CNXSoft – Embedded Software Development

VIA Technologies has recently announced the VAB-600 Pico-ITX embedded board featuring WonderMedia WM8950 ARM Cortex A9 SoC clocked at 800MHz. VIA targets in-vehicle infotainment as well as mobile and healthcare applications for the board despite an operating temperature range between 0°C and 60°C.

VIA VAB-600 Pico-ITX Board (Click to Enlarge)

Here are the key features of this embedded board:

• SoC – Wondermedia WM8950 Cortex-A9 @ 800MHz  + Mali-400 GPU
• System Memory – 1GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Storage – 4GB eMMC Flash memory + 512KB SPI Flash for Boot Loader + microSD slot
• Video Output – Mini HDMI, on-board DVO (Digital Video Output) for TTL or LVDS display
• Video Codecs – MPEG2 MP@HL, MPEG4, H.264 BP/MP/[email protected], VC-1 SP/MP/AP, VP8 and JPEG/MJPEG.
• USB -  2x mini USB 2.0 host ports
• Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet (VT6113), 3G (SIM card slot) and optional WiFi support (VIA VNT9271B6050 WiFi module shared with one USB port)
• On-board Connectors:
  • 2x COM connectors
  • 1x RTC battery pin header
  • 1x USB 2.0 connector
  • 1x SPI connector for programming SPI Flash ROM
  • 1x Keypad connector
  • 1x CIR connector
  • 1x Front audio pin header for Line-in, Line-out and MIC-in
  • 1x Front panel pin header for system power-on, reset and power LED
  • 4-wire resistive touch screen FPC connector (through VT1603A)
  • 1x pin header for 1 I2C pair and 8 GPIO
  • Optional battery charger connector with Smart Battery function
• Operating Temperature Range – 0°C to 60°C
• Operating Humidity – 0% ~ 95% (relative humidity ; non-condensing)
• Dimensions – 10cm x 7.2cm Pico-ITX form factor

The company provides board support packages (BSPs) for Android 4.0 and/or Embedded Linux (Kernel 3.0.8). Android 4.0 EVK is available for download here, but there’s nothing for Linux yet. Before downloading the file you’ll have to agree to a “Non-Disclosure and Recipient Acknowledgment for Short Term Sample Products Evaluation”, which I find a bit silly for a publicly available file…

VIA also offers a startker kit including VIA VAB-600 Pico-ITX board, VAB-600-A I/O card, VAB-600-C TTL Converter card, a 7” touch screen TTL panel, cables and a 18W AC adapter.

VIA VAB-600 Starter Kit (Click to Enlarge)

Sample units of the VIA VAB-600 Pico-ITX board are available now at an undisclosed price. Further information, including the board user’s manual and product brief, is available on VIA’s VAB-600 page.

Alex, one of my regular reader, informed me about a new mini PC, called the MTB025, running on Wondermedia WM8850 cortex A9 processor with 512 MB RAM & 4 GB Flash, and  sold on Pandawill for $39.99 including international shipping. Since it’s the first time I’ve heard about a Wondermedia based mini PC, I’ve decided to have a look.

Here are the specifications of this Android 4.0.3 device:

• SoC -  VIA Wondermedia WM8850 (Cortex-A9) @ 1.2GHz with Mali-400 GPU.
• System Memory – 512 MB RAM
• Storage – 4 GB NAND Flash + microSD slot (up to 16GB?)
• Video output – HDMI (Up to 1080p60)
• Video formats – AVI, RMVB, MKV & FLV
• Audio codecs -  MP3/WMA/WAV/APE/AAC/FLAC/OGG
• Connectivity – WIFI 802.11 b/g/n
• USB – USB host 2.0 + micro USB OTG
• Dimensions – 98 x 30 x 11 mm
• Weight – 24g

The package also includes an HDMI Cable, a USB Cable and a power supply (DC 5V, 2A). This is basically the same specs as my WM8850-MID tablet, so you can check the review to get an idea of the performance of the device. Rooting on WM8850 devices was really a pain, but there are now some solutions. Some source code for WM8850 is available, but I’ve never been able to complete the download.

You won’t get the performance and level of support you get from RK3066 mini PCs with this device, but if you look for a cheap device with decent performance that could be an option.

Pandawill also sells a WM8850 based Android set-top box (MTB024) for $56.99, with roughly the same specs except it features 1GB RAM, and adds Ethernet and one extra USB port.

VIA Technologies has recently announced the VIA ARMOS-800, an fanless system designed around VIA VAB-800 Pico-ITX board powered by Freescale i.MX537 processor. The VIA ARMOS-800 provides a ruggedized low-power system for industrial and in-vehicle applications such as a digital signage.

VIA VAB-800 Pico-ITX board and ARMOS-800 Embedded System

Here are VIA ARMOS-800 specifications:

• Processor – 800MHz Freescale Cortex-A8 single core i.MX537
• System Memory – 1GB DDR3-800 SDRAM using 128M x16 memory devices
• Storage – „„ 4GB onboard eMMC Flash memory + ob-board micro SD connector
• Graphics – Supports two integrated graphics processing units: an OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics accelerator and an OpenVGTM 1.1 2D graphics accelerator
• Video Output – VGA and HDMI
• Audio I/O – Line-In, Line-out, Mic-in connectors
• Connectivity:
  • Ethernet – 10/100 PHY transceiver (SMSC LAN8720A)
  • Wi-Fi – Optional VIA 802.11n Wireless module VNT 9271
• USB – 3x USB connectors + 1x on-board USB 2.0 pin header
• COM – 1x D-Sub 9-pin female connector
• CAN – 1x D-Sub 9-pin female connector (TI SN65HVD1050 CAN transceiver)
• GPIO – 1x D-Sub 9-pin female connector (GPI x4 + GPO x4)
• Misc – Integrated Watchdog timer, red & green LEDs
• Power Supply – 5V DC. Typical power consumption: 3.14W
• Dimensions – 150 mm (W) x 45 mm (H) x 108 mm (D)
• Operating Temperature – VGA: 40°C up to 80 °C | HDMI: 20°C ~80°C

VIA provides support for Android 2.3 and Embedded Linux 2.6 for this embedded platform. You can find more information on ARMOS-800 product page.

Via: Embedded Star

Following the launch of the $49 APC ARM11 board as a Raspberry Pi alternative last year, VIA has just announced two new APC products based on a WonderMedia WM8950 Cortex A9 processor:

• APC Rock – $79 Android board
• APC Paper – $99 Android PC with a case made of recycled cardboard

APC Rock

Both products run Android 4.0 (ICS) and mostly share the same specifications:

• SoC – VIA WonderMedia WM8950 ARM Cortex-A9 @800Mhz + Mali-400 GPU
• System Memory – 512 DDR3 SDRAM
• Storage – 4GB NAND Flash + microUSB slot
• Video Output – HMDI (Rock & Paper) and VGA (Rock only)
• Audio I/O – Audio out / Mic in combo
• Ethernet – 10/100 Mbps
• USB – USB 2.0 (x2) and microUSB (OTG)
• 20-pin ARM-JTAG header
• Extra GPIO, SPI and I2C busses on a header
• Dimensions (Board) – 170 x 85mm (W x H), Neo-ITX Standard.

APC Paper

APC Paper is basically the same as APC Rock, except it lacks VGA, but comes with a cardboard casing. $20 for a piece of cardboard seems expensive to me…

Documentation, mechanical files, firmware, as well as bootloader, and kernel source codes are available at http://apc.io/library. The ARM11 to Cortex A9 means it will be able to run Ubuntu and other variants (ALIP, lubuntu…), although performance will be limited by the lowly 512 MB of system memory.

APC Rock can be purchased now for US$79, and APC Paper is expected to begin shipping in March of 2013 for US$99. You’ll also have to add between $16 to $25 for shipping depending where you live.

VIA Technologies announced the VIA ARTiGO A1250 slim system featuring a 1.0 GHz VIA QuadCore E-Series processor and VIA VX11H media system processor (MSP). The VIA ARTiGO A1250  is a low profile system targeted at home or office applications such as home server, home automation, hotel management, media streaming, digital signage, surveillance as well as medical and healthcare applications.

Here are the key features of ARTIGO A1250:

• VIA QuadCore E-Series processor (U4650E) @ 1.0 GHz
• Up to 8GB of DDR3 1333 SDRAM SODIMM
• Supports one 2.5″ SATA HDD or Flash SSD installation
• Quiet, ultra slim profile design (3cm high)
• VIA VX11H media system processor with DirectX11 support
• 3D and HD video up to 1080p
• HDMI & VGA display ports with dual independent display support
• I/O: HDMI, VGA, 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, GigaLAN, Audio-in/out/mic-in
• Average power consumption of 27W TDP
• Dimensions: 17.7cm x 12.5cm x 3.0cm

I understand that inside the device there’s the EPIA-P910 pico-ITX board which allows its small form factor. VIA supports Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 7 (WES), WES2009, Windows XP, Windows 7 & Linux based operating systems for the device.

If you prefer a video introduction of the device, watch the video below (It basically enumerate the specs and show you around the device).

I could not find information about availability or pricing. Further information is available on VIA Artigo A1250 page.

VIA Technology unveiled the low cost APC (Android PC) board based on WonderMedia WM8750 processor (ARM11) back in May, and started to ship the Android board this month (I think since that was their plan).

The company has just released Kernel 2.6.32.9 and U-Boot source on github. Here’s how to retrieve the code provided git is already installed on your machine:

git clone git://github.com/apc-io/apc-8750.git

You can then build U-Boot (provided you’ve already installed an ARM toolchain in your path):

cd $CURRENT_PATH/u-boot
make wmt_config
make all

and the Linux kernel:

cd $CURRENT_PATH/kernel
make 8710_defconfig
make ubin

The availability of the source means we should see Linux distribution like Debian, Fedora or Arch Linux ARM (separate from Arch Linux) running on the board very soon. In theory, it’s also possible to run a Linux distribution with the binary Linux kernel compiled for Android, but it causes some issues and also makes customization more difficult.

I think they should also have release the code they modified for Android, but apparently did not. The next step would probably be to release the OpenGL ES and VPU libraries (binaries) for Linux. We’ll see if that happens.

They also released the board 2D and 3D mechanical drawings (DXF and STP).

VIA has also setup APC-IO Forums as a communication platform for the user and developer community.

VIA Technologies has announced the VIA VAB-800 Pico-ITX board powered by a Freescale i.MX537 (ARM Cortex A8) processor clocked at 800MHz or 1GHz depending on the requirements, with 1GB DDR3-800 SDRAM and support for eMMC Flash with a capacity of up to 64 GB. The VIA VAB-800 is an industrial board that can operate in a wide temperature range and targets high-end industrial and in-vehicle embedded applications.

VIA VAB-800 (Click to Enlarge)

Here are the specs of the board:

• Processor – Freescale Cortex-A8 single core iMX537 @800MHz
• System Memory – 1GB DDR3-800 SDRAM, using 128M x16 memory devices
• Flash – eMMC Flash, up to 64GB
• Graphics  – Supports two independent, integrated graphics processing units: an OpenGL® ES 2.0,  3D graphics accelerator and an OpenVG™ 1.1 2D graphics accelerator
• Ethernet – SMSC LAN8720A 10/100 PHY transceiver with HP Auto-MDIX support
• Audio – Freescale SGTL5000 low power stereo codec with headphone amp
• HDMI – Silicon image SiI9024A HDMI transmitter
• CAN – TI SN65HVD1050 EMC optimized CAN transceiver
• USB – Hub SMSC USB 2.0 high speed 4-port hub controller
• Onboard I/O
  • SATA I connector with voltage select jumper
  • SATA DOM power supply connector
  • 2 x COM connectors with power supply (one supports 8-wire, another supports 4-wire)
  • 2 x Single-channel, 18/24-bit LVDS connectors
  • CMOS sensor connector for BT.656 camera module
  • RTC battery connector
  • Front audio pin header for line-in, line-out and MIC-in
  • JTAG connector
  • 2 x Boot flash select pin headers
  • Miscellaneous pin header for 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB device port, 2 CAN bus ports, system power-on and reset
  • Miscellaneous pin header for 1 SDIO port, 4-wire resistive touch screen interface, 1 I2C pair and 8 GPIOs
  • 5V DC-in power connector
• Back Panel I/O
  • VGA port
  • 2 x USB 2.0 ports
  • Mini HDMI port
  • RJ-45 LAN port

• Watch Dog Timer
• Power – 2W typical, 5W max.
• Operating Temperature – 0 ~ 60°C (-20°C ~ 70°C for option)
• Operating Humidity – 0% ~ 95% (relative humidity ; non-condensing)
• Dimension:  10 cm x 7.2 cm (Pico-ITX)

The company provides Android 2.3, Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows Embedded Compact 7 (through third party) BSPs for the board.

VIA VAB-800 Pico-ITX board samples are available now. You can find more information on VIA VAB-800 page.