Mainline Linux on Amlogic S905/S905X/S912 SoCs – 2018 Status Update

BayLibre is working on mainline Linux for Amlogic SoC, and in February of last year, Neil Armstrong gave a presentation entitled “Mainline Linux on AmLogic SoCs” at the Embedded Linux Conference 2017. Neil has recently (actually yesterday) given another presentation about the status of mainline Linux on Amlogic processor at linux.conf.au 2018, so we have some updated information now. He goes through the whole history of upstreaming Linux for Amlogic SoCs, but I’ll provided summary of the new features, and if you have time you can watch the video (25 minutes) embed below, or the slides. Early last year, Linux 4.10 already supported general I/Os, USB host (for S905), Gigabit Ethernet, eMMC/SD/SDIO, PSCI for SMP, and SCPI for DVFS for Amlogic processor, and BayLibre was said to be working on HDMI display support, Mali (as external module), audio input/output, and high-speed eMMC modes. Based on the slide above, with Linux […]

FOSDEM 2018 Open Source Developers Meeting Schedule

FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting) occurs every year on the first week-end of February, where developers meet for two days discussing about open source software projects. FOSDEM 2018 will take place on February 3-4 this year with  652 speakers, 684 events, and 57 tracks, an increase over  last year 608 speakers, 653 events, and 54 tracks. There will be 8 main tracks namely: Community, History, Miscellaneous, Performance, Python, Security and Encryption, Space, and Global Diversity CFP Day. There will also be 33 developer rooms, and since the full schedule is now available, I’ll make a virtual schedule mostly based on sessions from the Embedded, mobile, and automotive, Hardware Enablement, and Internet of Things devrooms. Saturday 3, 2018 09:50 – 10:15 – Turning On the Lights with Home Assistant and MQTT by Leon Anavi In this presentation you will learn the exact steps for using MQTT JSON […]

$1 RDA5981 WiFi IoT Arm Cortex-M4 SoC is Designed for Smart Home Devices, Smart Speakers

RDA Microelectronics processors are found in a few cheap smart and not-so-smart phones, as well as the even cheaper Orange Pi i96 board. But the company does not only design cellular chips, but their portfolio also includes solutions for the Internet of Things and TV & radio tuners. RDA5981 is a WiFi IoT chip specifically designed for smart home & audio application, such as smart speakers, and it’s found in devices running Baidu DuerOS, the Chinese equivalent of Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. The company explains it can be widely used in televisions, set-top boxes, smart appliances, wireless monitors, and other products. RDA5981 A/B/C processor specifications: CPU – Arm Cortex-M4 @ up to 160 MHz with integrated MPU and mbed uvisor System Memory  – Up to 448 KB SRAM for network stack and application, external PSRAM interface Storage – Up to 32Mbit SPI flash Connectivity WiFi 2.4 Ghz 802.11b/g/n WiFi […]

Companies Address Concerns related to Speculative Execution Exploits: Meltdown and Spectre

Yesterday, news surfaced about a “bug” in Intel processors that could be fixed at the operating system level at the cost of a decrease in performance for some tasks, from a typical, and barely noticeable 5% hit, to a more consequent 30% hit for some specific tasks, and as we discussed yesterday I/O intensive tasks are the most impacted by the changes. While Intel (and Arm) are impacted, AMD claims not to be, and the issue was reported by major news outlets and likely impacting the stock price of the companies with Intel stock losing 3.39%, and AMD stock gaining 5.19%, so obviously every company felt the need to answer, starting with Intel’s response to security research findings: Recent reports that these exploits are caused by a “bug” or a “flaw” and are unique to Intel products are incorrect. Based on the analysis to date, many types of computing devices […]

Year 2017 in Review, Top 10 Posts, and Some Fun Stats

2017 is coming to an end, and as I do every year, I’ll take a look back at the year that was on CNX Software. The pace of development boards launches has not slowed down this year, and we get an even wider range from the low-end with Orange Pi or NanoPi boards, to much more powerful ARM boards, and some new entrants like Libre Computer. The same is true for TV boxes, most of which now support 4K HDR, ranging from ultra cheap models selling for less than $20 to higher end Android TV boxes, while mini PCs were dominated by Intel Apollo Lake models, although some Cherry Trail products were also launched. Processor-wise, Amlogic launched more Amlogic S905X derivatives with S905W/S905D/S905Z, which are popular in the TV box market. Rockchip’s most interesting processor this year was RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor designed for 4K HDR Android TV […]

Intel Stratix 10 MX FPGA Integrates High Bandwidth Memory DRAM (HBM2)

Intel started sampling (Altera) Stratix 10 ARM + FPGA SoC in late 2016, and now the company has announced the availability the new Stratix 10 MX FPGA family wih High Bandwidth Memory DRAM (HBM2). The latter allow Stratix 10 MX FPGAs to offer up to 10 times the memory bandwidth when compared with standalone DDR memory solutions. The higher bandwidth will be useful for multi-function accelerators for high-performance computing (HPC), data centers, network functions virtualization (NFV), and broadcast applications. Intel / Altera Stratix 10 MX SoC key features and specifications: Processor – Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 MP Core up to 1.5 GHz Logic Density Range – 1.092M LE to 2.073M LE Embedded Memory 3.5 to 8GB HBM2 high-bandwidth DRAM memory 45 Mbit to 90 Mbit  eSRAM memory 86 Mbit to 134 Mbit M20K memory 6 Mbit to 11 Mbit MLAB memory Up to 7,920 18 x 19 Multipliers Up to 72 […]

Holo P2P Distributed Hosting is Powered by Holochain Technology, Leverages Holo Fuel Cryptocurrency (Crowdfunding)

The Internet is now mostly centralized, for example most people search with Google, and Facebook dominates the social media space in many countries. That also means access to content can easily be blocked by governments, and many companies will use your personal data to their benefits. Holo network promises to “take back the Internet” thanks to a P2P distributed web hosting system, where people hosts app from developers in their HoloPort devices, and get paid for hosting crypto apps in Holo Fuel cryptocurrency that can in turn be used to pay for processing power and/or storage on the network, or converted into other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, or fiat money (Dollars, Euros…). It’s like a new Internet that uses the current “pipes” (i.e. you’d still need Internet through your ISP), but all content would have to be created from the ground up. It basically aims to replace datacenters, websites, and app […]

Meet the First Windows 10 Arm “Always Connected PCs” – HP Envy x2 (2017) and ASUS NovaGo TP370

Qualcomm and Microsoft showcased some Snapdragon 835 based Windows 10 “Mobile PCs” at Computex 2017 last June, and while the press was allowed film the demo, the device could only be operated by a Qualcomm employee. But both companies and their partners have made progress, and at the Snapdragon Technology Summit, Qualcomm announced “Always Connected PCs” which will run Windows 10, be always on and always connected at Gigabit LTE speeds, and support all-day battery life while keeping thin and fanless designs. all while incorporating Windows 10. HP and ASUS unveiled their very own “Always Connected PCs”, respectively Envy X2 and Novago TP370. What I used to call laptop or in this case 2-in-1 hybrid (laptop) is now apparently called “Always Connected PC”, but in any case let’s have a closer look at both devices. HP Envy x2 (2017) Specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile Processor @ 2.6GHz with Adreno […]