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MIPI Introduces SoundWire Audio Interface for Mobile Devices

MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) Alliance is a non-profit corporation that establishes standards for hardware and software interfaces in mobile devices. MIPI is better known for its MIPI DSI (Display Serial Interface) and CSI (Camera Serial Interface), but as you can see from the diagram below, they’ve been busy publishing a lot more interface specifications. The latest being MIPI SoundWire, a new audio interface for amplifiers, microphones and audio codecs used in smartphones, tablets, mobile PCs and other devices. The consortium only released a “MIPI SoundWire Specification Brief” so there aren’t that many details. SoundWire is not the first audio interface from MIPI, with SLIMbus having been first introduced in 2007, and later updated in 2013 with SLIMBus 1.1. SLIMbus must not have been that widely used, as only Intrinsyc OPEN-Q 8084 Development Kit appears to feature the interface among all the board listed on CNX Software. Nevertheless SLIMBus and […]

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Qualcomm Releases Userspace Adreno 320 GPU Drivers for Ubuntu

Qualcomm Developer Network has just sent the October Newsletter by email, and they had some news specific to Ubuntu / Linux support on IFC6410 development board powered by a Snapdragon 600 processor. Firs they link to a guest blog post on Qualcomm website entitled “Video Conferencing on Linux with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Processor“, where Qualcomm partner eInfochips stated: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.’s leadership in mobile market with Linux Android support is well established. As the demand for Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., increase in adjacent markets, the need for non-Android Linux support becomes evident. Which is always good to read. The rest of the post blog provides a few more details about their a low-latency (50ms glass-to-glass) video conferencing solution based on OpenEmbedded build with Linaro Linux Kernel, and making use of Qt5, Gstreamer, and Sofia SIP library. Further improvements will be achieved with hardware video […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Applied Micro X-Gene (64-bit ARM) vs Intel Xeon (64-bit x86) Performance and Power Usage

A group of researcher at CERN have evaluated Applied Micro X-Gene 1 64-bit ARM XC-1 development board against Intel Xeon E5-2650 and Xeon Phi SE10/7120 systems, and one of them, David Abdurachmanov, presented their findings at ACAT’ 14 conference (Advanced Computing and Analysis Techniques) by listing some of the issues they had to port their software to 64-bit ARM, and performance efficiency of the three systems for data processing of High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments like those at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where performance-per-watt is important, as computing systems may scale to several hundred thousands cores. Intel Xeon Phi platform based on Many Integrated Cores (MIC) computer architecture was launched the HPC market, and contrary to the table above features 61 physical cores. Applied X-Gene 1 (40nm process) was used instead of X-Gene 2 built on 28-nm process which was not available at the time. The ARM platform ran […]

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Beyond Semi Introduces 32-bit BA20 Core with Cortex M4 Performance Efficiency, and Cortex M0+ Silicon Area

Beyond Semiconductor and CAST have jointly announced BA20 32-bit embedded processor core with PipelineZero Architecture (zero-stage execution pipeline), that rivals with ARM Cortex A4 in terms of performance per MHz, while using about the same silicon area as an ARM Cortex M0+. which could be critical for applications such as wearables, sensors, and wireless communication, that may require both a small footprint and high performance efficiency. The company’s PipelineZero micro-archirtecture can execute one instruction per cycle, hence saving energy by doing more in less time, and by operating at lower clock rates. Key features listed for BA20 IP core: PipelineZero architecture for high performance efficiency with tiny silicon footprint 3.04 DMIPs/MHz (vs ARM Cortex M4: 1.25 DMIPS/MHz) 3.41 Coremarks/MHz (vs ARM Cortex M4: 3.40 CoreMarks/MHz) 2µW/MHz (vs ARM Cortex M0+: 3µW/MHz) 10K gates (0.01mm2) in 9-track 40G (vs 0.009mm2 for ARM Cortex M0+) BA2 ISA Extreme Code Density for less […]

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Eny M8S and M8C Android Media Players Powered by Amlogic S812 SoC

The first Amlogic S812 Android TV box I had seen was Xtreamer Wonder which should start shipping for 99 Euros ($140) by the end of the month, but they’ll have some competition as Eny Technology will soon manufacture M8S and M8C Android media players, also based on the same quad core Cortex A9 processor, with 4K UHD video output and HEVC/H.265 hardware video decoding. M8S and M8C have the same technical specifications except that the former comes with 2GB RAM, and the latter with 1GB RAM: SoC – Amlogic S812-H quad core cortex A9r4 @ 2 GHz with octa-core Mali-450MP6 GPU @ 600+ MHz System Memory – 1GB (M8C) or 2 GB (M8S) DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND flash + micro SD card reader Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 4K2K @ 30 Hz, AV port Audio Output […]

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Preliminary Dual Boot Android & Ubuntu Firmware for Nagrace HPH NT-V6 TV Box (Rockchip RK3288)

Nagrace NT-V6 TV Box is powered by Rockchip RK3288 processor, and in my review I found the hardware to be pretty good, although some progress had to be done on the firmware. The company is still focus on perfecting Android firmware for NT-V6 and Firefly-RK3288 development board, but in meantime, they’ve released a dual boot image capable of running either Android 4.4 or Ubuntu (14.04?). To give it a try download HPH-RK3288-Android-Ubuntu_20140924.rar. I haven’t been able to try it myself, because Google Drive download is extremely slow today. Once the download is complete, you’ll probably need to flash the firmware using Rockchip AndroidTools (windows) or upgrade_tool command line utility (Linux). The dual boot firmware is based on Android firmware 1.3.9 released on September 30, plus an Ubuntu root file system. It’s not overly convenient to use Ubuntu, because you need to enter recovery mode by inserting a sharp oject (e.g. […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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USB Armory is an Open Source Hardware Freescale i.MX53 Dongle for Security Applications

Most computers-on-a-stick come with an HDMI port, and a few USB ports, but Inverse Path’s dongle is quite different. USB Armory is a flash drive sized computer powered by Freescale i.MX53 Cortex A8 processor with only a USB port and a micro SD slot, that targets security applications such as mass storage devices with automatic encryption, virus scanning, host authentication and data self-destruct, VPN routers, electronic wallets, password managers, portable penetration testing platforms, and so on. USB Armory specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX53 ARM Cortex-A8 @ 800Mhz with ARM TrustZone System Memory – 512MB DDR3 RAM Storage – microSD card slot USB – 1x USB host port. USB device emulation: CDC Ethernet, mass storage, HID, etc. Expansion Header – 5-pin breakout header with GPIOs and UART Misc – customizable LED, including secure mode detection Power – 5V via USB  (<500 mA power consumption) Dimensions – 65 x 19 x 6 […]

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Intel / Rockchip XMM 6321 Solution for Low Cost 3G Smartphones and Tablets

Back in May, Intel and Rockchip announced a partnership to develop 3G and LTE “Sofia” SoC for mobile devices, a few months later, Rockchip VP posted a picture of dual core development board (6321 solution) on Weibo with Rockchip and Intel technology, and the companies have showcased solutions based on XMM 6321 during the Hong Kong Electronics Fair. Intel XMM 6321 appears to be a two-chip solution comprised of: XG632 SoC with a dual core Intel processor, a GPU, ISP?, VPU and a 2G/3G modem Intel/Infineon AG620 Communication Combo with 2G/3G RF, Wi-Fi/BT, GPS, GLONASS and Audio/PMU. XG632 will be the first processor from Intel and Rockchip collaboration, but it may not be part of “Sofia” family. with quad core 64-bit Sofia 3G-R and Sofia LTE SoCs coming at later date. XG632 is for entry-level smartphones (<$30) and tablets (<$40), whereas the upcoming Sofia SoCs will be seen in mainstream […]

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