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Get Cypress PSoC 4 MCUs for $1 Delivered to Your Door by Fedex

How many times have you found a low cost MCU, or a development kit, ready to order, until shipping fees, sometimes several times the price of the item, curbed your enthusiasm, to the point you just decided to cancel your purchase? It happened to me several times, so I was pleased to find out Cypress Semiconductor will ship their PSoC 4 MCUs via Fedex anywhere in the world without actually charging for shipping. PSoC 4 are ARM Cortex M0 MCUs with up to 32 kB Flash, up to 4 kB SRAM, and analog and digital I/Os. CY8CKIT-042 PSoC 4 Pionner Kit is the corresponding kit development kit, which happened to be voted product of the year 2013 on Element14 community beating the BeagleBone Black, Freescale SABRELite, and PiFace Digital for the Raspberry Pi. Development can be performed using PSoC Creator, and there seems to be a developer community active enough to provide 100 projects in 100 days. So […]

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Intel Showcases Tablet / 2-in-1 Reference Design based on 14nm “Broadwell” Core M SoC

Intel has unveiled a thin tablet reference design at Computex 2014, in Taiwan, which is based on their upcoming “Broadwell” Core M processor manufactured using 14nm process technology, which will be the most power efficient Intel Core processor to date. Intel fanless mobile PC reference design features a 7.2mm thick, 12.5″ tablet that weights 670 grams. You can also connect it to a media dock providing additional cooling allowing more performance, as well as a keyboard dock. Intel expects 2-in-1 products (tablet + laptop) based on Intel Core M to be available later this year.     Intel claims 60% lower power dissipation, 20 to 40% better performance, and 10 to 45% low SoC power, and half the package footprint compared to third generation “Haswell” Core processors, which will allow fanless and thin designs. Currently Mobile Haswell Core processors have a maximum TDP of 11.5W to 47W, so in theory, at best, Broadwell SoCs might achieve […]

ArmSoM CM5 Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC
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Jynxbox M1V2 Pure Linux XBMC Media Player Review

Theaterinabox.tv has sent me Jynxbox M1V2 TV box running XBMC Linux Gotham 13.0, and powered by Amlogic AML8726-M3 processor @ 1 GHz with 2GB Flash and 1 GB RAM. This is an upgrade of the first version featuring AML872-M1 and 512 MB RAM. I’ll go through the specs first, then show some unboxing pictures and video, and complete this post by reviewing the device by playing videos from the network and a USB flash drive, as well as going through the available add-ons in a video review. Jynxbox M1V2/M1+ Specifications Here are the specifications listed for Jynxbox M1V2 Pure Linux, aka Jynxbox M1+: SoC – Amlogic AML8726-M3 @ 1GHz with Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 2GB NAND flash + micro SD card reader (up to 32GB) Video & Audio Output – HDMI up to 1080p (default: 720p) Video Codecs & Containers- MPEG 1/2/4, H.264, X264, VC-1, WMV, M2TS, TS, RMVB, […]

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AllWinner A33 Quad Core SoC is Pin-to-Pin Compatible with AllWinner A23

Allwinner has just announced a new quad cortex ARM Cortex A7 SoC for entry-level Android tablets. AllWinner A33  shares many of the features of AllWinner A23 dual core Cortex A7, including an ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU, and provides pin-to-pin compatibility, with the main difference being the upgrade from two to four Cortex A7 cores. The company has already disclosed the main specifications of their new SoC: CPU – Quad core ARM Cortex A7 with 256 KB L1 Cache, 512KB L2 cache GPU – ARM Mali-400MP2 with support for OpenGL ES 2.0/VG 1.1 standards Memory DDR3/DDR3L SDRAM controller 8-bit NAND/eMMC flash controller  Video Decoding – 1080p60 video playback for MPEG-1/2, MPEG 4 SP/ASP GMC, H.263, H.264, WMV9/VC-1, VP8, and more Encoding – 1080p60 for H.264 Complies with RTSP, HTTP, HLS, RTMP, MMS streaming protocols Supports OpenMAX API Display 1 to 4 lane MIPI DSI up to 1280×800 RGB/CPU/LVDSLCD up to 1280×800 Camera – […]

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Intel Unveils In-Vehicle Solutions and Development Kit for Assisted Driving and Autonomous Cars

Intel has announced their In-Vehicle Solutions (IIVS) for automakers comprised of hardware based on Intel’s industrial Bay Trail Atom 3800 series SoC, and software solutions relying on a Linux based operating system but it’s not clear whether it might be Wind River Linux, Tizen IVI, or another new OS. The solutions will first provide In Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) with assisted driving features such as , and over time it will allow semi-autonomous and self-driving cards. At the heart of the system, Intel will provide CM1050 computer-on-module that will be part of a development kit including a chassis with CAN, Ethernet, and USB ports, as well as audio and CVBS  multimedia I/Os, and radios and antennas for FM, AM, DAB, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular. A Blu-ray drive, and SSDs will be available as storage options. The complete system is designed to be upgradeable, and automakers can expected modules with faster […]

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Linaro 14.05 Released with Linux Kernel 3.15, Android 4.4.2, and Ubuntu Trusty

Linaro 14.05 has been released with Linux Kernel 3.15-rc5 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.40 (LSK), Android 4.4.2, and Ubuntu has been switched from Saucy to Trusty. More work has been done on big.LITTLE processing and ARMv8 support with notably completing bootstrapping with Debian 64-bit. New hardware platform have started to pop-up such as TI J6-Vayu which must be an evaluation board for Texas Instruments Jacinto 6 dual core Cortex A15 SoC for automotive application, as well as IFC6410, a Snapdragon 600 development board which got a Ubuntu LEB image. This month also marks the first release of Linaro GCC 4.9 toolchain. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.15-rc5-2014.05 new Android topic (linaro-android-3.15-experimental) uses the resent AOSP code base GATOR version 5.18 (same version as in 2014.04) uprobes topic removed as all patches have been accepted into mainline updated big-LITTLE-pmu topic from ARM LT updated basic Capri board support […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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NXP Smartphone Quick-Jack Solution Connects to Your Smartphone Audio Jack and Interfaces with Sensors, HMI Devices

We already knew the audio jack on your mobile device was not only for your headset, thanks to small items like Pressy hardware button. But it’s actually possible to do much more, as shown by NXP smartphone quick-jack solution, a board that can interface sensors to your Android smartphone / tablet or iPhone / iPad via the headphone/microphone jack of your device. The company claims it can be used for various applications such as cloud-based tracking of sensor data, external input devices to smartphone, wearable health monitors, personal exercise trackers, handheld weather stations, handheld inventory monitors, handheld/portable POS devices, and universal remote controls, using powered harvested from the audio jack, and optionally a battery. Let’s go through the hardware specifications of this little board codenamed OM13069: MCU – NXP LPC812 ARM Cortex M0+ MCU @ 30 MHz with 16KB flash, 4KB SRAM On-board peripherals – Joystick, temperature sensor, and LEDs […]

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Ugoos UT3 and UM3 Android TV Boxes With Rockchip RK3288 Available Soon

We’ve already seen a few RK3288 boards for upcoming Android TV boxes such as Zero Devices Z6C,Sunchip TV Box and HDMI Sticks, and Ugoos UT3. Most companies did not show off their complete products however, but Ugoos has now unveiled some pictures of their UT3 and UM3 Android TV boxes, and announced availability for next week. This is probably availability to resellers, but it should still mean RK3288 based TV devices should be available within a few weeks, especially since tablets such as Pipo P8 are already up to sale, and should start shipping within a few days. The specifications are very similar for both Ugoos UT3 and UM3: SoC – Rockchip RK3288 quad core CortexA17 @ 2.0 GHz + Mali-T764 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 /3.0, and OpenCL 1.1 System Memory – 2GB DDR3 (1GB optional) Storage – UT3 – 16GB NAND Flash (Options: 8, 32 or […]

Boardcon EM3562 Rockchip RK3562 SBC with 8 analog camera inputs