CNXSoft – Embedded Software Development

Micromint, a US based supplier of single-board computers and industrial embedded controllers, has just announced Micromint Bambino 200 and 200E single board computers powered by NXP LPC4330 dual core Cortex M4/M0 MCU @ 204Mhz. Those 2 boards support .NET Gadgeteer and mbed frameworks. Key Features of Micromint Bambino 200: NXP LPC4330 Dual core ARM Cortex-M4/M0 @ 204 MHz with 264 KB SRAM. Storage – 4MB SPI flash USB – High-speed USB 2.0 device port used both as a power source and for data communications or debugging Misc – 2 buttons, 2 LEDs 5 Gadgeteer sockets Dimensions- 101.6 x 58.4 mm Bambino 200E is based on the same platform but adds: Storage – 8 MB SPI Flash (vs 4MB) 10 Gadgeteer sockets 10/100 Mbps Ethernet microSD socket Xbee socket Power jack – 7 – 15 VDC The company also explains that…

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Intel has launched Silvermont, a new microarchitecture for low power SoC targeting smartphones, tablets, and servers in data centers. Silvermont SoC will be manufactured using 22nm Tri-Gate SoC process, and the company claims 3x times more peak performance than current generation Atom processors, or 5 times less power consumption at the same performance level. Silvermont will be used in Bay Trail, Avoton,  and Merrifield processors: Intel’s quad-core “Bay Trail” SoC is scheduled for Q4 2013 tablets, and variants of the “Bay Trail” platform will also be used in market segments including entry laptop and desktop computers. Intel’s “Merrifield” is scheduled to ship to customers by the end of this year, and actual smartphones will show up in 2014. Intel’s “Avoton” will be used in low power microservers, and provide full server product capability that customers require including 64-bit, integrated fabric,…

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Most of the time, mobile GPU comparisons involve benchmarks such as Antutu, Nenamark 2, etc…, or people may consider which games will be able to run smoothly with a particular device, but we seldom compare image quality, for the simple reason it’s usually more difficult to achieve. YOUi Labs has just done that, however, by running the shader code below on several hardware platforms, mainly Android tablets, with the most common mobile GPUs, and used the results obtained with a  Desktop PC GPU, Nvidia Geforce GT 630M, has a reference. precision highp float; uniform vec2 resolution; void main( void ) { float x = ( 1.0 – ( gl_FragCoord.x / resolution.x )); float y = ( gl_FragCoord.y / resolution.y ) * 26.0; float yp = pow( 2.0, floor(y) ); float fade = fract( yp + fract(x) ); if(fract(y) < 0.9)…

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Embedded Pi is a platform capable of interfacing the Raspberry Pi with 3.3V and/or 5V Arduino shields, based on an 32-bit ARM Cortex M3 STMicro STM32 MCU. It can also be used in standalone mode as an Arduino compatible ARM MCU evaluation board. Embedded Pi Hardware Specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32F103RBT6 Cortex M3 @ 72MHz with 20KB SRAM and 128KB flash. Raspberry Pi Connector with I2C, SPI, UART, PWM and GPIOs Arduino Interfaces – 1x SPI, 1x I2C, 4x PWM, 1x UART, 6x Analog Input Extended Interfaces – 1x SPI, 1x I2C, 1x UART with flow control, 2 pairs PWM, 6x Analog Input, and 1x CAN 3 Power Sources – Micro USB port, external DC adapter, and 5V from the Raspberry Pi Depending on the jumper placement on the Embedded Pi, you can select each of the three modes of…

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Matricom sent me one of their latest G-Box Midnight MX2 media player based on AMLogic AML8726-M6, with 1GB RAM, 8 GB flash, running Android 4.2, and with full support for XBMC. This is an update of the G-Box Midnight based on AML8726-M3 which supports XBMC in Android, as well as XBMC Linux thanks to community builds. Specifications: SoC – Amlogic AML8726-MX Dual Core Cortex A9 CPU + dual core Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 8GB Flash + SD card slot (Up to 32GB) Video Output – HDMI v1.4, composite (CVBS) and component (YUV) Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and SPDIF Connectivity – 802.11b/g/n internal Wifi + 10/100 Ethernet Port USB – 4x USB 2.0 Ports (1 might be OTG) IR sensor Power Supply – 5V/2A The hardware and software is very similar to Tronsmart Prometheus…

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MediaTek has recently announced the MT6572, a  dual-core SoC with integrated Wi-Fi, FM, GPS and Bluetooth functions targeted at the entry segment. This SoC, manufactured using 28nm process technology, comes with a dual core cortex A7 processor @ 1.2GHz combined with a Mali-400 GPU and a multi-mode Rel. 8 HSPA+/TD-SCDMA modem. Other characteristics include support for up to HD 720p video playback and recording, 5MP camera, and up to qHD (960×540) displays. One of the first smartphones based on the platform will be Sunspan D28X and D26X with 4.5″ display, 5MP camera, and running Android 4.2 version of the system. Both devices will come with 1600 mAh battery., and both will cater for the Chinese market with D28X supporting TD-SCDMA (China Mobile), and D26X W-CDMA (Unicom). MediaTek claims MT6572 can be expected in hundreds of commercial models which will sell…

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Yesterday, Linaro announced the released of the IKS (In-kernel switcher) implementation for big.LITTLE processor which allows the SoC to switch between individual Cortex A7 or Cortex A15 cores to optimize power consumption. Currently, the only consumer device using supporting big.LITTLE the Samsung Galaxy S4 thanks to Samsung Exynos 5 Octa featuring 4 ARM Cortex A7 and 4 ARM Cortex A15 cores. IKS implementation can only make use of 4 cores at a time in this processor, since it must choose between A7 or A15 depending on the load. HMP (Heteregenous Multi-Processing) implementation is currently worked on in order to be able to use all 8 cores, and distributes tasks to the right core for the job. You can read my previous post for differences between IKS and HMP. Linaro explains the current source still needs a few more modifications before…

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