Author: 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.
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on More Details about Alibaba XT910 64-bit RISC-V Core

More Details about Alibaba XT910 64-bit RISC-V Core

Xuantie XT902, XT9xx, XT910

Alibaba unveiled XuanTie 910 16-core RISC-V Processor last year with few details except it targetted high-performance 5G, AI, and autonomous driving applications. The company has now provided more details about Alibaba XuanTie 910 (aka XT910) processor during the virtual Hot Chips 2020 conference, and he notably compared the RV64GCV core found in the processor to Arm Cortex-A73 core. Alibaba XT910 main features and specifications: CPU – Up to 16x 64-bit RISC-V (RV64GCV) cores with RISC-V Vector extension and custom Turbo extension in four clusters of four cores; 12-stage out of order; Coremark: 7.1 per MHz Cache – 32KB or 64KB I/D cache per core, up to 8MB L2 cache per cluster FP16-FP64 floating-point unit Vector Computing Unit (aka Vector Engine) for AI acceleration Memory Management – Sv39 MMU + 8/16 PMP Interrupt Controller – Clint + PLIC Process – Final: 12nm FinFET; engineering samples: TSMC 28nm HPC Alibaba RISC-V Turbo […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on ZynqBerryZero Brings Xilinx Zynq-7010 FPGA SoC to Raspberry Pi Zero Form Factor

ZynqBerryZero Brings Xilinx Zynq-7010 FPGA SoC to Raspberry Pi Zero Form Factor

ZynqBerryZero

Trenz Electronic introduced ZynqBerry in 2017 as a Xilinx Zynq FPGA board following Raspberry Pi 2/3 Model B form factor, and the company has now just launched another Raspberry Pi inspired FPGA board with ZynqBerryZero following Raspberry Pi Zero form factor. ZynqberryZero is equipped with a Xilinx Zynq-7000 series FPGA & Arm Cortex-A9 SoC combined with 512 MB RAM and 16MB flash, and offers all Raspberry Pi Zero ports namely a 40-pin GPIO header, two micro USB ports, a mini HDMI connector, a CSI connector, and micro SD card slot. ZynqBerryZero specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq XC7Z010-1CLG225C with dual-core Cortex-A9 clocked up to 667 MHz, FPGA fabric with 28K logic cells,  2.1Mbit block RAM, and 80x DSP slices System Memory – 512 MB DDR3L SDRAM Storage – 16 MB Flash memory, MicroSD card slot Video Output – Mini HDMI connector, type C Camera – CSI-2 connector USB – 1x Micro […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Puffin Cloud Learning Renders Web Pages Up to 14 Times Faster on Raspberry Pi

Puffin Cloud Learning Renders Web Pages Up to 14 Times Faster on Raspberry Pi

Puffin Cloud Learning Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a great little Arm Linux board designed for STEM education. But with many children now have to learn remotely, the board would be useful as a computer replacement, but users may find web browsing on the Raspberry Pi to be rather sluggish. Puffin Cloud Learning is designed just for that use case and promises to make the Raspberry Pi SBC much faster for web browsing, and they tested several websites, and for instance, CNN website loads almost 14 times faster with the Puffin Internet Terminal compared to using Chromium only. How is that possible? Simple: the Raspberry Pi is simply used as a thin client with complex web rendering performed on the company’s encrypted cloud servers where a JavaScript engine is used to pre-process and compress web pages sent to the Raspberry Pi. The company also claims Puffin Internet Terminal is 1200% faster than Chromium using […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments on Sipeed Maix Amigo is a Portable 64-bit RISC-V AI Development Kit with Display and Cameras

Sipeed Maix Amigo is a Portable 64-bit RISC-V AI Development Kit with Display and Cameras

Sipeed Maix Amigo

Earlier this year, Seeed Studio introduced Wio Terminal a portable Arduino devkit with an LCD display, and expansion connectors and headers. The company is now selling a similar looking devkit but for different applications with Sipeed Maix Amigo portable 64-bit RISC-V development kit powered by Kendryte K210 RISC-V AI processor and equipped with an LCD display, two cameras, a few buttons, and several I/O headers and Grove connectors. Sipeed Maix Amigo specifications: SoC – Kendryte K210 Dual-core 64-bit RISC-V (RV64GC) processor with FPU @ 400 MHz (overclockable to 500MHz), 8MB SRAM, built-in AI accelerators for video and audio Storage – 16MB Flash, MicroSD card slot up Display – 3.5-inch TFT capacitive touch screen display with 480×320 resolution Camera VGA front-facing camera up to 30 fps (GC0328 sensor) VGA rear camera up to 60 fps (OV7740 sensor) Audio – Build-in microphone, optional 6-mic array USB – 1x USB Type-C port for […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Perfetto Profiler Now Supports Mali GPU Hardware Counters via Panfrost

Perfetto Profiler Now Supports Mali GPU Hardware Counters via Panfrost

Perfetto Mali GPU Profiling

Perfetto is an open-source system profiler, app tracer, and trace analyzer for Linux, Android & Chrome platforms, and user-space apps. The program can already visualize CPU and memory usage, as well as power consumption.  GPU support is more limited with the program only capable of sampling the GPU frequency when the driver outputs that information via ftrace. When Perfetto is also extendable thanks to a Tracing C++ SDK that “allows userspace applications to emit trace events and add more app-specific context to a Perfetto trace”. Collabora made use of the tracing SDK to add support for Mali Midgard GPU performance profiling in gfx-pps project using the Mali GPU hardware counters exposed via Panfrost open-source Mali GPU driver. After following the installation instructions, you’ll be able to run the following executables for tracing and profiling: tracedtracing service. traced_probes OS probes service. perfetto command-line tool for recording traces. producer-gpuproviding the Panfrost data […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on PicoCore RT1 System-on-Module Runs FreeRTOS on NXP i.MX RT1050 Crossover Processor

PicoCore RT1 System-on-Module Runs FreeRTOS on NXP i.MX RT1050 Crossover Processor

PicoCore RT1 i.MX RT1050 SoM

F&S Elektronik Systeme PicoCore RT1 is a System-on-Module powered by NXP i.MX RT1050 crossover processor designed to offer the real-time capabilities of microcontrollers and the performance of application processors thanks to an Arm Cortex-M7 core clocked at up to 600 MHz. The 40×35 mm module is also equipped with 32MB SDRAM, 256MB “high-reliability QSPI NOR flash, and 16KB EEPROM, and offers various interfaces including Ethernet, RGB LCD, and USB via board-to-board connectors. PicoCore RT1 (V1) SoM specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX RT1050 Arm Cortex-M7 processor @ up to 600 MHz with 32KB L2 cache, 2D graphics accelerator System Memory – 32MB SDRAM Storage – 256MB QSPI Flash, 16KB EEPROM; optional NAND flash 2x 80-pin board-to-board connector with Storage – SD Card Display – 16-bit RG interface, analog resistive and PCAP touch via I2C Networking – 1x 10/100M Ethernet Audio – Line-In, Line-Out, microphone, headphone, I2S USB – 1x USB 2.0 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Vision FPGA SoM Integrates Audio, Vision and Motion-Sensing with Lattice iCE40 FPGA (Crowdfunding)

Vision FPGA SoM Integrates Audio, Vision and Motion-Sensing with Lattice iCE40 FPGA (Crowdfunding)

Vision FPGA SoM

tinyVision.ai’s Vision FPGA SoM is a tiny Lattice iCE40 powered FPGA module with integrated vision, audio, and motion-sensing capability with a CMOS image sensor, an I2S MEMS microphone and a 6-axis accelerometer & gyroscope. The module enables low power vision (10-20 mW) for battery-powered applications, can interface via SPI  to a host processor as a storage device, comes with open-source toolchain and sample code, and is optimized for volume production. Vision FPGA SoM specifications: FPGA – Lattice iCE40UP5k FPGA with 5K LUT’s, 1 Mb RAM, 8 MAC units Memory – 64 Mbit QSPI SRAM for temporary data Storage – 4 Mbit QSPI Flash for FPGA bitstream/code storage Sensors Himax HM01B0 CMOS image sensor Knowles MEMS I2S microphone, expandable to a stereo configuration with an off-board I2S microphone InvenSense IMU 60289 6-axis Gyro/accelerometer I/Os 4x GPIOs with programmable IO voltage SPI host interface with programmable IO voltage Misc – Tri-color LED, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Whiskey Lake Thin Mini ITX SBC Features Eight USB Interfaces, Dual SATA, Dual GbE, and More

Whiskey Lake Thin Mini ITX SBC Features Eight USB Interfaces, Dual SATA, Dual GbE, and More

Advantech AIMB-233

Advantech AIMB-233 thin mini-ITX SBC is equipped with a choice of 15W Intel Whiskey Lake processors, supporting up to 32GB RAM, and offering plenty of high speed I/Os include eight USB interfaces, two SATA III ports, dual Gigabit Ethernet, several PCIe & M.2 expansion slots, as well as triple display support, six COM ports, and more. The motherboard complies with the “thin mini-ITX” requirement of not exceeding 2.5cm in height, and Advantech expects the thin Mini-ITX SBC to be found in nursing carts, patient care systems, Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI), and mobile devices. AIMB-233 thin mini-ITX SBC specifications: SoC (One or the other) Intel Core i7-8665UE quad-core/octa-thread processor @ up to 1.7 / 4.4 GHz with Intel UHD Graphics 620 – 15W TDP Intel Core i5-8365UE quad-core/octa-thread processor @ up to 1.6 / 4.1 GHz with Intel UHD Graphics 620 – 15W TDP Intel Core i3-8145UE dual-core/quad-thread processor @ up to […]

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