Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 was officially unveiled in December 2018, and is found in several premium phones and at least one development kit. The processor features one Kryo 485 Gold (A76-class) core clocked @ 2.84GHz, with 7 others cores in another 3-core Kryo 485 Gold cluster @ 2.42 GHz, and a 4-core Kryo 485 Silver (A55-class) cluster clocked at 1.80 GHz. Qualcomm has now announced the Snapdragon 855 Plus processor that’s virtually the same as the original, but with the high-performance Kryo 485 Gold core frequency boosted to close to 3.0 GHz (2.96 GHz), and the Adreno 640 GPU also getting faster at 672 MHz against 585 MHz for Snapdragon 855. The differences are highlighted in bold in the comparison table below courtesy of Anandtech. SoC Snapdragon 855 Snapdragon 855 Plus (855+) CPU 1x Kryo 485 Gold (A76 derivative) @ 2.84GHz 1x512KB pL2 3x Kryo 485 Gold (A76 derivative) @ 2.42GHz […]
Solectrix SX Mobile Device Kit Runs Linux or Android on NXP i.MX8M Mini Processor
In the last two years or so, we’ve seen the development of Linux phones that are expected to launch in the next few months with products such as PinePhone, Purism Librem 5, or even Necunos NC_1. Solectrix SX Mobile Device Kit also targets Arm-based mobile devices, but it is somewhat different, as the i.MX8M Mini development kit aims to help with the design of Android or Linux mobile devices with software, hardware and housing available, but more geared towards specific business use cases, as it comes with optional Gigabit Ethernet and USB-to-UART ports, and no cellular connectivity. Solectrix SX Mobile Device Kit (MDK) specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX8M Mini single to quad-core Cortex-A53 processor clocked at up to 2.0GHz, Arm Cortex-M4F @ 400MHz, and 2D / 3D GPU (OpenGL ES 2.0) System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 Storage – 8GB eMMC Flash, microSD card slot Display – 4-lane MIPI DSI; capacitive […]
RK3229 Powered Q96 Smart Android 9.0 TV Box Sells for $19.99 (Promo)
A few years ago, it was pretty easy to buy ultra-cheap under $20 TV boxes, but with the RAM and flash memory prices increase, companies were unable to provide such good deals. Prices have now come down to earth, so deals may pop-up from time to time, and one of those is for Rockchip RK3229 based Q96 Smart TV box running Android 9.0 with 1GB RAM and 8GB flash that currently goes for $19.99 on GearBest with coupon GBCNQ9601. [Update: GBCNQ962 coupon can be used for the 2GB version bringing down the price to $25.99] Q96 Smart specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3229 quad core Arm Cortex-A7 processor up to 1.5GHz with Arm Mali-400 MP2 GPU System Memory – 1 or 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB or 16GB flash, microSD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60 Hz + AV port with composite and […]
NXP i.MX 7ULP Enters Mass-Production, EVK and Systems-on-Module Announced
Last year, we wrote about F&S Elektronik Systeme PicoCORE MX7 system-on-module (SoM) powered by NXP i.MX 7ULP processor manufactured with a 28nm FD-SOI process, and that was announced a year earlier. The official launch of the module was planned for Q3 2018, but there have been some delays as LinuxGizmos reports NXP has only started mass production of their i.MX7 ULP this June. With the official launch of i.MX 7ULP, the company also introduced the official i.MX 7ULP Evaluation Board (MCIMX7ULP-EVK) as showcased on Element14’s community and several other companies announced i.MX 7ULP systems-on-modules. Benefits of NXP i.MX 7ULP Processor The i.MX7 ULP family of processors is an extremely power-efficient series, that is utilizing lower power for more functions. The SoC is being touted as the most power-efficient processor that can be obtained that also houses a 3D GPU. Although like the i.MX7, the i.MX 7ULP combines both Cortex-A7 and […]
ODROID-H2 Review – Part 2: Ubuntu 19.04
After many months of delays due to Intel not mass-producing Gemini Lake processors, Hardkernel started selling ODROID-H2 again, more exactly ODROID-H2 Rev. B, and the end of last month, and the company sent me a full kit for evaluation. You can check out ODROID-H Rev. B with Type 3 case and the assembly instructions in the first part of the review. I’ve now had time to play with the board using the pre-installed Ubuntu 19.04 operating systems so I’ll report my experience in this second part. Note that ODROID-H2 does not rely on a custom version of Ubuntu, and instead you can download and flash Ubuntu 18.04 or 19.04 ISO directly from Ubuntu website. First Boot and System Information I had already connected two SATA drives inside the enclosure, one SSD and one HDD, but before booting the device I connected an HDMI cable, one Ethernet cable, USB keyboard & […]
$6.90 Seeeduino Nano Board | Compatible With Arduino Nano
Seeed Studio has announced the release of yet another compact board. The new board, Seeeduino Nano, is quite similar to the Arduino Nano board, and fully compatible. Another thing about the new board is that it has some different features. Seeeduino Nano comes with only one on-board Grove connector, but it can be expanded with the optional Grove shield adding 8 Grove connectors. More precisely, the shield has 3 Grove digital connectors and 3 Grove analog connectors, as well as 1 Grove I2C connector, and 1 Grove UART connector. Program Code Firstly, the Seeeduino Nano is built around Atmega328P 8-bit AVR microcontroller. This is the same as the Arduino Nano board, meaning you can use the same program code on both boards. There’s no specific Wiki for Seeeduino Nano, but it’s similar, albeit much smaller than the well-documented Seeeduino V4.2. Price of the Seeeduino Nano Board The board is […]
Arm Techcon 2019 Schedule – Machine Learning, Security, Containers, and More
Arm TechCon will take place on October 8-10, 2019 at San Jose Convention Center to showcase new solutions from Arm and third-parties, and the company has now published the agenda/schedule for the event. There are many sessions and even if you’re not going to happen it’s always useful to checkout what will be discussed to learn more about what’s going on currently and what will be the focus in the near future for Arm development. Several sessions normally occur at the same time, so as usual I’ll make my own virtual schedule with the ones I find most relevant. Tuesday, October 8 09:00 – 09:50 – Open Source ML is rapidly advancing. How can you benefit? by Markus Levy, Director of AI and Machine Learning Technologies, NXP Over the last two years and still continuing, machine learning applications have benefited tremendously from the growing number of open source frameworks, tools, […]
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 […]