Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 specifications – Cortex-X1/A78/A55 Processor with Snapdragon X60 5G Modem

Snapdragon 888

Qualcomm teased us with Snapdragon 888 5G mobile platform on the first day of the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2020 before revealing the specifications and more details about their new premium mobile SoC on the second day of the event. Snapdragon 888 (SM8350) octa-core processor is equipped with one high-performance Cortex-X1 core @ 2.84 GHz, three Cortex-A78 cores @ 2.42 GHz, and four low-power Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 1.80 GHz, an Adreno 660 GPU, and a third-generation Snapdragon X60 5G modem. Snapdragon 888 specifications: CPU – Octa-core Qualcomm Kryo 680 CPU with 1x Cortex-X1 core @ 2.84 GHz, 3x Cortex-A78 cores @ 2.42 GHz, and 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.80 GHz (via Anandtech) GPU – Adreno 660 GPU with support for OpenCL 2.0 FP, OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, DX12, and up to 8K 360 VR video playback DSP – Hexagon 780 processor with Vector eXtensions (HVX), Tensor Accelerator Qualcomm Sensing […]

Power Profiler Kit II measures power consumption in Nordic Semi based embedded systems

Power Profiler Kit II

If you’re developing battery-powered products it’s important to optimize your application to consume as little power as possible to extend battery life. As we’ve seen with Qoitech Otii Developer Tool, getting the right tool for development can help developers work more efficiently, and save countless man hours. If you’re specifically working on products based on Nordic Semi nRF51, nRF52, nRF53 or nRF91 wireless chips, the company has just announced the Power Profiler Kit II (PPK2) that enables easy and affordable power measurement of average and dynamic power consumption in embedded solutions based on the aforementioned wireless SoC’s/SiP’s. Power Profiler Kit II key features: 200nA to 1A measurement range Resolution varies between 100nA and 1mA depending on the measurement range Instantaneous and average current measurement for all Nordic DKs, in addition to custom HW Ampere meter and source modes Built-in programmable regulator with a 0.8V to 5V output range and up […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

Khadas Tone 2 Pro mini desktop Hi-Fi system supports MQA decoding, balanced RCA outputs

Khadas Tone 2 Pro

Khadas Tone high-resolution audio board was introduced in 2018 for audiophiles wanting to design their own DIY HiFi system using Khadas VIM/VIM2 SBC, or connect it the USB version of the board to other single board computers. The company is now about to launch Khadas Tone 2 Pro mini desktop Hi-Fi system based on the same ESS ES9038Q2M DAC, but a faster XMOS XU216 capable of handling MQA decoding, and equipped with balanced RCA outputs, as well as an I2S USB-C port. Khadas Tone 2 Pro key features and specifications: Multicore MCU – XMOS XU216 with 16 real-time logical cores on 2x xCORE tiles; up to 1000 MIPS DAC – ES9038Q2M 32-bit stereo mobile audio DAC Amplifiers – 4x OPA1612 operational amplifiers, 3x buffer amplifiers Seamless hardware MQA decoding Native DSD512 decoding, PCM decoding up to 32Bit/384kHz. Left and right balanced RCA jacks for transmitting a balanced analog signal via […]

PinePhone KDE Community Edition smartphone with Plasma Mobile now up for pre-order

PinePhone KDE Community Edition

PinePhone Linux phone first launched as an early adopter phone without any OS when the “Brave Edition” was first introduced in November 2019. Since then Pine64 launched variant with different Linux mobile OS including PinePhone Community Edition: UBports, the PostMarket Edition that also added support for mobile/desktop convergence with a model with more RAM and storage, as well as a USB-C Dock, and more recently there was a batch with PinePhone Manjaro Community Edition. If you haven’t already gotten your hand on one of the earlier models, you’ll be glad to know the PinePhone KDE Community Edition is now available for pre-order for the same $149.99 price tag for the phone only or $199.99 with the convergence package. PinePhone comes with Allwinner A64 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor that been around for many years. It’s not a performance beast, but it’s well supported by the open-source Linux community, and affordable. For $150, […]

Arduino Sensor Kit Base is a large shield for Arduino UNO with 10 modules

Arduino Sensor Kit Base

Earlier this year, Seeed Studio introduced the Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino that included the Arduino UNO compatible Seeduino Lotus board placed at the center and ten pre-wired and detachable Grove modules to get started with sensors on Arduino with no cabling whatsoever apart from the USB cable. Arduino must have seen and liked the design, and Seeed Studio has collaborated with the Italian company to create the Arduino Sensor Kit Base with a very similar design, but with a twist as instead of an all-in-one platform with modules and an Arduino board, it’s a very large shield that seats on tops of Arduino UNO. The Arduino Sensor Kit base includes the following: Base shield with 16 Grove connectors, instead of just 12 Grove connectors on the Beginner Kit, including 7x digital connectors, 4x analog connectors, 4x I2C connectors, and one UART connector; A 3.3V/5V voltage switch is also included […]

DIY Pi KVM: An easy and cheap KVM over IP for Raspberry Pi

Pi-KVM DIY

Traditional IP-KVM systems may cost you hundreds of dollars. DIY Pi KVM over IP is a very simple and fully functional Raspberry Pi-based KVM over IP that you can make yourself. If you do not know what IP-KVM is, it stands for keyboard, video, and mouse. It allows you to connect to a computer or a server remotely. With this, you can fix problems such as configuring the BIOS or reinstalling the OS using a virtual CD-ROM or flash drive. You can see the v2 example implementation in the above image. Pi-KVM v0 and v2 are ready-made images available for download for Raspberry Pi. You will find all the required hardware in the “Getting Started” section for the v0 and v2 platform for Raspberry Pi. In the figure below you can see the B101 HDMI-to-CSI bridge connected to the Raspberry Pi. The team is working to launch the v3 board […]

UP 7000 SBC

Rockchip RK3568 processor to power edge computing and NVR applications

Rockchip RK3568

We recently reported on the Rockchip developer conference (RKDC) 2020, and especially the upcoming Rockchip RK3588 Cortex-A76/A55 processor that packs a lot of power and features, and is now scheduled to launch in Q3 2021. But as you can imagine there were other products revealed during the conference, including the new Rockchip RK3568, similar to the previously announced RK3566, and designed for edge computing and network video recorder (NVR) applications. There’s also an RK353X processor specifically designed for NVR application that should have similar performance as RK3568, but a lower cost, as well as two UP camera SoC with RV1106 and RV1128. CNX Software managed to obtain the presentation for the RK3568 processor from the conference so we’ll focus on the quad-core Cortex-A55 processor in this post. Rockchip RK3568 specifications: CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor with NEON and FPU GPU – Mali-G52 EE with support for OpenGL ES 1.1 to […]

NanoPi R4S SBC launched with optional metal case for $45 and up

NanoPi R4S metal case

We found NanoPi R4S board in a work-in-progress Wiki last month. The tiny single board computer is designed for headless applications but comes with much better specifications compared to similar boards with a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with up to 4GB RAM, dual Gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0 ports. At the time we had limited information, but FriendlyELEC has now started selling the board for $45 and up, together with an optional metal case for a fanless operation that should ensure very good cooling. Here’s a reminder of NanoPi R4S specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with dual-Core Cortex-A72 up to 2.0GHz,  quad-core Cortex-A53 up to 1.5GHz, Mali-T864 GPU with OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenCL, DX11, and AFBC support, 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 60fps video decoder System Memory – 1GB DDR3 or 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – MicroSD card slot Networking – 2x GbE, including one native Gigabit Ethernet, and […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC