FOSDEM 2019 Open Source Developers Meeting Schedule

FOSDEM 2019

FOSDEM – which stands for Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting – is a free-to-participate event where developers meet on the first week-end of February to discuss open source software & hardware projects. FOSDEM 2019 will take place on February 2 & 3, and the schedule has already been published with 671 speakers scheduled to speak in 711 events themselves sorted in 62 tracks. Like every year, I’ll create a virtual schedule based on some of the sessions most relevant to this blog in tracks such as  open hardware, open media, RISC-V, and hardware enablement tracks. February 2 10:30 – 10:55 – VkRunner: a Vulkan shader test tool by Neil Roberts A presentation of VkRunner which is a tool to help test the compiler in your Vulkan driver using simple high-level scripts. Perhaps the largest part of developing a modern graphics driver revolves around getting the compiler to […]

Qualcomm 9205 NB-IoT & Cat M1 LTE Modem Lowers Costs, Power Consumption

Qualcomm 9205

Qualcomm has introduced a new LTE IoT chipset with Qualcomm 9205 LTE modem that supports Cat M1 (eMTC), NB2 (NB-IoT), 2G/E-GPRS fallback, as well as GNSS. Qualcomm 9205  comes at a lower price, smaller footprint, and up to 70% lower power consumption in standby mode compared to its predecessor (MDM9206). Qualcomm 9205 LTE modem key features and specifications: Processor / OS – Arm Cortex A7 up to 800MHz with support for ThreadX and AliOS Things real-time operating systems Connectivity Standards 3GPP release 14 Category M1 and NB2; 2G/E-GPRS fallback where Cat M1 / NB2 is not available. Category M1 mode supports voice for applications such as monitored security panels, and mobility for applications such as asset trackers. RF transceiver Bandwidth support from 450 MHz to 2100 MHz Built-in RF front-end, a first in the cellular IoT space Geolocation Integrated GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems)  support for GPS, Beidou, Glonass, and […]

Samsung Exynos 9820 Application Processor Supports 2 Gbps LTE, 8K Videos, UFS 3.0 Storage

Exynos 9820

Samsung has just unveiled a new high-end Exynos processor that comes with an enhanced NPU (Neural Processing Unit), and an LTE Advanced Pro modem supporting 2.0 Gbps downloads. Exynos 9820 is a tri-cluster octa-core processor with two custom Arm cores, two Cortex-A75 cores, and four Cortex-A55 cores coupled with an Arm Mali-G76 MP12, and manufactured using Samsung’s latest 8nm LPP FinFET process, which reduces power consumption by up to 10 percent compared to 10nm LPP process. Samsung Exynos 9820 key features and specifications: CPU – Dual-core custom CPU +  dual-core Cortex-A75 + quad-core Cortex-A55 GPU – ARM Mali-G76 MP12 Integrated NPU Memory I/F – LPDDR4x Storage I/F – UFS 3.0, UFS 2.1 Display – WQUXGA (3840×2400), 4K UHD (4096×2160) Cellular Connectivity LTE Modem – LTE-Advanced Pro Cat.20 8CA 2Gbps (DL) / Cat.20 3CA 316Mbps (UL) 4×4 Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO), 256-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), and Enhanced Licensed-Assisted Access (eLAA) technology. Camera […]

ModBerry M2000 Industrial Computer Features UP Squared Apollo Lake Board

Modberry M2000

TECHBASE has been providing DIN rail mountable Arm and x86 based Modberry industrial computers / IoT gateways for several years. The company has now upgraded ModBerry M1000 model with an Intel Cherry Trail UP board to ModBerry M2000 computer featuring AAEON UP Squared board powered by either an Intel Celeron N3350 dual core processor, or Pentium N4200 quad core processor, both part of Intel’s Apollo Lake family. ModBerry M2000 specifications: SoC (one or other other) Intel Celeron N3350 dual core processor @ 1.10 / 2.40 GHz with Intel HD Graphics 500; 6W TDP Intel Pentium N4200 quad core processor @ 1.10 / 2.50 GHz with Intel HD Graphics 505; 6W TDP System Memory – 2, 4, or 8GB RAM Storage – 16, 32, 64, or 128GB eMMC flash, SATA connector and M.2 SATA socket Video Output – 1x HDMI Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet, with optional LTE/3G, WiFi, ZigBee, LoRa, […]

WisCellular Certified Global LTE IoT Arduino Shield Enters Beta Testing

WisCellular

RAK Wireless introduced WisLTE Arduino shield last year based on Quectel BG96 module with support for NB-IoT (Cat NB1), eMTC (Cat M1), and 2G fallback as well as GPS location. WisLTE worked globally, but the company did not go through the certification process, at least not for the global market, meaning the shield could not be used in commercial applications. That’s why Rak Wireless has been working on WisCellular shield, also based on Quectel BG96, but this time with global certification. WisCellular specifications: Cellular Module – Quectel BG96 (based on Qualcomm MDM9206) Cellular Network 2G/GSM (GPRS/EPGRS) 4G/LTE-M (Cat M1) NB-IoT (Cat NB1) Global Bands EDGE/EGPRS: 850/900/1800/1900MHz LTE FDD: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B8/B12/B13/B18/B19/B20/B26/B28 LTE TDD: B39 (For Cat M1 Only) Data Rate Cat M1: Max. 300Kbps (DL), Max. 375Kbps (UL) Cat NB1: Max. 32Kbps (DL), Max. 70Kbps (UL) EDGE: Max. 296Kbps (DL), Max. 236.8Kbps (UL) GPRS: Max. 107Kbps (DL), Max. 85.6Kbps (UL) Voice – […]

BladeRF 2.0 USB 3.0 Software Defined Radio Launched for $480 and Up

BladeRF 2.0 Micro

Around 5 years ago, several affordable FPGA based open source software defined radio boards launched including HackRF, BladeRF x40 / x115, and  USRP B200. The company behind BladeRF has now launched an update of their boards with Blade RF 2.0 coming in two versions namely bladeRF 2.0 micro xA4 and bladeRF 2.0 micro xA9 supporting the same 47MHz to 6GHz frequency range, and 61.44MHz sampling rate, but the latter comes with a more powerful 301KLE Cyclone V FPGA. BladeRF 2.0 hardware specifications: FPGA Micro xA4 – Intel / Altera Cyclone V FPGA with 49 kLE Micro xA9 – Intel / Altera Cyclone V FPGA with 301 kLE Analog Devices RF Transceiver 47 MHz to 6 GHz frequency range 2×2 MIMO, 61.44 MHz sampling rate 56 MHz filtered bandwidth (IBW) Automatic gain control (AGC) Real- time custom gain control tables controlled via SPI and discrete external input pins Automatic IQ and […]

Snapdragon 670 Launched with Better Performance and Camera Capabilities, Artificial Intelligence Tech

Snapdragon 670

Qualcomm has just introduced another of their “Mobile Platforms” with Snapdragon 670. The chipset comes with eight Kryo 360 cores, a Snapdragon X12 LTE modem for download speeds up to 600 Mbps,  as well as Qualcomm AI engine and  Hexagon 685 DSP for accelerating artificial intelligence workloads. The Qualcomm Spectra 250 ISP found in the SoC is said to enable most of the premium camera features found in professional cameras including noise reduction, image stabilization, and active depth sensing. Snapdragon 670 specifications: CPU – Octa-core processor with a cluster of 2x Kryo 360 performance cores @ up to 2.0 GHz, and a cluster of 6x Kryo 360 efficiency cores @ up to 1.7 GHz Visual Processing System (aka GPU) – Adreno 615 GPU with support for Open GL ES 3.2, Open CL 2.0, Vulkan, DirectX 12, H.264/H.265/VP9 Ultra HD video playback, DisplayPort over USB Type-C DSP – Hexagon 685 DSP […]

NEC VersaPro VU-3 is a Gemini Lake Tablet with Optional Keyboard, USB type C Dock, LTE Connectivity

NEC VersaPro VU-3 Tablet

There aren’t a lot of tablets based in Intel Gemini Lake processor, and so far we only covered Alldocube Knote5 Gemini Lake tablet powered by an Intel Celeron N4100 processor and equipped with a 11.6″ display. There’s now another option with NEC VersaPro VU-3 & VersaPro J VU-3 tablets with a 10.1″ display, powered by the same Celeron N4100 processor, but running  Windows 10 Enterprise/Education/Pro, and shipping with a USB type C dock, and optional LTE connectivity. All information is in Japanese, so it’s likely the tablet only targets the Japanese market, but let’s go through the specs: SoC – Intel Celeron N4100 quad core processor @ 1.10 / 2.40 GHz (burst) with Intel UHD graphics 600, 4MB L2 cache System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 64 or 128GB eMMC flash, 1x microSD (SDHC / SDXC) slot Display – 10.1″ IPS  10-point touchscreen display with  WUXGA resolution (1,920 x […]