Intel Agilex 5 SoC FPGA embedded SoM targets 5G equipment, 100GbE networking, Edge AI/ML applications

Hitex eSOM5C-Ex

Hitek Systems eSOM5C-Ex is a compact embedded System-on-Module (SOM) based on the mid-range Intel Agilex 5 SoC FPGA E-Series and a pin-to-pin compatible with the company’s earlier eSOM7C-xF based on the Agilex 7 FPGA F-Series. The module exposes all I/Os, including up to 24 transceivers, through the same 400-pin high-density connector found in the Agilex 7 FPGA-powered eSOM7-xF and the upcoming Agilex 5 FPGA D-Series SOM that will allow flexibility from 100K to 2.7 million logic elements (LEs) for the whole product range. Hitek eSOM5C-Ex specifications: SoC FPGA – Intel Agilex 5 E-series group A and Group B FPGAs in B32 package Supported variants: A5E065A/B, A5E043A/B and A5E043A/B Hard Processing System (HPS) – Dual-core Cortex-A76 and dual-core Cortex-A55 FPGA Up to 656,080 Logic elements 24 x transceivers up to 28Gbps System Memory Up to 2x 8GB LPDDR4 for FPGA 2 or 4GB DDR4 for HPS Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, […]

ADLINK OSM-IMX93 is an OSM Size-L module based on NXP i.MX 93 SoC

ADLINK OSM-IMX93

ADLINK OSM-IMX93 is an OSM r1.1 Size-L module based on NXP i.MX 93 Arm Cortex-A55 & Cortex-M33 AI processor, and the first from the company to comply with the Open Standard Module (OSM) standard. The 45x45mm module is fitted with up to 2GB LPDDR4L, 128GB eMMC flash, an optional WiFi/Bluetooth module, and its 662 contacts provide a range of interfaces that include LVDS and DSI graphics output, 2x GbE (including 1x TSN capable), 2x CAN bus, I2S audio codec interface, USB2 interfaces, and more. ADLINK OSM-IMX93 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 93 CPU 2x Arm Cortex-A55 up to 1.7 GHz 2x Arm Cortex-M33 up to 250 MHz GPU – PXP 2D GPU with blending/composition, resize, color space conversion NPU – Arm Ethos-U65 NPU @ 1 GHz up to 0.5 TOPS Memory – 640 KB OCRAM w/ ECC Security – EdgeLock Secure Enclave System Memory – 1 or 2GB LPDDR4L Storage […]

Kodi 21.0 Omega released with FFmpeg 6, LG webOS support, and more

Kodi 21.0 Omega

Kodi 21.0 “Omega” has just been released with the latest version of the open-source media center adding 3,750 commits since the release of Kodi 20.0 “Nexus” on January 15th, 2023 that notably added AV1 hardware decoding in Android and x86. The new Kodi 21.0 version updates FFmpeg to version 6, adds native support for LG webOS televisions after some reverse-engineering, and implements new features such as Dolby Vision on-the-fly profile conversion in Android, native windowing in macOS that does not rely on the SDL library, and an in-game player viewer to view which game port each player’s controller is currently connected to. Most of the changes were not user-facing and instead, were under-the-hood improvements to the stability, performance, and security of Kodi. You’ll find more changes in the Kodi 21.0 Alpha/Beta/RC pre-release announcements and the complete list of changes on GitHub.  That also means Kodi v22 “P*” development has started. […]

Testing Cytron MAKERDISK M.2 NVMe SSDs on Raspberry Pi 5 with GEEKWORM X1001 and Waveshare M.2 PCIe HAT+

MAKERDISK M.2 NVMe SSD Raspberry Pi 5 review

Cytron has sent us a few of their MAKERDISK NVMe SSDs preloaded with Raspberry Pi OS so that we can test them on a Raspberry Pi 5 SBC, either with a GEEKWORM X1001 or Waveshare M.2 PCIe HAT+ add-on boards both of which were also provided by the company. Ever since the first M.2 PCIe HATs for the Raspberry Pi 5 were released, we knew Raspberry Pi Limited was working on its own model, and based on some Twitter/X “rumors” (with photos) the launch of the official M.2 HAT+ should be just around the corner. So it’s the perfect timing to test some SSDs on the Raspberry Pi 5 even though I’ve yet to get the official HAT+ Cytron “MAKERDISK” package unboxing The Malaysian company sent me a kit with everything I needed to get started, minus the Raspberry Pi 5 I already owned. This includes 128GB or 256GB NVMe […]

PCIe 7.0 to support up to 512GB/s bidirectional transfer rates

PCIe 7.0 Speed 512GB/s

The PCI-SIG first unveiled the PCIe Express (PCIe) 7.0 specification at US DevCon in June 2022 with claims of bidirectional data rates of up to 512GB/s in x16 configuration, and the standard is now getting closer to the full release in 2025 with the release of the specification version 0.5. PCIe 7.0 increases data transfer speeds to 128 GT/s per pin doubling the 64 GT/s of PCIe 6.0 and quadrupling the 32 GT/s of PCIe 5.0, delivering up to 256 GB/s in each direction in x16 configuration, excluding encoding overhead. In other words, the total maximum bandwidth of a PCIe 7.0 x1 interface (32GB/s) would be equivalent to PCIe Gen3 x16 or PCIe Gen4 x8 as shown in the table below. PCIe 7.0 highlights: 128 GT/s raw bit rate and up to 512 GB/s bidirectionally via x16 configuration PAM4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels) signaling Doubles the bus frequency […]

Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) review – A 15.8-inch drawing tablet and stylus with 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity

HUION Kamvas Pro 16 2.5K drawing tablet review

HUION Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) is a 15.8-inch drawing tablet with 2.5K resolution that comes with a stylus supporting 8192 levels of pressure. The company sent us a review sample, so I’ll test it as an external display in Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04, and check the drawing functions of the Kamvas Pro 16 with the stylus as well as other potential use cases. Kamvas Pro 16 (2.5K) specifications (model GT1602) But before that, let’s list the specifications of the display: Panel – 15.8-inch (diagonal) IPS display at 60 Hz Resolution – 2560 x 1440 (16:9) QHD PPI (Pixels Per Inch) – 186 Active Area – 349.6 x 196.7 mm Contrast Ratio – 1200:1 Brightness – 220nit (Max.) Response Time – 14ms Viewing Angle – 178° (89°/89°(H)/89°/89°(V) (Typ.)(CR>10)) Color Gamut Volume – 145% sRGB Color Gamut Coverage – 99% sRGB / 99% Adobe RGB Colors – 16.7M (8-bit) Surface Finish […]

Toradex Aquila AM69 SoM features TI AM69A octa-core Cortex-A72 AI SoC, rugged 400 pin board-to-board connector

Toradex Aquila AM69

Toradex Aquila AM69 is the first system-on-module (SoM) from the company’s Aquila family with a small form factor and a rugged ~400-pin board-to-board connector targetting demanding edge AI applications in medical, industrial, and robotics fields with Arm platforms that deliver x86 level of performance at low power. The Aquila AM69 SoM is powered by a Texas Instruments AM69A octa-core Arm Cortex-A72 SoC with four accelerators delivering 32 TOPS of AI performance, up to 32GB LPDDR4, 128GB eMMC flash, built-in WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 module, and a board-to-board connector for display, camera, and audio interfaces, as well as dual gigabit Ethernet, multiple PCIe Gen3 and SerDes interfaces. All that in a form factor that’s only slightly bigger (86x60mm) than a business card or a Raspberry Pi 5. Toradex Aquila AM69 specifications: SoC  – Texas Instruments AM69A Application processor – Up to 8x Arm Cortex-A72 cores at up to 2.0 GHz […]

Google’s Jpegli open-source library can compress high quality images 35% more than traditional JPEG codecs

Jpegli ELO score vs other JPEG libraries

Google has released the Jpegli open-source library for advanced JPEG coding that maintains backward compatibility while delivering an up to 35% compression ratio improvement at high-quality compression settings. Google Research has been working on improving the compression of data (Brotli), audio (e.g. Lyra V2), and images with a project such as WebP for many years in order to speed up the web and make it consume less bandwidth for dollar savings and lower carbon emissions.  Jpegli is their latest project and aims to improve the compression ratio of legacy JPEG files on systems were modern compression such as WebP may not be available or desirable. Jpegli highlights: Support both an encoder and decoder complying with the original JPEG standard (8-bit) and offering API/ABI compatibility with libjpeg-turbo and MozJPEG. Focus on high-quality results with up to 35% better compression ratio. Just as fast as libjpeg-turbo and MozJPEG. Support for 10+ bits […]