Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon XR1 based AR smart glasses reference design

Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon XR1 based AR smart glasses reference design

Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon XR2 5G VR Reference Design last year based on their latest Snapdragon XR2 virtual/extended reality processor. But the company never designed a reference design for the earlier Snapdragon XR1 that was found in Google Glass Enterprise Edition v2. Better late than never, as the company has now announced the Snapdragon XR1 AR smart viewer reference design. If you happen to be a human not part of Qualcomm’s marketing team, you may wonder what an “AR smart viewer” is. The team behind the terms “Mobile Platform” (i.e. SoC + some companion chips), “Visual subsystem” (i.e. GPU, ISP, and stuff), is now bringing the new “AR Smart viewer” term for what commoners like myself used to call “smart glasses”. The reference design can tether to a compatible smartphone, Windows PC, or processing puck and is said to work best with other Qualcomm Snapdragon platforms. Some of the highlights of the Snapdragon XR1 AR smart glasse/viewer reference design include: […]

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments on Linux 5.11 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.11 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linus Torvalds has released Linux 5.11 just in time for… “Valentine’s Day”: Nothing unexpected or particularly scary happened this week, so here we are – with 5.11 tagged and pushed out. In fact, it’s a smaller-than-average set of commits from rc7 to final, which makes me happy. And I already have several pull requests lined up for tomorrow, so we’re all set for the merge window to start. But in the meantime – and yes, I know it’s Valentine’s Day here in the US – maybe give this release a good testing before you go back and play with development kernels. All right? Because I’m sure your SO will understand. Linus Last time around, Linux 5.10 was an LTS release that added EXT-4 performance enhancements, improved post-Spectre performance, as well as the enablement of BCM2711 (Raspberry Pi 4) display pipeline, among other many changes. Some of the notable changes in Linux 5.11 include: Support for Intel’s software guard extensions (SGX) […]

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Snapdragon X65 is the world’s first 10 Gigabit 5G modem

Snapdragon X65 is the world’s first 10 Gigabit 5G modem

Announced in 2017, the first Qualcomm 5G modem – named Snapdragon X50 – could achieve up to 5 Gbps downloads, it was following by Snapdragon X55 with peak download speeds of 7 Gbps, and Snapdragon X60 upped that to 7.5 Gbps in 2020. The company has now unveiled its fourth-generation 5G modem with Snapdragon X65 promising up to 10 Gigabit per second peak download speed. The new modem is also said to be the first to feature a 3GPP Release 16 modem-to-antenna solution and may be used in mobile broadband, fixed wireless, industrial IoT, and 5G private network applications. Qualcomm Snapdragon X65 key features and specifications: 10 Gbps peak speeds in 5G standalone and non-standalone modes 3GPP Release 16 support Cellular Technology – 5G NR, LTE, WCDMA (DB-DC-HSDPA), TD-SCDMA, CDMA 1x, GSM/EDGE 5G Spectrum – mmWave-sub6 aggregation, sub-6 carrier aggregation (FDD-TDD, FDD-FDD, TDD-TDD), Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) 5G Modes – TDD, SA (standalone), NSA (non-standalone), FDD 5G mmWave specs – […]

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments on Snapdragon 888 Mobile Hardware Development Kit ships with 12GB RAM, 256GB UFS storage

Snapdragon 888 Mobile Hardware Development Kit ships with 12GB RAM, 256GB UFS storage

Snapdragon 888 is the latest premium mobile SoC from Qualcomm with the octa-core processor combining one Cortex-X1 core, three Cortex-A78 cores, and four low-power Cortex-A55 cores, with Adreno 660 GPU and Snapdragon X60 5G modem. The processor will likely most be found in smartphones, but Qualcomm partnered with Lantronix to launch the Snapdragon 888 Mobile Hardware Development Kit designed for Android app developers, hardware vendors, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Snapdragon 888 development board specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 (SM8350) octa-core Qualcomm Kryo 680 CPU with 1x Cortex-X1 core @ 2.84 GHz, 3x Cortex-A78 cores @ 2.42 GHz, and 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.80 GHz, Adreno 660 GPU with support for OpenCL 2.0 FP, OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, DX12, and up to 8K 360 VR video playback, Hexagon 780 DSP System Memory – 12GB LPDDR5 PoP memory Storage – 256GB UFS 3.0 flash, 1x MicroSD/UFS card Display HDMI 2.0 output up to 4K UHD DisplayPort 1.4 over USB3.1 […]

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Pipo W12 Arm Windows 10 Laptop finally launched for $422 and up

Pipo W12 Arm Windows 10 Laptop finally launched for $422 and up

Pipo showcased a Snadragon 850 powered 2-in-1 laptop in fall 2019, and said it expected it to sell for around $400. But it appears it took quite longer than expected to launch the Arm Windows 10 laptop, and only now can we see PiPo W12 laptop sold on Aliexpress for around $422 and up plus shipping. The 2-in-1 laptop comes with a 12.3-inch touchscreen display, 4GB or 8GB RAM, 256GB storage, as well as WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, and 4G LTE connectivity. Pipo W12 specifications have changed a little bit since the first announcement, notably the display resolution, and we’ve got a few more details: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 octa-core Kryo 385 Arm cores clocked @ up to 2.96 GHz with Adreno 630 Visual Processing Subsystem, Hexagon 685 DSP System Memory – 4GB or 8GB DDR4 RAM Storage – 256GB flash storage, MicroSD card slot Display – 12.3″ IPS display with 2888×1920 resolution, 10-point touch Audio – 3.5mm audio […]

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on 5G coming to entry-level devices with Snapdragon 480 5G SoC

5G coming to entry-level devices with Snapdragon 480 5G SoC

5G rollout really only started ramping in 2019, and we covered premium 5G mobile SoC like Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, Huawei Kirin 990 or Samsung Exynos 980, as soon as December 2018. In late 2019 and 2020, 5G came to mid-range mobile devices thanks to chips such as Snapdragon 765(G), MediaTek Dimensity 720, UNISOC T7520, and others. Somehow, 5G still felt premium to me since the technology is still relatively, so I was surprised by the level of coverage in Europe and the US, and even smaller countries like Thailand, when I looked at the 5G coverage map above after seeing an announcement for Snapdragon 480 processor designed for entry-level 5G smartphones. Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 (SM4350) key features and specifications: CPU – Octa-core Kryo 460 processor with two Cortex-A76 class cores @ 2.0 GHz, six Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Adreno 619 GPU with H.264 (AVC), H.265 (HEVC) VP8 and VP9 playback;, API Support: OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, […]

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Linux 5.10 LTS release – Main changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V architectures

Linux 5.10 LTS release – Main changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 5.10: Ok, here it is – 5.10 is tagged and pushed out. I pretty much always wish that the last week was even calmer than it was, and that’s true here too. There’s a fair amount of fixes in here, including a few last-minute reverts for things that didn’t get fixed, but nothing makes me go “we need another week”. Things look fairly normal. It’s mostly drivers – as it should be – with a smattering of fixes all over: networking, architectures, filesystems, tooling.. The shortlog is appended, and scanning it gives a good idea of what kind of things are there. Nothing that looks scary: most of the patches are very small, and the biggest one is fixing pin mapping definitions for a pincontrol driver. This also obviously means that the merge window for 5.11 will start tomorrow. I already have a couple of pull requests pending – you guys know who you […]

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 specifications – Cortex-X1/A78/A55 Processor with Snapdragon X60 5G Modem

Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 specifications – Cortex-X1/A78/A55 Processor with Snapdragon X60 5G Modem

Qualcomm teased us with Snapdragon 888 5G mobile platform on the first day of the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2020 before revealing the specifications and more details about their new premium mobile SoC on the second day of the event. Snapdragon 888 (SM8350) octa-core processor is equipped with one high-performance Cortex-X1 core @ 2.84 GHz, three Cortex-A78 cores @ 2.42 GHz, and four low-power Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 1.80 GHz, an Adreno 660 GPU, and a third-generation Snapdragon X60 5G modem. Snapdragon 888 specifications: CPU – Octa-core Qualcomm Kryo 680 CPU with 1x Cortex-X1 core @ 2.84 GHz, 3x Cortex-A78 cores @ 2.42 GHz, and 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.80 GHz (via Anandtech) GPU – Adreno 660 GPU with support for OpenCL 2.0 FP, OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, DX12, and up to 8K 360 VR video playback DSP – Hexagon 780 processor with Vector eXtensions (HVX), Tensor Accelerator Qualcomm Sensing Hub Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine leveraging the GPU, DSP, […]

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