ARM and Qualcomm Release a New Guide About 32-bit to 64-bit SoCs

ARM and Qualcomm have been pretty successful with ARMv7 SoCs in the mobile space in recent years, and while 32-bit ARM (Aarch32) processors certainly have a few more years, both companies are now moving to 64-bit ARM (Aarch64 / ARMv8), and they released a document showing what has been achieved with ARMv7, the differences between ARMv7 and ARMv8, and new capabilities that will be attainable with 64-bit processing. The document covers the following: Introduction ARM Business Model The Mobile Computing Revolution (Tablets replacing Laptops) Android on ARMv7-A and ARMv8-A ARMv8-A Architecture Backward Compatibility to ARMv7-A ARM Cortex A-53 and Cortex-A57 ARM big.LITTLE Technology The Transition to the ARMv8-A Architecture (Fast Models, Tools, Linaro…) Qualcomm Technologies: Transitioning to 64-Bit with Integrated Mobile Design Custom and ARM Designed Processors: The Right Technology to Any Market Multiple Foundries, Flexible Production Flexible design practices in action (Performance, price point, development time. Snapdragon 410 vs […]

Inforce Computing IFC6540 Pico-ITX Board Features Qualcomm Snapdragon 805, High Speed Interfaces

Inforce Computing has been working the successor of their IF6410 development board based on Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC with IFC6540, another tiny board for Linux and Android, yet with interesting features such as 802.11ac, SATA III, USB 3.0 host and device connectors, and powered by the latest Snapdragon 805 quad core krait processor. IFC6540 specifications: SoC- Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 APQ8084 Quad core Krait 450 @ 2.5GHz with 2MB L2 cache, Adreno 420 GPU with OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0, OpenCL, and RenderScript support. System Memory – 2 GB LPDDR3 Storage – 4GB eMMC 4.5 (eMMC 5.0 also supported), 1 micro SD slot, and 1x SATA 3 interface Connectivity 802.11ac WiFi /ac (2.4 GHz/5 GH) + Bluetooth 4.1 via QCA6174 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet via AR8151 GPS via QCA1530 + GPS antenna connector Video and Audio Interfaces 1 x HDMI (Type D) Dual MIPI-DSI and Touch Screen 3.5mm headphone and Line In […]

Google Releases Android Wear SDK, LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live Smartwatches Are Now Available

I’ve just covered what’s new in Android L?, and I’m going to focus on Google I/O 2014’s announcements related by Android wear starting with hardware with LG G Watch ,and Samsung Gear smartwatches, followed by some details about the first official release of Android Wear SDK. LG G Watch Specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 @ 1.2 GHz System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – 4GB eMMC Display – 1.65” IPS display (280 x 280) Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.0 LE Sensors – 9-Axis (Gyro / Accelerometer / Compass) IP Rating – IP67 dust and water resistant Battery – Li-ion 400mAh Dimensions – 37.9 x 46.5 x 9.95 mm Weight – 62.5 grams LG G watch will run Android Wear (as it’s the subject of this post), and it currently available on Google Play for $229 (US only?) with shipping scheduled for early July. Samsung Gear Live Specifications: Processor – Unnamed […]

Amazon Fire Phone Features a Camera Array for Dynamic Perspectives, and Firefly Real-Life Object & Audio Recognition

Amazon first phone has been rumored for a few months, and yesterday Jeff Bezos finally unveiled the Fire Phone powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor @ 2.2 GHz, with 2 GB of RAM, a 4.7″  720p display. It also supports 3G and LTE cellular connectivity, and beside a 13MP rear camera, and 2MP front camera, it also features a specialized camera array with four sensors to offer “Dynamic Perspective” and show different information depending on the position of the phone. Beside the hardware, the most notable feature is Firefly an augmented reality application that can recognize objects you may want to buy, and automatically link them to the Amazon store. Let’s go through the hardware specifications first: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad core CPU @ 2.2 GHz with Adreno 330 GPU System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 32 GB or 64 GB Display – 4.7″ HD LCD display, […]

Linux 3.15 Released

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.15 last Sunday: So I ended up doing an rc8 because I was a bit worried about some last-minute dcache fixes, but it turns out that nobody seemed to even notice those. We did have other issues during the week, though, so it was just as well. The futex fixes and cleanups may stand out, but as usual there’s various other random fixes since rc8 in there too: mainly drivers (drm, networking, sound, usb etc), networking, scheduling and perf tooling. But it’s all been fairly small and quiet, which *may* of course be due to the fact that last week was also the first week of the merge window for 3.16. That might have distracted some developers. I’m not entirely convinced I liked the overlap, but it seemed to work ok, and unless people scream really loudly (“Please don’t _ever_ do that again”) and give good […]

Intel Atom Z3580 MooreField SoC Shown to Outperform Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 in Graphics Benchmark

This is not exactly an independent benchmark, as Intel provided the results showing an Intel Atom Z3580 SoC with PowerVR G6430  @ 533 MHz outperform a Snapdragon 801 with Adreno 330 GPU @ 578 MHz (Galaxy S5) in FutureMark’s 3DMark benchmark by 20997 to 18144, or a little over 15%.  We’ve seen several CPU benchmarks before where Intel often has a edge over ARM based solution, but the previous generation with Intel Graphics was a bit weak on the graphics side, and this test seems to confirm, the new Intel smartphone SoC should provide very good graphics performance. It appears Atom Z3580 might have also outperformed Snapdragon 805 with Adreno 420, as Anandtech reported an overall score of 19,698 in 3Dmarks with Qualcomm Snpadragon S805 mobile development platform (MDP), and noticed it was not the most GPU intensive test there is. So it’s still possible the higher score found on Intel’s […]

Meet Samsung Z, the First Tizen Smartphone

After many delays, even rumors that Tizen was dead, Samsung has finally announced the very first commercially available smartphone running Tizen mobile operating system with the Samsung Z, right before the Tizen Developer Conference which will take place in San Francisco, on June 2-4, 2014. Let’s go through the hardware specs first: SoC – Qualcomm SnapDragon 800 quad core application processor @ 2.3GHz System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16 GB flash + micro SD card slot (Up to 64GB) Display – 4.8” HD Super AMOLED (1280 x 720) Camera –  8MP(rear), 2.1MP (front) Cellular Network – LTE Cat.4 (150/50Mbps) Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n HT40, MIMO(2×2), Bluetooth 4.0 BLE, NFC, GPS / GLONAS USB – micro USB 2.0 Misc – IR sensor Sensors – Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, Hall, RGB ambient light, fingerprint scanner, heart rate sensor Battery – 2600mAh Dimensions – 138.2 x 69.8 x 8.5mm […]

Variscite VAR-SOM-SD600 System-on-Module Features Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8064 SoC

It turns out Compulab is not the only (Israeli) company to have announced a Qualcomm Snapdradon 600 CoM this month, as Variscite has unveiled VAR-SOM-SD600 system-on-module with Qualcomm APQ8064 quad core SoC, up to 2GB DDR3, up to 64GB eMMC, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth BLE connectivity, and various signals available via  a 314-pin MXM 3.0 connector. VAR-SOM-SD600 / VAR-SOM-APQ8064 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 (APQ8064) quad core Krait 300 processor @ 1.7GHz with Adreno 320 GPU and Hexagon QDSP6 DSP System Memory – Up to 2GB DDR3 (Options: 512 MB , 1024 MB) Storage – Up to 64GB on-board eMMC (Options: 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB). 2x SD / MMC and SATA 1.5Gbps interface (via connector) Display HDMI 1.3a, up to 1920 x 1080 LVDS, up to 2048 x 1536 24-bit DSI, up to 2048 x 1535 24-bit Audio – Headphone driver, analog/digital microphone, Line In/Out, I2S interface, WCD9311 audio codec. Camera […]