Google Releases Android L (Lollipop?) Developer Preview

Google I/O is taking place right now in San Francisco, and the company made several announcements. Although they have not announced the full codename of Android 5.0, referring to the next version as “Android L” (Lollipop would be nice though), but they’ve already documented the key changes made to Android L, and a developer preview will be released later today (26 June), together with binary images for Google Nexus 5 and Nexus 7. Beside the smartphone and tablet developer preview, there will be 3 other SDKs for Android L: Android Wear SDK – Android for wearables with sync notifications, wearable apps, data transfer APIs, and voice actions, e.g. “Ok Google, call mum”. Android TV Preview SDK – Android for TVs with pre-built fragments for browsing and interacting with media catalogs, in-app search, and recommendations. Android Auto SDK – Android for the car with apps featuring consistent user experience between vehicles, […]

64-bit ARM Server Motherboards by SoftIron

We’ve already seen development board such as X-Gene XC-1, and 64-bit ARM servers have been demonstrated by Dell and HP, but SoftIron, a British startup, claims to be the first to provide a production ready ARMv8 solutions for the enterprise server market (e.g. data centers), with its SoftIron 64-0400 and 64-0800 server motherboards powered by Applied Micro X-Gene quad and octa SoC. Although the company did not release complete pictures of the board, they seem to have done a better job with specifications: SoC SoftIron 64-0400 – Applied Micro X-Gene APM883204 with 4x 64-bit ARMv8 cores @ 2.4 GHz, 4x 32-bit ARMv5 cores for Network/Security offloads and Acceleration, and 1x Cortex M3 for server management SoftIron 64-0800 – Applied Micro X-Gene APM883208 with 8x 64-bit ARMv8 cores @ 2.4 GHz, 4x 32-bit ARMv5 cores for Network/Security offloads and Acceleration, and 1x Cortex M3 for server management System Memory – Up […]

Cavium ThunderX Server SoC Features up to 48 ARM 64-bit Cores

ARM SBSA specification for server supports up to 268,435,456 CPU cores for the second level of standardization on one or a combination of SoCs. We’re not quite up there just yet, but Cavium ThunderX is an ARM server SoC with up to 48 cores on a single chip, which is the highest number of cores I’ve ever heard of in an ARM SoC. The company created their own custom processor cores using an ARMv8 architecture license, designing an SoC complies with ARM’s Server Base System Architecture (SBSA) standard with the following key features: ARM based SoC that scales up from 8 to 48 cores with up to 2.5 GHz core frequency with 78K I-Cache, 32K D-Cache, and 16MB L2 cache. Fully cache coherent across dual sockets using Cavium Coherent Processor Interconnect (CCPI) Integrated I/O capacity with 100s of Gigabits of I/O bandwidth 4x DDR3/4 72-bit memory controllers supporting up to 1TB RAM […]

Imperas Releases ARM Cortex A53 & A57 Open Source Models for OVPsim

Since the end of 2012, it has been possible to use ARM 64-bit Fast models to run code compiled for the new ARMv8 architecture by emulating a 64-bit ARM processor inside an Intel / AMD processor. ARM fast models are not the only “free” option anymore, as Imperas has released OVPsim 20140430 with open source models for ARM Cortex A53 and Cortex A57 cores. OVPsim is a virtual platform that’s available free of charge for personal usage. The simulator itself (OVPsim) is closed source, but processor, peripheral and platform models are released under the Apache License version 2.0. OVP models of the ARM Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 are fully instruction accurate models, and you can use them for personal with an additional free license key, but if you want to make use of advanced features such as TrustZone and hardware virtualization you’ll need to purchase a commercial version (Imperas Developer or […]

Embedded Linux Conference 2014 Schedule

The Tenth Embedded Linux Conference (ELC 2014) will take place on April 29 – May 1, 2014 at the San Jose Marriott in San Jose, California. The event will feature 90+ sessions on embedded Linux, Android and IoT with over 450 attendees expected to attend. It will also be co-located with Android Builders Summit and the AllSeen Alliance Hackfest. Even if you can’t attend it’s still interesting to see what will be discussed at the event to get a grasp of on-going developments, learn a few things about different optimization techniques, and so on. So I’ve gone through the sessions’ description, and I’ve designed my own virtual schedule with sessions that could be of interest. April 29 9:00 – 9:30 – Keynote: The Paradox of embedded and Open Source by Tim Bird, Sony Mobile Linux has taken the embedded world by storm.  Billions (with a ‘B’) of devices have now shipped […]

Linaro 14.03 Release with Linux Kernel 3.14 and Android 4.4.2

Linaro 14.03 has just been released with Linux Kernel 3.14-rc7 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.33 (LSK), and Android 4.4.2. This month, I could not find any major changes or updates, but work has been performed on big.LITTLE, Samsung Arndale / Arndale-octa, HiSilicon K3V2 and D01 boards and Broadcom Capri hardware, as well as ARMv8 models. Here are the highlights of this release: Linaro Stable Kernel (LSK) 3.10.33-2014.03 big.LITTLE support – ARM MP patch set, IKS (ARMv7 only). Interactive scheduler enhancements ARMv8 features – CPU frequency scaling, CPU topology, CPU suspend Power efficient workqueue support Android v3.10 patch set from AOSP GATOR ARMv8 4xA57 4xA53 FVP (Fixed Virtual Platform) and Versatile Express TC2 support Linux Linaro 3.14-rc7-2014.03 GATOR version 5.17 Android topic (linaro-android-3.14-merge) updated to get the recent code from AOSP uprobes v7 (new version) Updated big-LITTLE-pmu topic from ARM LT (Landing team) Updated basic Capri board support from Broadcom LT (bcm590xx […]

Nvidia Tegra K1 32-bit and 64-bit Benchmarked with Antutu

Nvidia announced their latest Tegra applications processors at CES 2014 with the Tegra K1 32-bit and 64-bit ARM SoCs, as well as Tegra K1 MVC for automotive application. The 32-bit version comes with four Cortex A15 cores up to 2.3 GHz plus a companion core, and the 64-bit version with 2 ARMv8 cores (Cortex A53?) clocked up to 3 GHz. Both SoC features a 192-core Kepler GPU, and we’ve been shown some high-end graphics demo (OpenGL, OpenGL ES, OpenCL…) with in the reference tablet. Some charts has surface showing both 32- and 64-bit Tegra K1 scoring well over 40,000 and with an excellent 3D graphics score. The benchmark was run in reference platform with 32-bit or 64-bit Tegra K1, as well as the Tegra Note P1761 tablet with a 32-bit quad core Tegra K1 processor apparently clocked at a lower frequency, and with a not-that-good flash. The dual core, 64-bit […]

Linaro Connect Asia 2014 Opening Keynote – Status and Future of ARMv8 Linux & Android [Video]

Linaro Connect Asia 2014 has just started in Macau today and will take place until Friday. You can follow the sessions live and/or their recordings via Linaro OnAir YouTube Channel. I’ve watched the opening keynote, and embedded the video at the bottom of this post. The keynote focuses on ARMv8 for Linux and Android on servers, mobile devices, digital home, and more, and involves two main speakers: George Grey, Linaro CEO , and Jon Masters, Chief ARM Architecture at Red Hat. The speaker beginning of the video provides some practical information and the schedule for Linaro Connect. The keynote itself really starts around 15:50 with George Grey who spends the first 10 minutes introducing the latest Linaro members: Qualcomm, Mediatek, ZTE, AllWinner and Comcast. He then talks about the new Mobile sub-committee (MOBSCOM) that will focus on big.LITTLE, Android optimization and Android on ARMv8, as well as the soon-to-be-announced Linaro […]