CNX Software – Embedded Systems News
Reviews, tutorials and the latest news about embedded systems, IoT, open-source hardware, SBC's, microcontrollers, processors, and more
SpacemiT K3 is an upcoming RVA23-compliant 64-bit RISC-V processor based on X100 cores clocked at up to 2.5 GHz. So far, we had limited information, but SpacemiT gave remote access to one SpacemiT K3-powered server to Sander, and he was kind enough to share some system information and early benchmarks.
Let’s start with system information reported by inxi utility:
GL.inet Comet 5G (GL-RM10RC) is an upcoming KVM over IP solution with a 3.69-inch touchscreen display and 5G RedCap (Reduced Capacity) IoT cellular connectivity, enabling remote access even when your regular Internet connection is down. The design builds upon the GL.iNet Comet Pro introduced last year, featuring a larger design and display, and adding 5G cellular connectivity on top of WiFi 6 and Gigabit Ethernet. It still features HDMI input and output (loop) ports, two USB Type-C ports for power and keyboard/mouse emulation, and a USB 2.0 port for accessories like ATX power control or fingerbot for the control of physical buttons on the target. GL.iNet Comet 5G specifications: SoC – Quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU @ 1.5 GHz; potentially a Rockchip RV1126B SoC System Memory – 1GB DDR3L Storage – 64 GB eMMC flash Video & Audio Input – HDMI port up to 4K @ 30 FPS Output – HDMI loop/passthrough […]
Advantech SOM-6820 is a COM Express Type 6 Compact Computer-on-Module powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite SoC with up to twelve 64-bit Arm Oryon cores, instead of an x86 processor from Intel or AMD, more commonly found on COM Express modules. The COM also features up to 64GB LPDDR5 memory, two MIPI CSI camera connectors, an RTL8153B USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet controller, and a TPM 2.0 security chip. All I/Os are exposed through two standard 220-pin B2B connectors, including DisplayPort and LVDS/eDP interfaces for up to four 4K displays, up to four SATA III for storage, twelve USB 3.0/2.0 interfaces, multiple PCIe Gen4/3 interfaces, and more. With up to 45 TOPS of AI performance, the SOM-6820 is especially well-suited to medical imaging and machine vision applications as well as mission-critical systems and humanoid robots. Advancec SOM-6820 specifications: Snapdragon X Elite SoC variants (one or the other) X1E-00-1DE 12-core up […]
NetCube Systems Nagami is a small Allwinner T113-S3 system-on-module that I just saw added to Linux 6.18. Besides mainline Linux support, the Allwinner SoM offers somewhat unique or unusual features that include a mini PCIe form factor and an ESP32 co-processor for WiFi 4 and Bluetooth connectivity. The Nagami also comes with 128MB DDR3 embedded in the T113-S3, 4GB eMMC flash, a Fast Ethernet PHY, and a Qwiic connector for I2C expansion modules. All I/Os are exposed through a standard mini PCIe edge connector: audio I/Os, Ethernet, USB 2.0 OTG/host, and a range of low-speed I/Os. Nagami SoM specifications: SoC – Allwinner T113-S3 CPU – Dual-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.2 GHz with 32 KB L1 I-cache + 32 KB L1 D-cache per core, and 256 KB L2 cache DSP – Single-core HiFi4 VPU – H.265/H.264 video decoding up to 1080p60 and JPEG/MJPEG video encoding up to 1080p60 Memory – 128 […]
Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.18 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), which will likely become the next LTS kernel [update: it’s now official]: So I’ll have to admit that I’d have been happier with slightly less bugfixing noise in this last week of the release, but while there’s a few more fixes than I would hope for, there was nothing that made me feel like this needs more time to cook. So 6.18 is tagged and pushed out. Most of the last-minute fixes are minor fixes to drivers, with some random noise elsewhere (bluetooth, ceph, afs..). Nothing strikes me as standing out, but hey, there’s a shortlog appended if you want to see the details. And this obviously means that the merge window will open tomorrow, and I already have three dozen pull requests pending. Thanks. And as I already mentioned a couple of […]
He Chunhui (hchunhui) has developed the Tiny386 x86 PC emulator in C (C99) and managed to run Windows 3.1/3.2 and Windows 95 on an ESP32-S3 devkit with a 3.5-inch display. We had already seen Linux 5.0 boot on an ESP32 board, and Olimex ESP32-S3-DevKit-LiPo run a more recent Linux 6.3 image, but I think it might be the first time somebody has loaded Windows on ESP32 hardware. Bear in mind that since the Tiny386 is an emulator running SeaBIOS, it can also boot the Linux kernel directly. He Chunhui explains that the i386 CPU emulator is built from scratch and still lacks some features, such as debugging, hardware tasking, and certain permission checks. It also includes some 486 and 586 instructions to be able to boot a modern Linux kernel and Windows. The code is rather small as the CPU emulator is only about 6,000 lines of code (LOC) long, […]
Collabora announced a partnership with MediaTek to bring upstream support to the Genio IoT SoCs and boards in November 2024, but since the announcement was new at the time, no work had been done, and I didn’t write about it. However, almost one year later, Collabora can now report very good progress, especially for MediaTek MT8395 boards like Genio 1200 EVK and Radxa NIO 12L, which are now usable with mainline/upstream Linux since most features are implemented. But improvements also extend to MediaTek Genio 510 and Genio 700 EVKs, and the collaboration will continue with work on newer MediaTek Genio and Kompanio processors for IoT solutions and Chromebooks. The two MediaTek Genio 1200 boards can now boot mainline Linux without any out-of-tree patches while providing support for the Audio DSP, JPEG, video hardware encoders and decoders, the Arm Mali-G57 MC5 GPU (via the open source Panfrost driver), as well as […]
Sakura Pi RK3308B is a small SBC powered by the Rockchip RK3308B quad-core Cortex-A35 SoC that I saw when I covered the Linux 6.17 release at the end of last month. The board comes with 512 MB of DDR3 memory, a microSD card slot, an optional 4 GB or 8 GB eMMC flash, an RGB LCD interface to connect an LCD, two USB-C ports (one host, one OTG), a WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 module, and the usual 40-pin GPIO header. Sakura Pi RK3318B specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3308B quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz with built-in VAD (Voice Activity Detector); No GPU System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 SDRAM Storage MicroSD card slot Optional 4 GB or 8 GB eMMC flash Display I/F – 18-bit RGB666 LCD interface Connectivity – Dual-band WiFi 5 & Bluetooth 4.2 via Ampak AP6255 module and ceramic antenna or external antenna via […]