Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Snapdragon Wear 4100+ Platform Combines Cortex-A53 Cores with Always-On Cortex M0 Core

Snapdragon Wear 4100+ Platform Combines Cortex-A53 Cores with Always-On Cortex M0 Core

Qualcomm entered the wearables market in 2016 with the launch of Snapdragon Wear 2100 quad-core Cortex A7 SoC, followed by other models all based on Cortex-A7 cores including the more recent Wear 3100 platform which also added a QCC1110 co-processor to extend battery life. The company has now made the switch to 64-bit Arm with Snapdragon Wear 4100 and Wear 4100+ both featuring a quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor and companion chips, but the latter adds QCC1100 Arm Cortex-M0 always-on (AON) co-processor to lower power consumption. Snapdragon Wear 4100+ key features and specifications: SoC – Qualcomm SDM429w or SDA429w CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.7 GHz GPU – Adreno A504 GPU up to 320 MHz with OpenGL ES 3.1 API support DSP – Dual Qualcomm Hexagon QDSP6 v56, dedicated MDSP for modem and GPS, and dedicated ADSP for Open Sensor Execution Environment (SEE) and audio Memory & Storage I/F – LPDDR3 up to 750 MHz, eMMC 5.1 flash …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Qualcomm Robotics RB5 Platform Targets the Development of 5G and AI-Enabled Robots

Qualcomm Robotics RB5 Platform Targets the Development of 5G and AI-Enabled Robots

Qualcomm Robotics RB3 Development Platform powered by Snapdragon 845 processor gets an upgrade with Robotics RB5 Platform equipped with Qualcomm QRB5165 Robotics processor designed for industrial-grade temperature operating, and featuring a 15 TOPS Qualcomm AI Engine fo artificial intelligence and machine learning applications such as heterogeneous computing, enhanced computer vision, and multi-camera concurrency. The development platform also supports for 4G and 5G connectivity via a companion module and runs Ubuntu and ROS 2.0 operating systems. Qualcomm Robotics RB5 development kit specifications: SoC – Qualcomm QRB5165 with  Kryo 585 CPU @ up to 2.84 GHz,  Adreno 650 GPU, Adreno 665 VPU, Adreno 995 DPU, Qualcomm Hexagon DSP with quad HVX, and Qualcomm Spectra 480 ISP System Memory – 8GB LPDDR5 RAM (POP) Storage – 128 GB UFS3.0 storage, MicroSD card slot Video Output – 1x HDMI 1.4 port Audio – 2x WSA8810 Class-D on-board speaker amplifier, built-in PDM MIC, support for 4-mic array via mezzanine (NAV MEZZ) Cameras Optional Intel RealSense …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 5G Processor Brings 5G, Cortex-A77 to Mid-Range Smartphones

Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 5G Processor Brings 5G, Cortex-A77 to Mid-Range Smartphones

Qualcomm launched Snapdragon 855, the company’s first 5G mobile processor, in December 2018, before following up the next year with Snapdragon 865, 765, and 765G 5G mobile platforms still targetted to higher-end and premium smartphones. Qualcomm has now introduced its first 5G mobile SoC part of the mid-range Snapdragon 600-series with Snapdragon 690 5G octa-core processor featuring Cortex-A77 and Cortex-A53 cores, and a Snapdragon X51 5G modem delivering up to 2.5 Gbps download speed. Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 5G (SM6350) specifications: CPU – Octa-core Qualcomm Kryo 560 CPU @ up to 2.0 GHz, specifically 2x Cortex 77 cores @ 2.0 GHz and 6x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.7 GHz GPU – Qualcomm Adreno 619L GPU with support for OpenCL 2.0 FP, OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, and DX12 APIs DSP – 2x Qualcomm Hexagon 692 with Qualcomm Hexagon Vector eXtensions (HVX), Hexagon Tensor Accelerator, Qualcomm Hexagon Scalar Accelerator Qualcomm Sensing Hub – Ultra-low-power hub for audio, voice, and sensors Memory Support – 2×16-bit …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments on Looking for an Android Phone with Long Term Support? Fairphone 2 Gets Android 9 Five Years After Launch

Looking for an Android Phone with Long Term Support? Fairphone 2 Gets Android 9 Five Years After Launch

When you use a laptop or computer with Windows or Linux, you’re pretty much assured to get regular security updates. That’s partially why I prefer to do things like online banking on my computer rather than a phone, despite banks pushing for mobile apps. Why? Because most mobile phones get limited support. I selected an Android One phone, namely Xiaomi Mi A2, because I would get updates for at least 18 months. When you think about it it’s quite pathetic, but that’s about the best Android has to offer. It’s quite better on Apple side with updates for 4 to 5 years for iPhones, while Google Pixel phones are said to get updates for about 3+ years. How you deliver updates also matter, as I recently heard Samsung users complain about frequent updates, while they had somehow no such complaint about their iPhone. But if you’re not quite ready to make the jump to iPhones, and prefer the openness of …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Linux 5.7 Released – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.7 Released – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V Architectures

OK… I’m a bit late on that one. Linus Torvalds released Linux 5.7 last week: So we had a fairly calm last week, with nothing really screaming “let’s delay one more rc”. Knock wood – let’s hope we don’t have anything silly lurking this time, like the last-minute wifi regression we had in 5.6.. But embarrassing regressions last time notwithstanding, it all looks fine. And most of the discussion I’ve seen the last week or two has been about upcoming features, so the merge window is now open  and I’ll start processing pull requests tomorrow as usual. But in the meantime, please give this a whirl. We’ve got a lot of changes in 5.7 as usual (all the stats look normal – but “normal” for us obviously pretty big and means “almost 14 thousand non-merge commits all over, from close to two thousand developers”), So the appended shortlog is only the small stuff that came in this last week since …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Qualcomm 212 LTE IoT Modem Supports LTE Cat NB2, Promises Higher Power Efficiency

Qualcomm 212 LTE IoT Modem Supports LTE Cat NB2, Promises Higher Power Efficiency

A few years ago, Qualcomm launched Snapdragon 212 processor for smart speakers. This post has nothing to do with this, but strangely the company decided to reuse the 212 number in its new Qualcomm 212 LTE IoT modem with the claim of being the “world’s most power-efficient single-mode (NB2) chipset”. Specifically, Qualcomm 212 LTE IoT Modem is said to require less than one micro-amp (1uA) of sleep current, support ultra-low system-level cut-off voltage (as low as 2.2V) with provisions for adapting power usage according to varying source power levels. Qualcomm® 212 LTE IoT Modem key features and specifications: MCU Core – Arm Cortex M3 @ up to 204 MHz Cellular Connectivity 3GPP Rel.14 LTE capabilities: Cat-NB2 with multi-carrier NPRACH and Paging, Cat-NB2 Release Assistance Indication (RAI), Cat-NB2 with larger TBS and 2 HARQ processes Peak Speeds – DL: 127 kbps; UL: 158.5 kbps Frequency Bands (700Mhz to 2.1 GHz for global roaming) LTE low bands: B5, B68, B8, B12, B13, …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on DragonBoard 845c Android (AOSP) Reference Board Supports Open Source Graphics, Mainline Kernel

DragonBoard 845c Android (AOSP) Reference Board Supports Open Source Graphics, Mainline Kernel

Robotics DragonBoard 845c AOSP

Besides the obvious Google Pixel and Nexus devices supported by AOSP (Android Open Source Project), we previously covered some single board computers that were also officially supported by the project with Hikey and Hikey 960 Android reference boards. Linaro Consumer Group (LCG) has just written about Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 based Dragonboard 845c board. It has been now an official Android reference board for a few months now, and it is the first such board with an open-source graphics stack thanks to Freedreno graphics driver and mesa framework. Since no proprietary blobs are required, the board’s full functionality can also be upstreamed into the mainline kernel, and Linaro currently uses the board as a test target for validating the mainline kernel and stable updates. Here’s a reminder of the board’s hardware specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with 8x custom 64-bit ARMv8 CPUs up to 2.8 GHz, Adreno 630 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2 + AEP, DX next, Vulkan …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Linux 5.6 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.6 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.6 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List: So I’ll admit to vacillating between doing this 5.6 release and doing another -rc. This has a bit more changes than I’d like, but they are mostly from davem’s networking fixes pulls, and David feels comfy with them. And I looked over the diff, and none of it looks scary. It’s just slightly more than I’d have preferred at this stage – not doesn’t really seem worth delaying a release over. So about half the diff from the final week is network driver fixlets, and some minor core networking fixes. Another 20% is tooling – mostly bpf and netfilter selftests (but also some perf work). The rest is “misc” – mostly random drivers (gpio, rdma, input) and DTS files. With a smattering of fixes elsewhere (a couple of afs fixes, some vm fixes, etc). The shortlog is appended, nothing really looks all that exciting, …

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