

The Linux foundation announced Yocto Project Release 1.1 today. This release codenamed “Edison” and based on Poky 6.0 is the the second release of the project, one year after it was announced in October 2010 to provide developers with greater consistency in the software and tools they’re using across multiple architectures for embedded Linux development. The Yocto Project reached the following milestones during the last year: Alignment of OpenEmbedded technology and the inclusion of OpenEmbedded representation in the Yocto Project governance structure. The projects share a common core that consists of software build recipes and core Linux components that prevent fragmentation and reinforce the OpenEmbedded methodology as an open standard for embedded Linux build systems. Contribution of tools and technologies such as Cross-prelink, EGLIBC, Pseudo, Shoeleather Lab (for automated testing) and Swabber have been contributed from Intel, Mentor Graphics, MontaVista Software and Wind River. Commercial adoption with examples such as […]

Linux 3.1 Release

Linux Torvalds announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.1 yesterday: As promised, the kernel summit has started, and Linux-3.1 is out. The (small) shortlog of changes since -rc10 are appended, we have mostly some sparc and networking changes, along with some radeon and intel iommu fixes (mostly for largepages and integrated graphics issues). Most people probably will not notice the changes. One big change from -rc10 is that there are tar-balls and patches, so if you aren’t a git user (why?) you can download it now in a traditional format. On of the things to note is that the files are now signed by my gpg key, and it’s the *uncompressed* version that the signature is for. And of course, this means that the merge window for 3.2 is open. I’ll do some merging during the KS, but probably most when I get back home – but you can still […]

Renesas R-Car H1 Automotive SoC

Renesas announced the R-Car H1, their new automotice SoC with 4 Cortex-A9 cores clocked at 1GHz and Imagination Technologies’ SGX-543-MP2 graphics processing unit (GPU) aimed at high-end navigation systems. It also features a Renesas SH-4A high-reliability real-time processing CPU core acting as a multimedia engine (MME) . The R-Car H1 SoC can also powered with Renesas’ IMP-X3 core (optional), a real-time image processing unit that enables developers to implement augmented reality application such as  360-degree camera views (Thanks to up to four independent input camera channels) and sign recognition. Here’s an excerpt of the press release: Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723) and its subsidiary, Renesas Mobile Corporation, today announced a new member of the R-Car series of automotive systems-on-chip (SoCs), the R-Car H1, capable of delivering up to 11,650 Dhrystone MIPS (DMIPS), and ideal for the high-end car navigation market. The R-Car H1 SoC offers an innovative architecture where the application […]

AMD G-Series Based Mini-ITX: Advantech AIMB223

Advantech announced a mini-ITX board – AIMB223 – featuring AMD G-Series processors: T56N (dual core @ 1.65 GHz)), T40E (dual core @ 1GHz) and T44R (single core @ 1.2 GHz). The AIMB-223 board comes with up to 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM, PCI and PCI Express expansion, four SATA III interfaces, gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 and more. That’s yet another mini-ITX board based on AMD G-Series such has the iBase MI958 or the Fujitsu D3003-0x.  The relative proliferation of mini-ITX board based on AMD embedded processors is probably due to the fact that AMD provides a Mini-ITX Reference Design. Here are the specifications of the board: Processor: AMD G-Series T56N (1.65GHz – dual-core – 18W TDP) or AMD G-Series T40E (1GHz – dual core – 6W TDP) or AMD G-Series T44R (1.2GHz – single core – 9W TDP) Chipset: AMD A55E Memory: up to 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM Expansion Slots: 1 […]

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

ARM Unveils Cortex-A7 and big.LITTLE processing

ARM unveiled the Cortex A7, a new core with higher performance than the Cortex A8 (1.5x) and with 5 times less power consumption. It will be used in conjunction with Cortex-A15 Core and allows big.LITTLE processing where the Cortex A7 (companion core) takes care of the low performance, low power tasks (social network, email, SMS, phone calls) and the Cortex A15 kicks in for high performance tasks such as video processing and gaming. Here’s an excerpt of the Cortex A7 / big.LITTLE processing press release: ARM today announced the ARM® Cortex™-A7 MPCore™ processor – the most energy-efficient application class processor ARM has ever developed, and big.LITTLE processing – a flexible approach that redefines the traditional power and performance relationship. The Cortex-A7 processor builds on the low-power leadership established by the Cortex-A8 processor that is at the heart of many of today’s most popular smartphones. A single Cortex-A7 processor delivers 5x […]

Android 4.0 SDK and Platform Highlights

Google has just released Android 4.0 (ICS) preview SDK and platform highlights. Android 4.0 Highlights Summary New User Features: Refined, evolved UI – Common action more visible, new typeface, improved multitaksing and notifications. Home screen folders and favorites tray – New home screen folders offer a new way for users to group their apps and shortcuts logically. Resizable widgets – Interactive widgets are resizable, so users can expand them to show more content or shrink them to save space New lock screen actions – The lock screens now let users do more without unlocking such as accessing the camera app. Quick responses for incoming calls – Respond by pre-written SMS if you are busy during a call Swipe to dismiss notifications, tasks, and browser tabs Improved text input and spell-checking – The softkeyboard now comes with a spell-checker and can automatically correct typos. Powerful voice input engine – Talk to […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications