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SILICA Pengwyn Low Cost Open Industrial Development Platform Powered by Sitara AM3354 Processor

At the end of January, SILICA, an Avnet subsidiary, announced the Pengwyn, a single board computer based on Texas Instruments Sitara AM3354 Cortex A8 processor. The board targets industrial customers, and the company promotes it as “an open platform to develop applications under Linux or Windows Embedded operating systems”. Here are the specifications of the Pengwyn board: Texas Instruments Sitara AM 3354 ARM Cortex-A8 MCU @ 720 MHz System Memory – 256 MB DDR3 Storage – 1 GB Nand Flash, 32 MB SPI Flash Memory, and microSD slot (if not used with Wi-Fi/Bt modules) Connectivity and expandability USB Host and Device Ports RJ-45 Ethernet Port Connector for optional 1 GB Ethernet Port 2x connectors for generic expansions modules SDIO/MMC Port (can be used for optional WI-FI/bluetooth modules) DVI Display Port Silica will provide Linux (Arago Project, an OpenEmbedded based Distribution) and Windows Embedded Compact 7 BSP and images, as well as […]

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Canonical Unveils Ubuntu on Tablets

Yesterday, Ubuntu.com displayed a time counter for an announcement reading “Tic Toc Tablet Time” that ended being about Ubuntu on Tablets, and not an HTC Tablet running Ubuntu as some blogs speculated, as both companies had a timer counter set to expire at the same time for separate, and unrelated, announcements. The interface looks very much like Ubuntu for Phones with a similar “Welcome Screen”, except multiple users are supported, no icons (except for apps), and you can swipe around the 4 edges to access the dash, opened applications, notifications, and more. Canonical highlights 5 key features for Ubuntu on Tablets: Real multitasking – Run mobile and tablet apps at the same time on the same screen Secure multi-user Voice controlled HUD productivity Edge magic for cleaner apps – As I said previously no buttons, you control eveything from the edges. Content focus – Messages and media are easily accessible […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Electronics Shop in Thailand – What Will $33 Buy?

Since I was in urgent need for a 5V/3A power adapter, I decided to go shopping locally (in Chiang Mai, Thailand) at some computer shopping malls, where they also have some spare parts. We spent about 1h30 visiting around 10 shops with no success: most of them did not have 5V power supply for sale, and those who did, could only provide 5V/2A power adapters. Finally, one guy at a shop was very helpful, and tried to help us without success, but finally  he said you should go to “Amorn“, and after driving a few kilometers we got there. When I entered the shop  I started to see some pretty interesting equipments: multi-meters, full sized oscilloscopes from 11,000 Bath (~370 USD), electronics cards for appliances (ventilators washing machine, car audio, amplifiers…), soldering irons, ribbon cables, components (capacitors, but no resistors), and much more. It turns out “Amorn Electronics Center” has […]

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Open ARM GPU Drivers FOSDEM 2013 Video and Call to ARM Management

As I previously wrote, FOSDEM organizers are slowly uploading FOSDEM 2013 videos. One of the most interesting talk “Open ARM GPU Drivers” is now available. I’ve also uploaded it to YouTube (embedded below) to give it more exposure. Luc Verhaegen has also written a recent blog post entitled “Hey ARM!” where he announces the release of the modified source for Quake 3 Arena demo, and asks ARM to join them in making an open source driver. Open ARM GPU Drivers @ FOSDEM2013 This session covers the following key points: Problem – Binary drivers are mainly designed to run in Android, and it’s very difficult to have proper GPU drivers for Linux, and companies are not interested to release open source drivers or even just documentation, as they are not convinced it will benefit them in any way. Legal – This is actually the main issue, as open sourcing existing driver […]

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Developer Community for Freescale i.MX6 HDMI Dongles

Last week, I explained how to build U-boot, the kernel, and Android for Freescale i.MX6 HDMI dongle reference platform. Since them, there has been a bit more activity, with Richtechie releasing source code to some ARMTvTech members. However, this source code is very similar to the one released by Freescale, and misses some part present in the kernel config on GK802 such as CONFIG_MACH_MX6Q_RICHTECHIE, and the company clearly does not comply with the GPL. Let’s forget that for now, as Jasbir (who is also behind the Hackberry board) has managed to build and boot the kernel on his mini PC. There’s still more work to do, but at least we have a based to work on. In the meantime, I’ve noticed rz2k, an other developer, was also giving it a try on #arm-netbook Freenode IRC channel, so we decided to setup a few things to facilitate development and communication between developers. […]

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How to Display dd Progress and dd.sh Script

Upgrading software on Linux / Android boards or devices often involves copying images to an SD card or microSD. In Linux, you’d usually do that with dd, a utility that provides binary copy of data to files or block devices. A typical command would be:

However, during the copy, dd does not show a progress bar by default. But dd actually supports progress report, as indicated in the manpage: you can run dd, and send USR1 signal to display the current progress once, and resume copying. Linux commando explains how to continuously return the progress. First run the dd command:

Open another terminal window to find out the process id:

And use the watch command to send USR1 at regular interval.

You should see dd progress in the first window every 10 seconds. It works, but the output is not very nice because dd will just […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Infineon Hexagon Application Kit (XMC4500 Enterprise Edition) Overview and Quick Start Guide

A few months ago, Infineon sent me XMC4500 Relax Lite Kit for review, and I wrote a short Getting Started Guide about this 10 Euros Cortex M4 devkit. This month, I’ve received another XMC4500 kit with more features and expansion abilities: XMC4500 Enterprise Edition which is one of their Hexagon Application Kit. I received two packages: CPU Board XMC4500 General Purpose (CPU_45A-V2) with accessories (55 Euros) – This is what you get when you order to Basic Kit. J-Link Lite Cortex-M Debugger (40 Euros) Let’s open the packages and see what’s inside. In the first package, we’ve got XMC4500 CPU board, a pin extension board that can be used on any of the 3 extension connectors of the CPU board to access the signals easily, and a microUSB to USB cable for power. The JLink debugger comes with a 10-pin ribbon cable, and a microUSB to USB cable to connect to the […]

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$299 Microsemi SmartFusion2 Starter Kit (Cortex M3 + FPGA)

Microsemi SmartFusion2 SoC family combines an ARM Cortex-M3 Core @ 166 Mhz and FPGA Fabric with up to 12M Gates, and comes with up to 512 KB eNVM and 64 KB eSRAM, 1 CAN A & B interface, 1 GbE port, 1 USB 2.0 OTG, and diverse serial interface. Last year I received Emcraft SmartFusion Starter Kit using the first generation of the starter kit, and Microsemi (previously known as Actel) and Emcraft Systems have recently announced the second generation with the SmartFusion2 Starter Kit. The main hardware features include: SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA in FG896 package (M2S050T-FG896ES) with 256KB eNVM, 64KB SRAM,  and 48,672 logic modules. JTAG interface for programming of the SmartFusion2 device 10/100 Ethernet interface and RJ-45 connector USB OTG interface and mini-USB connector USB based Wi-Fi Module 64MB LPDDR, 16MB SPI flash User push-button connected to GPIO on the SOM Two user-controlled LEDs connected to GPIO on […]

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