Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

February 28, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

$11 Ewell Cubietruck Case Supports 2.5″ SATA Hard Drive and Battery

We’ve already seen a way to make your own HDD enclosure with the Cubieboard, but if you’ve got the latest CubieTruck (aka Cubieboard 3) board with the dual core Cortex A7 AllWinner A20 and 2GB RAM, there’s an easier, and cheaper, way to achieve the same thing with Ewell case that supports 2.5″ SATA Hard drives and SSD, as well as a 5300 mAh lithium battery if you want your system to be portable. The setup is quite interesting as there are few full ARM Linux systems supporting an hard drive on the market, especially at this price point: $11 for the case, and $95 for the Cubieboard. You can either add a 2.5″ Hard drive (320GB / 500GB), or if you are more after performance than storage capacity, a SATA SDD (60 GB) for about $60. Alternatives to this setup would be Compulab Utilite Standard for $159 (Freescale i.MX6 […]

February 28, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

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 […]

February 27, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Green Hills Software Announces ARM Cortex A50 Support for INTEGRITY RTOS and Development Tools

The latest SoCs based on 64-bit ARM Cortex A53 and A57 are not only going to be used in servers and high-end mobile devices, and some embedded applications in automotive, industrial, Mil/Aero sector, as well as the Internet of Things (IoT) will also leverage the low power, high performance of ARMv8 processors. Green Hills Software has announced their INTEGRITY real-time operating system (RTOS) and MULTI integrated development environment (IDE) will support SoCs based on ARM Cortex A50 series cores. Green Hills provide the following solutions on ARMv8 Fast Model virtual platform: INTEGRITY RTOS which comes with functional safety certifications in industrial, medical, automotive and railway, and delivers real-time determinism Green Hills C/C++ Optimizing Compilers/assembler and 64-bit toolchain MULTI 64-bit IDE debugger, MISRA C/C++ code quality adherence, profiler and other integrated tools. Only ARMv8-A is supported for now, but not ARMv8-R, destined to be used in safety-related applications in automotive and […]

February 27, 2014November 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Rockchip RK3288 Specifications Released

Somebody working for a Chinese manufacturer informed me Rockchip RK3288 specifications have been released on rk3288.com. We’ve already known the application processor was based on a quad core Cortex A17 processor with a Mali-T76X GPU, but this website provides some more details which appears to have been taken from RK3288 technical reference manual. I can’t confirm the source nor the accuracy of the data, but I doubt somebody would have just put up something with detailed fake information. They mention RK3288 is an application processor destined to be used in high-end tablets, notebooks, all-in-one devices, smart monitors and TV Boxes, and that it features 4Kx2K support.. Let’s have a look at the details. CPU Quad-Core Cortex-A17 Separately Integrated Neon and FPU per CPU 32KB/32KB L1 ICache/DCache per CPU Unified 1MB L2 Cache LPAE (Large Physical Address Extensions), support up to 8GB address space Virtualization Extensions Support DVFS support 3D GPU […]

February 27, 2014January 28, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

DIY Farm & Garden Automation with Arduino and APDuino Project

You would like to start to grow your own vegetables but you don’t really have enough place and/or time to take care of your garden. No problem! Just go vertical and automate your garden with an Arduino Mega, an Ethernet shield, and lots sensors and valves. That’s basically what Rik Kretzinger, who grew up on a Christmas tree farm, and has a major in horticulture, has done at his home. This whole system use a farming technique called aquaponics, mixing aquaculture (raising fish in tanks) and hydroponics (cultivating plants in water), and except planting and harvest, is mostly automatized. The hard part is to set it up. The firmware is based on APduino “Internet-of-growing” open source project that runs on Arduino Mega to gather data from sensors (humidity, temperature, pH, light…) and control the valve. Rik’s system also upload data automatically to Xively cloud so that he can monitor his […]

February 26, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Livefan F3C Intel Baytrail-T Z3740D Tablet Running Windows 8.1 or “MS-DOS” Sells for $324 and Up

It’s now pretty difficult to find an Intel Bay Trail Z3740 or Z3770 running anything else than Windows 8.x, and even if you just want to try running a Linux distribution or Android on the device, you’d still have to pay around $60 for the Windows license. There’s now a solution thanks to Geekbuying which sells Live F3C tablet with Windows 8.1 for $382.99, and with “MS-DOS”, probably FreeDOS, for just $323.99. Livefan F3C specifications: SoC – Intel Baytrail-T Z3740D quad core processor @ 1.33 GHz (Turbo freq. : 1.8GHz) System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 32 GB NAND Flash + microSD card slot Display – 10.1″ IPS Capacitive touch screen (1280×800) Video Output – mini HDMI Audio – Built in stereo speakers and microphone. 3.5 mm earphone jack Camera – Dual Camera, 2.0MP+2.0MP Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and Bluetooth 4.0. 3G via USB dongle. USB – […]

February 26, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Congatec Announces Low Power x86 SoMs based on AMD G-Series and Intel Atom E3800 SoCs

Congatec has announced two new low power x86 computer modules for embedded systems: Qseven modules based on AMD G-Series GX-210HA, GX-209HA and GX-210JA (6 to 9W TDP), and COM Express modules powered by Intel Atom “Bay Trail-I” E3800 series SoC (5 to 10W TDP), a well as Celeron N2930. conga-QG Qseven SoM Powered by AMD G-Series SoCs Congatec conga-QG Qseven modules specifications: SoC AMD Embedded GX-210HA (2 x 1.0 GHz, L2 cache 1MB, 9 W) with AMD Radeon HD 8210E Graphics AMD Embedded GX-210JA (2 x 1.0 GHz, , 6W) with AMD Radeon HD 8180E Graphics AMD Embedded GX-209HA (2 x 1.0GHz, , 9W) with AMD Radeon HD 8180E Graphics System Memory – max. 8GB ECC with up to DDR3L-1333. 2GB by default Storage – Silicon Motion FerriSSD up to 64G Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet I/O Interfaces Up to 4 x PCI Express 2.0 2 x SATA 2.0 3Gb/s 1 […]

February 26, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Marvell ARMADA Mobile PXA1928 SoC Features Four Cortex A53 Cores, Vivante GC5000 GPU, and LTE

So here we are with another 64-bit ARM SoC for mobile device thanks to Marvell ARMADA Mobile PXA1928 with four ARM Cortex A53 cores, Vivante GC5000 GPU, and a 5-mode modem with LTE TDD/FDD, HSPA+, TD-HSPA+, and EDGE. The SoC will be used in conjunction with the company’s Avastar 88W8887 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0 + FM + Near Field Communication (NFC) single chip solution, as well as 88L2000 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) hybrid location processor, and the new 88NV1088 eMMC 5.0 NAND Flash controller. Key features of Marvell ARMADA Mobile PXA1928 include: 5-Mode Cellular Modem Solution for LTE Cat 4, UMTS Release 7, TD-HSPA+ Release 8, and class 12 GSM/EDGE, and supports multi-radio, CSFB, and VoLTE voice solutions for LTE networks 3G/4G protocol stacks certified on major carrier networks and validated via extensive IOT, GCF and field trial testing Quad-core ARM Cortex A53MP Application Processor Subsystem Support for […]