Xilinx Zynq-Z7015 FPGA + ARM based System-on-Modules Include High Speed Transceivers

There’s a fair amount of low cost boards powered by Xilinx Zynq Z-7010 and Z-7020 with dual core Cortex A9 processor and Artix-7 FPGA, but those who wanted to have PCIe ports or high speed transceivers had to go with the higher-end Xilinx Z-7030/7040/7050 with Kintex-7 FPGA fabric for a much higher cost. But Xilinx introduced Zynq Z-7015 late last year, a low cost Artix-7 FPGA + Cortex A9 SoC that also adds four 6.25Gbps SerDes ports and one PCIe Gen2 x4 integrated block. At least two modules based on the new SoC are currently available with DAVE Embedded Systems’ BORA Xpress  and Trenz Electronic TE0715 Series. DAVE Zynq XC7Z015/XC7Z030 BORA Xpress BORA Xpress specifications: SoC Xilinx ZYNQ XC7Z015 dual ARM Cortex-A9 @ up to 866MHz with Artix-7 FPGA with 74K logic cells, 46K LUTs, 92K Flip flops, 380 KB RAM. 32 KB I-cache, 32 KB D-cache, 512 KB L2 […]

Google Summer of Code 2015 is Now Open for Student Applications

Google has now announced that students applications for Google Summer of Code (GSoC) are now open. Students can get paid up to $5,500 to work on various open source projects selected for the event. Fewer companies have been accepted this year, and even big names like the Linux Foundation and Mozilla got their application rejected. There are still over 137 open source projects to work on including: MinnowBoard  project – Potential software projects for the Intel Atom embedded board include making low speed I/O buses more accessible via intermediate open source libraries (e.g. SMBus/PMBus/Wiring libraries), and improving the open source firmware. lowRISC SoC project – Potential projects: Schematic Viewer for Netlists (SVG/JavaScript), open source FPGA compilation flow using Yosys, accessing the OpenCores ecosystem, etc… BeagleBoard.org – Lots of project ideas relying on the BeagleBone Black board, dealing with Linux kernel support for embedded devices and interfaces, ARM processor support in […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

Giveaway Week Winners Announced (March 2015)

The latest Giveaway week has come to an end, and I’m just coming back from the post office, having sent a few Android based TV boxes, a Linux development board, and one wireless audio streamer to the lucky winners. I’ve already announced winners daily in the comment section of each contest, but here’s the list again with the device, winners’ nickname and their country of residence: Nagrace HPH NT-V6 – Rizwan, Canada Vidon Box – bazsi, Romania RipplTV – driv3l, USA Freescale SABRE Lite – biasio95, Italy Vidon.me AV200 – cityF, Portugal HD18T – Sean, Canada SoundMate WM201 – Orel, France So people from Canada got lucky, but still no winner from Asia or Oceania. The parcel have been send via registered Small Packet Airmail, all the winners should receive them in a few weeks, and certainly I hope they’ll have fun enjoy with their devices. If you haven’t won […]

March 2015 Discounts – GearBest, GeekBuying, DX and WeTek Play

A few companies have started or planned discounts for April’s fool, Father’s day, and maybe even March Madness, the basketball tournament currently taking place in the US. GearBest launched their “March Markdowns” event occurring between March 16-31, and offering 81 discounted items, a spin the wheel game where players can win a One Plus One smartphone, two ZTE Blade S6 smartphones, as well as some other smaller items and discount points. They have deals for smartphones, watches, RC cars and quadcopters, mini PCs, and other accessories. Some interesting deals for Android media players include: MXQ S85 for $50.85. (Amlogic S805) MK808 Plus for $32.99. (Amlogic S805) Rikomagic MK12 for $89.99. (Amlogic S812) Ugoos UT3S (2GB RAM / 16GB flash) for $119.99. (Rockchip RK3288) You can also try to use GBCCN coupon to get 10% discount. This is however not cumulative. For example, Ugoos UT3S will sell for $116.80 with the […]

Neptune Suite Includes a Smartphone, Tablet, and HDMI Stick Powered by a Smartwatch (Crowdfunding)

The makers of Neptune Pine smartwatch have unsurprisingly decided to make another smartwatch which they called Neptune Hub. Why Hub? Because although this smartwatch can be used standalone, its quadcore processor can also control a smartphone, a tablet, and an HDMI stick, probably over Miracast. So they’ve taken the opposite view to other companies in the market which are using the smartphone as the brain of your smartwatch to some extends. Neptune Hub specifications: SoC – Quad-core processor @ 1.8GHz (probably Qualcomm) System Memory – N/A Storage – 64GB eMMC Display – 2.4″ capacitive touchscreen (36mm width) Cellular Connectivity – GSM/3G/LTE with nano SIM card slot Connectivity – 802.11 Wi-Fi, 60Hz WiGig 802.11ad, Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS / A-GPS Audio – Microphone and speaker Sensors – Accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, digital compass, heart rate sensor, vibration motor Battery – 1,000 mAh Water resistant The watch will run Android 5.0 Lollipop, and […]

Iocean M6752 Octa-core Cortex A53 Android Smartphone Unboxing, First Boot, and Benchmarks

I’m quite interested in testing 64-bit ARM platform, but since mini PCs and development boards are not quite there yet, GearBest give me the opportunity to check out Iocean M6752 smartphone based on Mediatek MT6752 Octa core ARM Cortex 53 processor with 3GB RAM, 16GB flash, but running Antutu 4.4.4 (32-bit). Today, I’ll provide the complete specifications of the phone, take a few pictures, and run CPU-Z and Antutu benchmark, before writing a full review in one week or so. Iocean M6752 specifications The smartphone may have multiple versions with up 16 or 32GB storage, and 1, 2 or 3 GB RAM, but the one I received has the following specifications: SoC – Mediatek MT6752 Octa-core 64-bit ARM Cortex A53 processor @ 1.7 GHz, with ARM Mali-T760 MP2 GPU and H.265 UHD capable video processing unit. System Memory – 3GB RAM Storage – 16 GB eMMC + micro SD slot […]

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

Rikomagic MK80LE (Linux Edition) Octa-core Ubuntu mini PC

Allwinner A80 based Rikomagic MK80 Android TV box, now has a Linux sibling with Rikomagic MK80LE (Linux Edition) running Ubuntu 14.04, and allegedly supports 2D/3D graphics acceleration, and hardware video decoding. Two versions are available MK80LE with 2GB RAM & 16GB Flash, and MK80LE Plus with 4GB RAM & 32GB flash. The hardware specs are the same as the Android versions (and Tronsmart Draco AW80 Meta / Telos): SoC – AllWinner Ultra Core A80 4x Cortex 15 @ 2016 MHz, 4x Cortex A7  @ 1320 MHz big.LITTLE processor with Imagination Technologies PowerVR GC6230 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.0, Directx 9.3 System Memory – 2GB (MK80LE), or 4GB (MK80LE Plus) RAM Storage – 16 GB (MK80LE) or 32GB (MK80LE Plus) eMMC, external SATA port (via a USB 2.0 bridge), and micro SD slot up to 64GB Video Output – HDMI 1.4 + AV port Audio Output – HDMI, AV […]

Experimental Android 5.x Lollipop Port for Raspberry Pi 2?

When Raspberry Pi 2 was announced, I was quite hopeful Android would be ported to the board since it now had the processing power and memory requirements to run Android. But members of the Raspberry Pi foundation put a damper on this expectation directly in their Android forums by closing some Android related threads, and stating the mobile operating system does not bring anything to the educational goal of the Raspberry Pi. But yesterday, I’ve been informed that there was an experimental Android 5.1 port for ODROID-C1 and another Android 5.x port for Raspberry Pi 2. One of the key challenges to port Android to Broadcom BCM2836 is allegedly the large number of changes required for VideoCore 4 GPU’s buffer management, which was done by Broadcom internally for BCM2835, but never ported to the Raspberry Pi. So it does not quite seem an easy task. The README on github describes […]

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