Gateworks GW5520 Single Board Computer Features Dual Gigabit Ethernet Ports, Two mini PCIe Slots

If you need industrial grade ARM Linux boards with lots of Ethernet ports and several mini PCIe slots, you may want to check out Gateworks Ventana boards. The company has now released a smaller member of Ventana family with GW5520 SBC powered by Freescale i.MX6 dual, with two Gigabit Ethernet port, two mini PCIe slots, and support for PoE. Gateworks Ventana GW5520 SBC specifications: SoC- Freescale i.MX6 Dual Cortex A9 processor @ 800MHz with Vivante Vivante GC2000 / GC355 / GC320 GPUs. Option: i.MX6 Quad System Memory – 512 MB DDR3-800 SDRAM (Up to 2GB RAM as option) Storage – 256 MB Flash (Up to 2GB as option), serial configuration EEPROM Video and Audio Output – HDMI 1.4 Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports. USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports Expansion 2x Mini-PCIe sockets Optional mini-PCIe socket to supports a mSATA disk drive (i.MX6 Quad only)  I/Os Serial – […]

Latest Ubuntu 14.10 Image for Tronsmart Draco AW80 Supports Hardware Video Decoding

Tronsmart Draco AW80 is one of the most powerful ARM mini PC on the market thanks to Allwinner A80 octa core processor, and the company also released an early Linux (Ubuntu) image at the end of last year. However, this firmware could not support hardware video decoding nor 2D/3D graphics acceleration. Since then progress has been made, and Tronsmart has just released an image with hardware video decoding. There’s still some work to be done as 4K and H.265 are not supported, and support for Kodi also needs to be implemented. At least for now you should be able to play 1080p video with VLC without issues, and the company also claims online video will play without lags. If you’d like to give it a try, download and extract Draco_AW80_Ubuntu_20150204.zip. Then follow Allwinner A80 firmware upgrade instructions with PhoenixSuit (Windows) or LiveSuit (Linux) firmware tool to complete the process. You […]

Raspberry Pi 2 / ODROID C1+ Development Boards Comparison

Raspberry Pi 2 Model B board has just been released, and although it’s not a direct answer to ODROID-C1, as Broadcom started the design for BCM2836 SoC for RPI2 a long time ago, both low cost development boards have similar specifications, with a quad core processor, 1GB RAM, Ethernet, and four USB ports, as well as the exact same price: $35. So I’ve decided to compare both in details to find out the actual differences, and which one may be more suitable to a particular application. Let’s get straight to the comparison table. [Updated on November 24 to use ODROID C1+ instead of ODROID C1] Hardkernel ODROID C1+ Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Comment Processor Amlogic S805 quad core Cortex A5 @ 1.5 GHz (Overclockable to 1.7 GHz or more) Broadcom BCM2836 quad core Cortex A7 @ 900 MHz (Overclockable to 1.1GHz or more) Despite the architecture advantage for Cortex […]

H88 HummingBird Development Board Powered by Allwinner A80 Comes with 4GB RAM, Built-in GPS, 4G LTE Support

Merrii Technology is having some fun churning out Allwinner A80 development boards, and after A80 OptimusBoard, H8 Hummingbird, here comes H88 HummingBird. The new board is somewhat similar to H8, but is quite larger, and features 4GB RAM, built-in GPS, and a few other goodies. H88 HummingBird specifications: SoC – AllWinner A80 octa-core processor with 4x Cortex 15, 4x Cortex A7 cores in big.LITTLE configuration with Imagination Technologies PowerVR GC6230 GPU compliant with OpenGL ES 3.0/2.0/11, OpenCL 1.1, and DirectX 9.3 System Memory – 4GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB internal storage (Hynix H27UCG8T2BTRBC), micro SD slot up to 32 GB Video Output/ Display Interfaces HDMI 1.4 up to 4K UHD resolution RGB/LVDS interface EDP LCD + TP interface MIPI LCD interface VGA output Audio – HDMI, headphone jack,LINE-IN, Camera I/F – Parallel and MIPI CSI interface. Integrated 16MP camera Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet (Realtek RTL8211D/E), dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n […]

Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Features Broadcom BCM2836 Quad Core Processor

The Raspberry Pi foundation has finally released an upgraded version of the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi 2 model B features much of the same ports and form factor as Raspberry Pi Model B+, by replaces Broadcom BCM2835 ARM11 processor  @ 700 MHz with a much faster Broadcom BCM2836 quad core ARMv7 processor @ 900 MHz, and with an upgrade to 1GB RAM. Raspberry Pi 2 Model B specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM2836 quad core Cortex A7 processor @ 900MHz with VideoCore IV GPU System Memory – 1GB LPDDR2 (PoP) Storage – micro SD card slot (push release type) Video & Audio Output – HDMI and AV via 3.5mm jack. Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet USB – 4x USB 2.0 ports, 1x micro USB for power Expansion 2×20 pin header for GPIOs Camera header Display header Power – 5V via micro USB port. Dimensions – 85 x 56 mm I could not […]

Connect Speakers to Any mini PCs with a $1 USB Sound Card

Last year, I made a poll to find out what kind of audio output people used with mini PCs, and one person commented “USB audio to av receiver”, but at the time I did not investigate. Recently somebody asked me for mini PCs with audio output for stereo speakers, and I recommended something like MINIX NEO X6 with a dedicated 3.5mm audio jack, but I’ve just discovered USB sound cards with stereo output and microphone input are incredibly cheap, even less than $1 shipped on Aliexpress, and just above $1 on Ebay. The features for the model above are listed as follows: Real USB Plug & Play Drive 2-channelsspeakers directly Support 3D positional sound and virtual 5.1 channels sound track Powered via USB port Digital Class-B power Amplifier inside Speaker Shifter –  5.1x earphone,  2 speaker virtual theater Software Value-added for Music:  27x Environmont Effects,  3x Environment sizes, 10-Band/Pre-set Equalizer […]

Variscite Introduces TI Sitara AM437x SoM with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi

News about Texas Instruments Sitara AM437x processors first surfaced in 2012, before being officially announced last summer. Beside TI’s own development kits, I had not seen any hardware based on the company’s Cortex A9 industrial processor, but Variscite has now unveiled their VAR-SOM-AM43 systems-on-module (SoM) powered by AM4376 , AM4378, or AM4379 SoCs. VAR-SOM-AM43 specifications: SoC – Texas Instruments AM437x single core ARM Cortex A9 processor @ 1.0GHz: AM4376 – No GPU, 4x PRU @ 200 MHz AM4378 – PowerVR SGX530 GPU, 4x PRU @ 200 MHz AM4379 – PowerVR SGX530 GPU, 4x PRU @ 200 MHz, and EtherCAT slave support System Memory – 256MB to 1GB DDR3 Storage – 0 to 512MB SLC NAND flash, and 4GB to 32GB eMMC flash b module. 3x SD/MMC via edge connector Display Interfaces – 24-bit RGB interface up to 1400×1050 resolution; 4/5-wire resistive touch support Connectivity  – 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet PHY + […]

Linaro 15.01 Release with Linux 3.19 and Android 5.0

Linaro has just announced the first release of the year with Linux 3.19-rc3 (baseline), Linux 3.10.65 and 3.14.29 (LSK), Android 5.0.2, and Ubuntu Linaro Utopic. Changes seem to have focused on ARM, Qualcomm, and HiSilicon hardware platforms such as Juno, and IFC6410, and some work has been done on Debian ARM64 rootfs. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.19-rc5-2015.01 GATOR topic updated to version 5.20.1 builddeb topic: fixes for the dtb files location changes in 3.19 (vendor subdir introduced) updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT (FVP Base and Foundation models, and Juno support) updated topic from Qualcomm LT (IFC6410 board support) updated topic from HiSilicon LT (Hi36xx, HiP04, and X5HD2 families support) updated LLVM topic (uses the community llvmlinux-latest branch) Included ILP32 patch set v3 rebased on 3.19-rc5. Initial tests using syscalls LTP tests are done: msgctl07 stalls when using ILP32 userland (no stall with LP64 userland). […]