Innocomm Unveils MediaTek i300/i500 SoMs for IoT and AI Applications

SB30 MTK i300 and SB50 MTK i500 AI IoT Platforms Just announced by Innocomm are the SB30 and the SB50 SoMs carrying the MediaTek i300 and i500 SoC’s, and running either Linux or Android. The rundown on the systems is the MediaTek AIoT processor series has been out for some time, and we reported on the latest SoC in the MediaTek i700 article last July. Innocomm is also known for its NXP-based compute modules such as the i.MX8M Mini driven W15 and i.MX8M powered W10. MediaTek i300 Specs The MediaTek i300 (MT8362) SoC is running a Cortex-A35 power-efficient quad-core processor clocking at 1.5 GHz. The SoC is further equipped with an Imagination PowerVR Series8XE GE8300 GPU. The i300 also integrates a PMIC, an RF chip for 2.4 GHz 802.11/b/g/n as well as Bluetooth 4.0. There is support for the MediaTek MT7668 chipset for 802.11ac (WiFi 5). Rounding out the system […]

Chuwi HiPAD LTE Tablet Review – Part 2: Android 8.0

CHUWI HiPad LTE Tablet Review

Last month, I received HiPad LTE tablet, and in the first part of the review I checked out the specifications of the 10″ tablet with a MediaTek Helio X27 deca-core processor, 3GB RAM, 32 GB storage, and had a look at the accessories including the keyboard dock. I’ve now had more time to actually play with the device, so I’ll report my experience with Android 8.0, and the pros and cons of the latest Chuwi tablet. General Impressions My previous tablet was Onda V18 Pro, and Chuwi HiPad LTE is clearly an upgrade thanks to the faster Heliox X27 deca-core processor coupled with 3GB of RAM. The 10.1″ display has a 1920×1200 resolution, not quite as good as the 2560×1600 resolution of the Onda tablet, but I still found the screen to be crispy and sharp. I found the tablet to be great for browsing the web and watching YouTube […]

MediaTek i700 Cortex-A75/A55 AI Processor to Power Automated Stores, Facial Recognition Applications

MediaTek has recently unveiled their i700 octa-core AI IoT Platform, which succeeds their little known MediaTek i500 (MT8385) processor, and features two Cortex-A75 cores, six Cortex-A55 cores, coupled with MediaTek APU 2.0 comprised of a dual-core AI processor, AI Accelerator and AI face detection engine that is said to offers 5x greater performance than the i500.. The new SoC also features an Imagination 9XM GPU clocked at 970MHz, as well as a tri-core ISP with support for a single 32MP camera or a 24MP+16MP dual-camera setup. MediaTek i700 key features & specifications: CPU – 6x Arm Cortex-A55 cores @ 2.0 GHz, 2x Arm Cortex-A75 cores @ 2.2 GHz GPU – Imagination PowerVR 9XM-HP8 (GM9446?) GPU @ 970 MHz MediaTek APU 2.0 AI engine – Dual-core AI processor, AI Accelerator, AI Face Detection Engine; Neuropilot SDK support Memory – Up to 8GB LPDDR4x, 1866MHz Connectivity Cellular – Carrier Aggregation (CA), CDMA2000 […]

Chuwi HiPad LTE Tablet Review – Part1: Specs and Unboxing

CHUWI HiPad LTE Tablet Review

Chuwi HiPad LTE is an 10.1″ tablet running Android 8.0 Oreo on a MediaTek Helio X27 deca-core processor coupled with 3GB RAM, 32GB flash, and offering both dual band WiFi and LTE connectivity. The company just sent me a sample, and today I’ll quickly go through the specifications, before unboxing the two packages I received. Specifications SoC – Mediatek Helio X27 (MT6797) deca-core processor with 2x Cortex-A72 cores @ 2.6 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 2.0 GHz, and 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores @ 1.6 GHz, as well as an Arm Mali-T880 GPU clocked at up to 875MHz System Memory – 3GB RAM Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, microSD card socket up to 128GB Display – 10.1″ IPS capacitive screen with 1920 x 1200 resolution Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, built-in stereo speaker and microphone Camera – 5.0MP rear camera, 5.0MP front-facing camera Connectivity Dual band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 Bluetooth […]

Linux 5.1 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.1 Changelog

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.1: So it’s a bit later in the day than I usually do this, just because I was waffling about the release. Partly because I got some small pull requests today, but mostly just because I wasn’t looking forward to the timing of this upcoming 5.2 merge window. But the last-minute pull requests really weren’t big enough to justify delaying things over, and hopefully the merge window timing won’t be all that painful either. I just happen to have the college graduation of my oldest happen right smack dab in the middle of the upcoming merge window, so I might be effectively offline for a few days there. If worst comes to worst, I’ll extend it to make it all work, but I don’t think it will be needed. Anyway, on to 5.1 itself. The past week has been pretty calm, […]

POWKIDDY X18 is a Low Cost Portable Android Game Console Powered by MediaTek MT8163 SoC

POWKIDDY X18

GPD XD Plus handheld Android game console launched about nearly one year ago with a MediaTek MT8176 hexa-core Arm Cortex-A72/A53 processor, and a 5.0″ display, and is now sold for under $210. But there’s now another portable game console that appears heavily inspired from GPD design, but featuring a low end MediaTek MT8163 quad core Cortex A53 processor instead, as well as a slightly larger 5.5″ display. Meet POWKIDDY X18. POWKIDDY X18 hardware specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT8163 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.3GHz with Arm Mali-T720 GPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, microSD card Display – 5.5″ IPS Screen with 1280 x 720 resolution, 5-point capacitive touchscreen Video Output – HDMI port Connectivity – WiFi 4 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth: 4.0 USB – 1x micro USB port (for charging only?) Buttons – Power button, D-Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, L1/L2/R1/R2, left & right joysticks, Start & […]

MediaTek MT8183 Octa-core Cortex A73/A53 SoC Targets Chromebooks

MediaTek MT8183

MediaTek processors have been found in a few Chromebooks notably in MediaTek MT8173 powered Acer Chromebook R13, but the quad-core Cortex A72/A53 processor hasn’t made it into many models like the hexa-core Rockchip RK3399 “OP1” processor. However, I’ve been informed there are a few patchsets that have been submitted to mainline Linux and V4L2 mailing lists about MediaTek MT8183 octa-core Cortex A73/A53 processor. The latter adds a Digital Image Processing (DIP) driver on MediaTek MT8183 SoC, “which will be used in camera features on CrOS application” and some code related to MT8183 is found in Chromium OS repository, so those clues should confirm the octa-core processor will end up in Chromebooks, with the current MT8183 reference board being named Kukui. There aren’t any product pages for MT8183 on MediaTek website just yet, but by looking at the source code (e.g. Device tree file), and some clues around the web, we […]

Sony PlayStation Classic Teardown Reveals MediaTek MT8167A Processor

Sony PlayStation Classic Main Board

Miniature versions of popular game consoles from earlier decades have been all the rage recently, but they all have one thing in common: the inability to add games by default. But eventually, people find ways. For example, when it was found Nintendo NES Classic Mini was found to be powered by an Allwinner R16 processor, enthusiasts found ways to run RetroArch on the device with some efforts. One of the latest announcement was Sony PlayStation Classic, and as reviewers got hold of early sample of the miniature gaming console, it  got torn down by HDBlog Italia. That means we now have a good idea of the technical specifications of the console: SoC – MediaTek MT8167A quad core Arm Cortex-A35 processor @ 1.5 GHz with PowerVR GE8300 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3-1866 (Samsung K4B4G1646E-BYMA) Storage – 16GB eMMC 5.1 flash (Samsung KLMAG1JETD-B041) Video Output – HDMI port up to 720p […]