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mbed 2.0 SDK Released, becomes Open Source and Supports $12.95 Freescale Freedom Board

The mbed community has had a pretty busy week, with first the announcement that mbed SDK would become open source, the release of mbed 2.0, and finally support for the low cost Freescale Freedom board FRDM-KL25Zpowered by Kinetis Cortex M0+ KL25Z MCU. mbed becomes open source The mbed Software Development Kit (SDK), a C/C++ MCU software platform, has always been free (as in free beer) for both commercial and noncommercial use, and the large community around mbed has written tons of code for ARM microcontrollers. But now that the SDK has now a stable API, and the developers achieved transparent portability for code based on the SDK across multiple controllers and multiple toolchains, they decided to release the SDK source under an Apache 2.0 license. Although sharing modifications is encouraged, this license allows users to keep the changes closed if they wish to do so. mbed developers explain that the 3 […]

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Board Bringup: You, Me, and I2C – ELCE 2012

David Anders, embedded systems developer at Texas Instruments, explains how to work with I2C in Linux based embedded systems at ELCE 2012. Abstract: Board bring up is one of the most under documented aspects of embedded development. I2C is such a powerful, low-cost, and ubiquitous method of communication, that a basic understanding of it’s usage is essential to the embedded linux developer to quickly bring up and debug embedded designs. This presentation will look at the various software and hardware aspects of working with I2C using simple case studies highlighting the implementation of an EEPROM and a GPIO Expander. Most embedded Linux developers at some point in their career will be handed a piece of hardware that is untested. This presentation intends to provide some information about core tools and methods for bring up of I2C interfaces and assorted I2C based peripheral devices. David Anders has previously presented at Embedded […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Supporting 200 Different Expansions Boards: The Broken Promise of Device Tree – ELCE 2012

Koen Kooi, software engineering manager at Circuitco Electronics and lead developer of the Angstrom distribution, explains that device tree does help with the ARM Linux kernel, but brings all the complexity to the bootloader(s), taking the variety of Beaglebone capes as example, at the Embedded Linux Conference in Barcelona, Spain, on November 6, 2012. Abstract: Devicetree is marketed as the one ring to rule them all when it comes to non-discoverable hardware for Linux on ARM. The problem with devicetree is that the complexity gets removed from the kernel and put into the bootloader. Koen first gives an overview of device tree, and provides an example (am33xx.dtsi) to show device tree data structure. Then time for some Beaglebone and capes promotion overview,  before moving to the core of the problem: Pinctrl Resource tracking EVM/bone split uboot/uimage/dtb lockstep pdata only Keycodes and other non-hardware bits You can also download the presentation […]

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QuickEmbed UPuter Pi – $69 AllWinner A10 Development Board

I’ve been informed of a new AllWinner A10 development board which is marketed as some sort of Raspberry Pi “clone”, although the hardware is different. The UPuter Pi is a small board designed by QuickEmbed Technology, a Shanghai based company, that features AllWinner A10 processor @ 1.5 GHz, 512 to 1 GB RAM, and 4 to 8 GB Flash. Here are the specs as mentioned on the company website: CPU 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A8 multi-core Mali400 graphic engine Memory 512M/1GB DDR3 Flash 4G/8G DC 5V USB power working temperature -10 to 70C storage temperature -20 to 80C Android 4.0 WIFI/RJ45 network USB/Wireless keyboard/mouse 3G usb card TF card, U-disk, usb harddisk 720P/1080P/2160P I must have gone blind because I don’t see any RJ45 connector (for Ethernet). The board will support Android 4.0 and all the usual Linux distros supported by Allwinner A10 processor. QuickEmbed may have pushed the clone concept a […]

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Olimex Offers Up to 50% Discount on OLinuXino Boards to Open Source Developers

Olimex has been providing low cost MCU devkits for many years, and this year they started offering more powerful embedded Linux development boards called OLinuXino. The first family (iMX233-OLinuXino) is based on Freescale i.MX233 ARM9 processor @ 454 Mhz and comes in three form factor: iMX233-OLINUXINO-MAXI – 2x USB host, Ethernet, TV-out, GPIOs, SD-CARD, Audio-In, Audio-Out, UEXT – 44.95 Euros. iMX233-OLINUXINO-MINI – 3x USB host, TV-out, GPIOs, SD-CARD, Audio-In, Audio-Out, UEXT – 34.95 Euros iMX233-OLINUXINO-MICRO – USB host, TV-out, GPIOs, SD-CARD, ready for breadboaring – 23.95 Euros They are also working on A13-OLinuXino board featuring AllWinner A13 Cortex A8 processor. To promote their new boards (and reward open source developers – cf comment below), the company company has decided to offer discount to open source developers. The way I understand it: you need to buy a board first, publish the source code somewhere and write about it on your own […]

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CIFS/Samba Support, USB Drive and Keyboard/Mouse for Android 4.0

Paul O’Brien, founder of modaco, has created a custom kernel with CIFS/SAMBA support, USB drive and  keyboard / mouse support for Galaxy Nexus smartphone running Android 4.0 (ICS). This is a temporary download until MCR (MoDaCo Custom ROM) is released. This should be flashed via ‘fastboot flash boot boot.mck.img’ to a device with an unlocked bootloader. This is designed for devices running the I9250XXKK1 / ITL41D (android-4.0.1_r1) ROM. DOWNLOAD – MD5: adf6bcc42205027952630dcf720beada Source: http://android.modaco.com/topic/348882-23-nov-modaco-custom-kernel-cifs-usb-drives-keyboard-mouse/

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Board Bringup: LCD and Display Interfaces – ELCE 2011

Presentation “Board Bringup: LCD and Display Interfaces” by David Anders, Texas Instruments, at Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2011. Board bringup is one of the most under documented aspects of embedded development. This presentation looked at the various display technologies such as DisplayPort, DVI, LVDS, and other LCD interfacing methods with emphasis on how to bringup, debug, and validate them on new hardware. Using a case study, aspects such as interfacing timing, extended display identification data(EDID), and backlight controls have been discussed. Most embedded linux developers at some point in their career will be handed a piece of hardware that is untested. LCD bringup is one of the most challenging assignments for an embedded developer. This presentation intends to provide some core tools and methods for bringup of a new display interface. You can also download the presentation slides

Metis Compute Board
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Axelera Metis Compute Board pairs Rockchip RK3588 SoC with 214 TOPS Metis AI accelerator

Axelera Metis Computer Board is a Rockchip RK3588 mini-ITX motherboard equipped with a Metis AIPU (AI Processing Unit) capable of delivering up to 214 TOPS, 16GB LPDDR4 memory for the CPU, and 4GB LPDDR4x RAM for the AI accelerator. I first came across the Axelera Metis AIPU in M.2 and PCIe card in 2023, and I was rather impressed with the advertised 214 TOPS of AI performance promised in this form factor and relatively affordable $149 price tag considering the price-to-performance ratio. At the time, it was still hard to source the chip and module due to limited quantities, and in 2024, it became easier to evaluate the solution with the Axelera Metis PCIe Arm AI evaluation kit based on a Firefly ITX-3588J mini-ITX motherboard equipped with a 214 TOPS Metis AIPU PCIe card. The new Metis Compute Board is similar, but in a more compact form factor since the […]

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