Introducing CNX Election Meddling System

CNX Election Meddling System

We love what we do at CNX Software, covering news, product launches, reviewing various types of boards and devices related to embedded systems. But we are also trying to expand our readers’ and our own horizon, always on the look out for unmet market needs that may be filled by the community at large. A few years ago, we found out that while democracy was all good, about people power and blah blah, it could create severe mental stress to the losing side,  with talks of dark days for democracy, the end of the country as we know it, and so forth and so on. So we thought about ways to either help change the election outcome, at least lower the blow by making people feel they did the best they could possibly do beside just throwing a piece of paper in a box. That’s why we came up with […]

ClearFog ITX Workstation May be the Ultimate Arm Developer Platform

ClearFog ITX Workstation

Most people are still doing Arm development work on x86 platforms, because there aren’t really any viable equivalent in the Arm world. Current options include Edge Server SynQuacer E-Series (aka Linaro Developer Box), a $1,250 Arm PC shipping with a 24-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor, 4GB RAM (by default), a 1TB hard drive, and Geforce GT710 graphics cards, as well as the much more powerful GIGABYTE ThunderXStation workstation with up to two Cavium ThunderX 32-core Armv8 processors,  32GB to 128GB RAM configuration, NVMe storage, and more. The former was a good place to get started, but the Arm Cortex-A53 cores clicked at 1GHz provided limited performance, and the GIGAGYTE workstation costs over $12,000, so it’s only suitable for projects with specific needs and/or a high expected return on investment. That’s why there will be a discussion about Designing a next generation ARM Developer Platform at Linaro Connect 2019 next week in […]

Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon 855 Hardware Development Kit

Snapdragon 855 HDK

Snapdragon 855 processor is found in premium smartphones such as Samsung Galaxy S10 or Xiaomi Mi 9, but Snapdragon 855 Mobile Hardware Development Kit has now started to show up on Qualcomm developer website. Beside the octa-core processor, the platform comes with WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, GNSS, Gigabit Ethernet, multiple MIPI DSI and CSI interfaces, DisplayPort over USB-C and HDMI outputs and more. Snapdragon 855 HDK preliminary specifications: SoC –  Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Octa-core processor with 1x Kryo 485 Gold Prime core at up to 2.8 GHz, 3x Kryo 485 Gold cores at up to 2.4 GHz, and 4x Kryo 485 Silver low-power cores at up to 1.7 GHz, Adreno 640 GPU System Memory – TBD Storage – TBD flash, micro SD card slot Video Output 2x MIPI 4-lane DSI + touch panel 1x HDMI DisplayPort over USB 3.1 type-C port Camera Input – 3x MIPI 4-lane CSI with support […]

Ultra96-V2 96Boards AI Platform Adds Certified WiFi, PMICs, Industrial Temperature Range

96Boards Xilinx Ultrascale+ Board

Avnet Ultra96 was unveiled last year as one of the four 96Boards AI platforms designed to develop applications leveraging hardware to accelerated artificial intelligence workloads. The 96Boards CE compliant board comes with a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC, 2GB RAM, a 16GB microSD card, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity and more. The company has now launched an upgraded version with Ultra96-V2 featuring most of the same specifications but with a WiFi & Bluetooth module certified in 75 countries, industrial temperature range, and Infineon’s PMIC’s for additional power control and monitoring. Ultra96-V2 specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ZU3EG A484 with four Cortex A53 cores, two Cortex-R5 core, Arm Mali-400MP2 GPU, and FPGA Fabric System Memory – 2 GB (512M x32) LPDDR4 Memory Storage – 16 GB MicroSD card + adapter pre-loaded with PetaLinux environment Video Output – Mini DisplayPort (MiniDP) Connectivity – Microchip ATWILC3000 certified 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 4 / Bluetooth […]

ODROID-N2 GPU Drivers, Linux 5.0, and Impressive glmarks-es2 Score

Ubuntu 18.04 Gnome Wayland ODROID-N2

ODROID-N2 was announced last February for $63 (2GB RAM), and $79 (4GB RAM), but Hardkernel was not quite ready to take orders at the time. One of the good news is that the 4GB RAM is now available for pre-order with shipping scheduled to start on April 3. Another good news is on the software side with Hardkernel having released the userland Mali-G52 Wayland driver. It does not work well with Linux 4.9 due to incomplete DRM implementation, but it goes work with Linux 5.0 plus some modifications as further discussed in the aforelinked forum thread. The screenshot above, courtesy of odroid forum member memeka , shows ODROID-N2 running Ubuntu 18.04 + Gnome3 + Linux 5.0 on top of Wayland with GPU drivers providing acceleration as shown by glmark2-es2-wayland test program. The benchmark results are pretty impressive:

I’ve never seen such as high score (1,119 points) on Arm hardware. […]

Beelink GT1-K TV Box Features Amlogic S922X SoC, Android 9.0 OS

Beelink GT1-K

Amlogic S922 processor was first shown in roadmaps in early 2018, and since then we know there are at least two variants with Amlogic S922X and S922D processors both coming with Cortex A73 & A53 cores,  and an Arm Mali-G52MP GPU, but the latter adds a Neural Network co-processor.  So far the only hardware announced with Amlogic S922X was ODROID-N2 SBC, but since most Amlogic processors are primarily designed for TV box, it was just a question of time before we see some Amlogic S922X TV boxes hit the market, and the first model to surface is Beelink GT1-K “King” TV box running Android 9.0 OS. Beelink GT1-K specifications: SoC – Amlogic S922X hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 4x Arm Cortex A73 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz, 2x Arm Cortex A53 cores @ 1.9 GHz, Arm Mali-G52MP GPU @ 846MHz; 12nm manufacturing process System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage […]

AI Core XM2280 M.2 Card is Equipped with two Myriad X 2485 VPUs

AI Core XM2280

AAEON released UP AI Core mPCIe card with a Myriad 2 VPU (Vision Processing Unit) last year. But the company also has an AI Core X family powered by the more powerful Myriad X VPU with the latest member being AI Core XM2280 M.2 card featuring not one, but two Myriad X 2485 VPUs coupled with 1GB LPDDR4 RAM (512MB x2). The card supports Intel OpenVINO toolkit v4 or greater, and is compatible with Tensorflow and Caffe AI frameworks. AI Core XM2280 M.2 specifications: VPU – 2x Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU, MA2485 System Memory – 2x 4Gbit LPDDR4 Host Interface – M.2 connector Dimensions – 80 x 22 mm (M.2 M+B key form factor) Certification – CE/FCC Class A Operating Temperature – 0~50°C Operating Humidity – 10%~80%RH, non-condensing The card works with Intel Vision Accelerator Design SW SDK available for Ubuntu 16.04, and Windows 10. Thanks to the two […]

PYNQ-Z2 Python FPGA Board Adds Raspberry Pi Header, 24-Bit Audio Codec

PYNQ-Z2

PYNQ-Z1 is a board by Digilent powered by Xilinx Zynq-7020 Arm Cortex-A9 + FPGA SoC that’s designed specifically for PYNQ, an open-source project that aims to ease the design of embedded systems with Xilinx Zynq Systems on Chips (SoCs) by leveraging the Python language and libraries. PYNQ-Z2 is very similar to PYNQ-Z1, but it’s made by Taiwanese company TUL, and the board is slightly longer to allow for an extra 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header, and Analog Devices ADAU1761 24-bit audio codec. PYNQ-Z2 board specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq-7020 (XC7Z020-1CLG400C) dual core Arm Cortex-A9 processor @ 650 MHz with FPGA with 13,300 logic slices, each with four 6-input LUTs and 8 flip-flops System Memory – 512MB DDR3 Storage – Micro SD card slot, 16MB QSPI Flash with factory programmed globally unique identifier (48-bit EUI-48/64 compatible). Video – HDMI In and HDMI Out Audio – Mic in, Line Out  ADAU1761 codec […]

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