e-con Systems Unveils eSOMiMX6 SoM based on μQ7 Form Factor, and Ankaa Development Kit

QSeven is one of the many standards for system-on-modules, and it defines both Qseven (Q7) 70x70mm modules, and smaller μQSeven (μQ7) 70x40mm modules. While there are quite a few SoMs following the larger form factor, few modules are based on micro Q7, and e-con Systems eSOMiMX6 has just launched one of these tiny modules with eSOMiMX6 system-on-module powered by Freescale i.MX6 processors, as well the corresponding Ankaa development kit comprised of the SoM and a baseboard. eSOMiMX6 module specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX6 single, dual or quad Cortex A9 processor @ 800MHz to 1.2 GHz with Vivante GPUs  System Memory – 256MB/512MB (Solo only), 1GB (default), or 2GB (dual/quad only) LVDDR3 RAM Storage – 4GB (default) to 64GB eMMC flash, 2MB SPI NOR flash, and SD/MMC + SATA II  interfaces via MXM connector Display / Video Output: HDMI up to 1920 x 1080 Dual channel 24-bit LVDS 24-bit LCD RGB MIPI […]

Applied Micro XC-1 Server Development Board (Mustang) is Now Available to Developers for $895

64-bit ARM server boards such as Applied Micro XC-1 Mustang and AMD Opteron A1100 development kit have been available since the beginning of the year, but only to selected companies, and at a price of several thousand dollars per board. Applied Micro is now offering their X-Gene based XC-1 development board to individual developers for $895, or about ~40% discount to the $1495 company now have to pay for the board. It may also be available from distributors (part number: EV-883208-X1-PRB-1). XC-1 board (codenamed Mustang) technical specifications: SoC – Applied Micro X-GeneAPM883208-X1 8-core ARM 64-bit @ 1.6 GHz System Memory – 2x DDR3 UDIMM memory slots up fitted with 2x 4GB sticks (8 GB), upgradable to 16GB Storage – 1x 128Mbit SPI NOR Flash for booting, 1x SATA 3 ports, SD card slot, 1024Kb and 256Kb I2C EEPROM Connectivity – 2x Gigagit port (SGMII), 10 GbE SFP+ cage, 1x Gigabit […]

Banana Pi M2 is an Allwinner A31s Quad Core Board with Raspberry Pi Model B+ Form Factor

Banana Pi, and the recently announced Banana Pro, are Android & Linux development boards based on Allwinner A20, with a form factor similar to Raspberry Pi Model B and B+ boards respectively. A new revision of the board is now available with Banana Pi M2 powered by Allwinner A31s quad core processor, and in a form factor similar to R-Pi B+. Banana Pi M2 specifications: SoC – Allwinner A31s quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.0 GHz with PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage –  Micro SD slot up to 64GB Connectivity – 10/100/1000 Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi  (Realtek) Video Output –  HDMI, CVBS, and LVDS/RGB header Audio Output – HDMI and 3.5mm stereo jack Camera – CSI connector USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports + micro USB port (power only) Debugging – UART pins for serial console Expansion Header – 40-pin R-Pi “somewhat” compatible header with […]

Compulab Utilite2 is a Snapdragon 600 Powered mini PC Running Android 4.4 or Ubuntu 14.04

Compulab Utilite is a family of mini PC based on Freescale i.MX6 processors that can run either Android or Ubuntu, and was launched in 2013. The company has now introduced the second generation of Utilite computer with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad core Krait 300 processor, with 2GB RAM, eMMC and mSATA storage, and various network connectivity options such as Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, and Cellular. Utilite2 will be 30% smaller than the original Utilite computer, and twice the performance of the Utilite Pro with I.MX6 quad.  There are two models: Utilite2 4GB, Utilite2 SSD, with the latter adding a 32 GB SSD. Apart from that both models share the same specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064 quad-core Krait 300 @ 1.7GHz with Adreno 320 GPU compliant with OpenGL ES 1.1 / 2.0 / 3.0 and OpenCL System Memory – 2GB DDR3-1066 Storage – 4GB eMMC, mSATA socket (mini-PCie form-factor, […]

Preliminary Ubuntu Image for Tronsmart Draco AW80 Octa-core mini PC

Tronsmart Draco AW80 is an Allwinner A80 based mini PC pre-loaded with Android 4.4. A preliminary Ubuntu image is now available for the device. It’s still a little buggy, but you can access LXDE desktop on an HDMI TV, Ethernet is working, and web browsing is apparently working nicely. Known bugs include FAT32 partitions are read-only, wireless mouse and keyboard are not working (USB versions are OK), shutdown does not work, the user interface is not as snappy as in Android, and YouTube video playback is choppy. The last two issues could be related to the lack of VPU and GPU drivers providing video hardware decoding, and 2D/3D hardware acceleration respectively. The good news is that the company working on Draco AW80 got the GPU drivers from Imagination, and an updated image could be available with hardware acceleration. I’m not sure sure about VPU support, which is extremely important if […]

Fujitsu MB86S70 and MB86S73 ARM Cortex A15 & A7 Processors Run Linux for the Embedded Market

I like to check the ARM Linux kernel mailing list from time to time, as you may discover a few upcoming ARM processors. This week I found out Exynos 5433 and Exynos 7 are actually two different processors (thanks David!), and that AMD had submitted code for their 64-bit ARM Opteron A1100 SoC for servers. I also noticed a patchset for Fujitsu MB86S7X SoCs, and since I don’t often mention Japanese silicon vendors, probably because they now mainly deal mostly with the embedded market that gets very little press, and most information is in Japanese, I decide to have a look. There seems to be four SoC parts in MB86S7x family with MB86S70 quad core processor with two ARM Cortex A15 and two ARM Cortex A7 cores in big.LITTLE configuration, and MB86S73 with two ARM Cortex A7 cores only, as well as MB86S71/72 with 2x A15 and 2x A7, with […]

Linaro 14.11 Release with Kernel 3.18, Android 5.0, & Ubuntu Utopic. Debian 8.0 Gets ARM64 Port

Linaro 14.11 has been released with Linux kernel 3.18-rc5 (baseline), Linux 3.10.61 & 3.14.25 (LSK, same versions as last month), and Android 4.4.2, 4.4.4, and for the first time Android 5.0 Lollipop. There’s also been some news with regards to Linux desktop distributions, as Ubuntu baseline has been upgraded to Utopic (14.10), and Debian 8.0 (Jessie) will officially support ARM64 with 93% of packages built as of November 5th. Android Lollipop images are said to be built for TC2, Juno, Nexus 7, Nexus 10, and FVP models, but I could not find the images. Finally, it’s the first time I’ve noticed Hisilicon X5HD2 development board with a dual core Cortex A9 processor, but apparently it’s the same as Hi3716cv200. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.18-rc5-2014.11 updated GATOR to version 5.20 updated topic from Qualcomm LT (include IFC6410 board support) updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT (FVP […]

Firefly-RK3288 Development Board in Mass Production, Selling for $140

Firefly-RK3288 development board has been an interesting, yet confusing story, at least to me. We’ve first heard about the Firefly board on July, but I was privately told in September that the board would only be sold in China by a T-Chip sales person, only to see it become available for $189 on Ebay, as well as on Taobao a few days later. But those first boards may have only been engineering sample, or more likely from a limited trial runs, as the company has now announced mass production had started. Let’s refresh our memory with the specifications: SoC – Rockchip 3288 quad core ARM Cortex A12 / A17 up to 1.8 GHz with Mali-T764 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 /3.0, and OpenCL 1.1 System Memory – 2G DDR3 Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 up to 3840×2160@60p VGA out (D-SUB connector) Dual MIPI, Dual LVDS and and […]