Samsung Chromebook 2 Features Exynos 5 Octa SoC, Comes with either 11.6″ or 13.3″ Display

Samsung has just launched the Chromebook 2 Series with two models based on on Exynos 5 Octa SoC, available in 11.6″ (1366×768) and 13.3″ (1920×1080) configurations, and featuring 4GB RAM, 16GB eMMC, and a longer battery life thanks partially to big.LITTLE processing technology. Samsung expects the new Chromebooks to be used for work, education, and entertainment. Thanks to strong hardware specifications, these new ARM based Chromebooks will certainly offer performance similar to, or even outperforming, existing many Intel Celeron based Chromebooks, and at the same time offer a longer battery life. It’s a nice upgrade to the Exynos 5250 powered Chromebook launched in 2012, especially the addition of a model with a 13.3″ display with FHD resolution. The 13.3″ model has an Exynos 5 Octa processor clocked at 2.1GHz which should be the latest Exynos 5422, whereas the 11.6″ model might use Exynos 5420 instead (TBC). The company also mention […]

Linaro 14.02 Release with Linux Kernel 3.14 and Android 4.4.2

Linaro 14.02 has just been released with Linux Kernel 3.14-rc3 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.30 (LSK), and Android 4.4.2 r2. There are been a lot of patches for Linaro members boards, and including the latest GTS big.LITTLE processing patch, as well as speeds up to Android 4.4 performance. There’s also a Linux image (password protected) for Huawei D01 board with a 16-core ARM Cortex A15 @ 1.5 GHz SoC with up to 64 GB memory, that must be an unannounced SoC for base stations or other network equipment.  This month Linaro also made two important announcements: Qualcomm is now a Linaro member, and the Linaro Security Working Group (SWG) has been setup to develop open source secure software for the ARM architecture. The first projects will be reference implementations of the W3C Embedded Media Extension (EME), and secure boot for the 64-bit ARM Cortex-A series processors. They’ll also work on security […]

Samsung Unveils Exynos 5 Octa 5422 and Exynos 5 Hexa 5260 SoCs

As expected, Samsung announced the Exynos 5 Hexa 5260 hexa-core processor and, the not-quite-expected Exynos 5 Octa 5422 octa-core processor at Mobile World Congress, both of which feature ARM’s big.LITTLE processing technology, and ARM Mali-T628 GPU. Still no news about their 64-bit processor. Exynos 5260 will feature two ARM Cortex A15 cores up to 1.7GHz, and four Cortex A7 cores up to 1.3GHz, with full support for HMP/GTS. Contrary to initial reports the new processor is not based on Mali-T624 (as shown in Antutu), but according to Samsung Exynos 5 Hexa page, it will instead use Mali-T628 just like in Exynos 5420 and 5422. This processor could end up with the best price/power consumption/peak performance combo, as few application are able to use more than 2 cores. The SoC also features an embedded Display Port (eDP) interface, and with a memory bandwidth up to 12.8GB/s, supports supports WQXGA (2560×1600) resolution. […]

AllWinner UltraOcta A80 big.LITTLE SoC Officially Announced, Includes PowerVR G6230 GPU

Allwinner has formally announced AllWinner UltraOcta A80 SoC at Mobile World Congress 2014. The SoC featurs four Cortex A15 and four Cortex A7 cores in big.LITTLE configuration as well as Imagination Technologies PowerVR G6230 GPU, and a VPU with H.265 and VP9 support. The processor will be used in tablets, OTT media players, notebook PCs, all-in-ones, and smart TVs. Key Features: Ultra low power, high performance 28nm UltraOcta SoC with heterogeneous eight-core CPU computing Ultra performance graphics – PowerVR G6230 GPU with two shader clusters and 64 FP32 ALU cores CoolFlex power management system – optimized big.LITTLE technology to dynamically activate energy-efficient or high performance processor cores based on computing workload Next generation video engine – 4K encode/decode, H.265, VP9 Triple-screen display support Imagination PowerVR G6230 Rogue GPU is said to embed power saving technologies such as PVRTC and PVRTC2 texture compression formats, PVRIC (lossless image compression)  and PVRGC (lossless […]

Samsung Exynos 5260 Hexa Core Cortex A15/A7 big.LITTLE Processor

Samsung has been teasing with “Exynos Infinity” before Mobile World Congress 2014, and many expect the Korean company to announce their 64-bit mobile processor (Exynos 6 ?). But it’s likely another Exynos SoC will (also) be announced, as a quick search shows recent patch submissions for Exynos 5260, which happens to be an hexa-core processor using two ARM Cortex A15 cores @ 1.7 GHz, and four ARM Cortex A7 cores @ 1.3 Ghz in big.LITTLE configuration supporting HMP (Heterogenous Multi Processing) / GTS (Global Task Scheduling). The official name might be something like Exynos 5 Hexa (5260). There’s also a device tree file for Samsung XYREF5260 EVT0 development board. It would probably be possible to go through the patches to find out more, but there’s an easier solution, and some blogs have already posted details about a leak showing Exynos 5260 used in the upcoming Galaxy Note3 Neo, where we learn […]

Linaro 14.01 Release with Linux Kernel 3.13 and Android 4.4.2

The first release of the year, Linaro 14.01, is now out with Linux Kernel 3.13 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.28 (LSK), Android 4.4.2, and Ubuntu Linaro 14.01. The most important part of this release is support for Arndale Octa, which makes big.LITTLE processing code available to a low cost platform. Android 4.4.x is now on par with Android 4.3 in terms of support. Linaro has also decided to provide quarterly stable released with GCC, and Linaro GCC 4.7-2014.01 is the first quarterly stable release with the next one planned with Linaro 14.04. Here are the highlights of this release: Linaro Stable Kernel (LSK) 3.10.28-2014.01 with latest version of GTS patch set for big.LITTLE, and Android support Linux Linaro 3.13-2014.01: gator version 5.17 updated linaro-android-3.13-merge topic by John Stultz, the “Revert “PM / Sleep: Require CAP_BLOCK_SUSPEND to use wake_lock/wake_unlock” patch included uprobes v4 updated big-LITTLE-pmu topic from ARM Landing Team (LT) updated […]

Linaro 13.12 Release with Linux Kernel 3.13, Android 4.4, and Ubuntu Saucy Salamander

Due to the end of year celebration, Linaro release is a little earlier at this time, and Linaro 13.12 has already been released with Linux Kernel 3.13-rc3 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.24 (LSK), Android 4.4, and Ubuntu Linaro 13.12, which for the first time is based on Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander. Other interesting development include an initial arm64 Ubuntu saucy rootfs (that one?), work to support octa-core 4x Cortex A53, 4x Cortex A57 SoCs, an Android 4.4 KitKat LEB for the Galaxy Nexus, and ARMv8 LSK and Nexus7_2013-AOSP builds have been setup and Android can be now built using llvm-clang toolchain with the related patches submitted to upstream. On a related note, there are also some Midway and Highbank engineering build images for Calxeda server processors, which may not be that useful going forward, as unfortunately the company has just closed door after running out of cash. Here are the highlights of this […]

Teclast T97 Air Tablet Features AllWinner A80 Octa-core big.LITTLE SoC

AllWinner A80 octa core big.LITTLE ARM Cortex A15/A7 SoC was announced as part of AllWinner Roadmap a couple of months ago, and one of the first devices based on the new processor will be Teclast T97 Air, an Android tablet with 9.7″, 2048×1536 display. There are currently very few other details about the device, but we do know it will be extra slim with a thickness of just 7.5mm, and Edward Weinert reports the device is getting around 40,000 points in Antutu (if Google Translate Polish is right). Teclast T97 Air will be available early 2014, and price has not been disclosed yet. Via AndroidPC.es Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com

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