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

October 11, 2019October 11, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Intrinsyc Unveils Open-Q 845 µSOM and Snapdragon 845 Mini-ITX Development Kit

Intrinsyc introduced the first Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 hardware development platform last year with its Open-Q 845 HDK designed for OEMs and device makers. But the company has now just announced a solution for embedded systems and Internet of Things (IoT) products with Open-Q 845 micro system-on-module (µSOM) powered by the Snapdragon 845 octa-core processor, as well as a complete development kit featuring the module and a Mini-ITX baseboard. Open-Q845 µSOM Specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon SDA845 octa-core processor with 4x Kryo 385 Gold cores @ 2.649GHz + 4x Kryo 385 Silver low-power cores @ 1.766GHz cores, Hexagon 685 DSP, Adreno 630 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2 + AEP (Android Extension Pack), DX next, Vulkan 2, OpenCL 2.0 full profile System Memory – 4GB or 6GB dual-channel high-speed LPDDR4X SDRAM at 1866MHz Storage – 32GB or 64GB UFS Flash Storage Connectivity Wi-Fi 5 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2.4/5Ghz 2×2 MU-MIMO (WCN3990) with 5 GHz […]

October 11, 2019October 11, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

System76 Introduces two Intel Comet Lake Linux Laptops with Coreboot Firmware

Intel officially launched Comet Lake processors last August with Y-series (4.5-5.5W TDP) and U-Series (15W TDP) targeting 2-in-1 hybrid laptops and tablets. Since several Windows 10 Comet Lake laptops launched such as OneMix 3Pro 8.4″ mini laptop with an Intel Core i5-10210Y Comet Lake-Y processor. If you’d rather get a Comet Lake laptop running Linux, System76 got you covered with two models, namely Galago Pro and Darter Pro laptops running a choice of Pop!_OS 19.10 (64-bit), Pop!_OS 18.04 LTS (64-bit), or Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (64-bit) operating systems, as well as System76 open firmware based on Coreboot, EDK2, and System76 firmware apps. Galago Pro & Darter Pro share many of the same specifications, except for the display, battery, and other items highlighted in bold: SoC (one of the other) Intel Core i5-10210U quad-core/eight-thread processor @ 1.6 GHz / 3.9 GHz (turbo all cores) / 4.2 GHz (turbo one core), 24EU Intel […]

October 11, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Arduino MKR WAN 1310 LoRa Board Gets HW Security, Longer Battery Life and a 2MB SPI flash

Two year ago Arduino launched MKR WAN 1300 board powered by Arduino Zero compatible Microchip Atmel SAMD21 32-bit ARM Cortex M0+ MCU and a Murata CMWZ1ZZABZ LoRa module based on Semtech SX1276 and STMicro STM32L microcontroller. The company has now announced a new improved LoRa board – MKR WAN 1310 – with lower power consumption thanks to a new battery charger , a 2MB SPI flash which enables data logging and other OTA (Over-the-Air) functions, and a crypto chip that can securely store credentials and certificates. Specifications: MCU – Microchip Atmel SAMD21 32-bit ARM Cortex M0+ MCU @ 48 MHz with 32 KB SRAM, 256 KB flash (8KB for bootloader) External Storage – 2MB SPI flash Digital I/O Pins – 8x digital I/Os, 12x PWM, UART, SPI, and I2C, 8x external interrupts Analog Pins – 7x analog inputs (8/10/12-bit ADC), and 1x analog output (10-bit DAC) DC Current per I/O […]

October 10, 2019October 10, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

py-videocore6 Raspberry Pi 4 GPGPU Python Library Leverages VideoCore 6 GPU

Raspberry Pi 4 SBC was released at the end of June with a new Broadcom BCM2711B SoC that also includes VideoCore 6 (VC6) GPU for 2D and 3D graphics, and that could also be used for general-purpose GPU computing (GPGPU). In the past we’ve seen companies such as Idein leveraged VideoCore 4 GPGPU capabilities in Raspberry Pi 3 / Zero to accelerate image recognition, and they released a python library (py-videocore) for that purpose. The problem is that the VideoCore 6 GPU found in RPi 4 is quite different than the VideoCore 4 GPU in earlier versions of the Raspberry Pi Foundation board as forum member phiren explains: I’ve been looking though the open source drivers and here are some of my observations: vc6 is clearly derived from vc4, but it is significantly different. vc6 is only a slight extension over vc5 The QPU pipeline stays mostly the same, you […]

October 10, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Novasom M7+ SBC Adds FFC HDMI Connector, USB & RS-485 Headers, Improves on Raspberry Pi 3 SW Compatibility

We previously wrote about Novasom M7 Rockchip RK3328 SBC being promoted as a drop-in replacement for Raspberry Pi 3 in industrial projects. That’s despite the different port arrangement, and instead, the company bases the claim on the availability of the 40-pin header, mounting holes matching RPI 3 board design, as well as software compatibility thanks to a library that allows customers to re-use the code written for Raspberry Pi boards. Based on feedback from customers, the company has made some changes to their design and launched Novasom M7+ SBC, and made several improvement to the software to be even more compatible with Raspberry Pi 3 board. Specifically there are five changes: Ability to power the board via the USB type-A port (5V) as an alternative to the 12V power barrel jack Stronger Backlight Driver for display up to 6A @5V) t FFC cable for HDMI output – The dimension of […]

October 10, 2019October 10, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 31 Comments

Rock Pi S mini SBC Now Available for $15 with 512MB RAM, 512MB SD NAND Flash, WiFi & Bluetooth

Rock Pi S is a tiny single board computer powered by Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Cortex-A35 processor coupled with up to 512MB RAM, up to 1GB SD NAND flash, as well as a USB port, Fast Ethernet & optional WiFi & Bluetooth connectivity which was announced to sell for as low as $9.90 with 256MB RAM, 256MB flash and no wireless module. Seeed Studio has now started to take pre-orders for Rock Pi S with the board selling for $14.90 with 512 MB RAM, 512MB SD NAND flash, WiFi & Bluetooth. Shipping is scheduled to start on October 15th. [Update: Seeed Studio has also listed the 256MB RAM version of the board for $9.90] Rock Pi S specifications as currently sold on Seeed Studio: SoC – Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz with built-in VAD (Voice Activity Detector) System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – MicroSD […]

October 9, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Fujifilm LTO Ultrium8 Magnetic Tape Can Store up to 30TB of Compressed Data

What year is this? 2019. So I was a little surprised when I saw the news about Fujifilm recently releasing a 12TB magnetic tape, as I truly thought those were relics of the past. But apparently, magnetic tapes are still a thing in some countries such as the United States in applications where a large amount of data needs to be stored over an extended period of time. Fujifilm LTO-8 (Linear Tape-Open Ultrium8) data cartridge was unveiled last month with 12TB native capacity, up to 30TB compressed capacity, and data rates of 360 MB/s. Fujifilm is said to be the world’s largest manufacturer of magnetic tapes, and since there’s virtually no demand in Japan, most of the tapes are exported. Nikkei Xtech reports the maximum capacity of the new magnetic tape is double the one of Fujifilm’s LTO-7 previous generation magnetic tape. The LTO-8 cartridge includes a 960m-long, 1.265cm-wide magnetic […]

October 9, 2019December 24, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

MINIX NEO J50C-4 (2019) Mini PC Review – Part 2: Windows 10 Pro

Last week, I received the latest MINIX NEO J50C-4 (64GB) mini PC that hardware-wise is very much like last year, never released, MINIX NEO J50C-4 mini PC, except it comes with a 64GB eMMC flash instead of just 32GB. I’m now spent time testing the updated version, with a focus on the potential performance benefit of the new storage device, as well as features I was unable to test last year, such as USB-C DisplayPort output, or WiFi AC, and check out if some of the issues I encountered last year are now solved. System Info We’ve got basically the same info as last year with J50C-4 mini PC powered by an Intel Pentium Silver J5005 CPU coupled with 4.00 GB memory and running an activated (i.e. properly licensed) version of Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. We’ve now got more space to play with thanks to a 57GB Windows partition, which […]