$349 AMD Kria KR260 Robotics Starter Kit takes on NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier devkit

AMD Kria KR260 Robotics Starter Kit

AMD Xilinx Kria KR260 Robotics Starter Kit features the Kria K26 Zynq UltraScale+ XCK26 FPGA MPSoC system-on-module (SoM) introduced last year together with the Kria KV260 Vision AI Starter Kit. Designed as a development platform for robotics and industrial applications, the KR260 is said to deliver nearly 5x productivity gain, up to 8x better performance per watt and 3.5x lower latency compared to Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier or Jetson Nano kits. We’ll have a better look at the details below. Kria KR260 Robotics Starter Kit specifications: SoM – Kria K26 module with: MPSoC – Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ custom-built XCK26 with quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor  up to 1.5GHz, dual-core Arm Cortex-R5F real-time processor up to 600MHz, Mali-400 MP2 GPU up to 667MHz, 4Kp60 VPU, 26.6Mb On-Chip SRAM, 256K logic cells, 1,248 DSP slices, 144 Block RAM blocks, 64 UltraRAM blocks System Memory – 4GB 64-bit DDR4 (non-ECC) Storage – 512 Mbit […]

ZUBoard 1CG – A low-cost AMD Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ ZU1CG MPSoC FPGA development board

ZUBoard 1CG development board

Avnet ZUBoard 1CG is a development board featuring the new entry-level AMD Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ ZU1CG dual-core Cortex-A53 MPSoC with 81K FPGA system logic cells, equipped with 1GB LPDDR4 RAM, as well as SYZYGY connectors and mikroBus expansion for Click boards. Priced at $159, the board may offer a good opportunity to get started with Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC, as it’s quite cheaper than boards based on ZU3 devices such as Ultra96-V2 or MYD-CZU3EG. Avnet says the board is suitable for artificial intelligence, machine learning, embedded vision, embedded processing, and robotics applications. ZUBoard 1CG specifications: SoC – AMD/Xilinx ZU+ MPSoC ZU1CG with Dual Cortex-A53 APU @ up to 1.3 GHz and dual Cortex-R5 RPU @ up to 533 MHz 256KB On-chip Memory 81,900 FPGA Logic Cells System Memory – 1GB LPDDR4 with on-chip ECC Storage – 256Mbit QSPI flash, microSD card, both bootable Networking –  10/100/1000M Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port USB […]

OSZU3 System-in-Package (SiP) combines AMD Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC with 2GB RAM, PMIC, passive components

OSZU3 system-in-package

Octavo Systems has collaborated with AMD Xilinx for the OSZU3 system-in-package (SiP) that combines Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ZU3 with up to 2GB RAM, power management circuitry, and other components into a compact (40×20.5mm) 600-ball BGA package. We’ve already written about other Octavo Systems SiPs in the past with solutions like OSD3358x (TI Sitara AM3358) and OSD32MP15x (STMicro STM32MP1), but the OSZU3 packs a much more powerful and flexible chip with the AMD Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC offering both Cortex-A53 & Cortex-R5F cores, Arm Mali-400 GPU, and FPGA fabric.   Octavo Systems OSZU3 SiP specifications: SoC – AMD Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ZU3 with CPU – 4x Arm Cortex-A53 up to 1.2GHz, 2x Arm Cortex-R5F up to 500MHz GPU – Arm Mali-400 FPGA 154K System Logic Cells 141K Flip-Flops 71K CLB LUTs 360 DSP Slices 7.6 Mb Block RAM System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 Storage – 128MB SQPI, and 4K EEPROM (by […]

FOSDEM 2022 schedule with embedded Linux, IoT, automotive… sessions

FOSDEM 2022

While typically taking place in Brussels, Belgium, FOSDEM 2022 will take place online just like FOSDEM 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions. The good news is that it means anybody can attend it live from anywhere in the world, and makes it more like “FOSDIM”, replacing European with International, in “Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting”. FOSDEM 2022 will take place on February 5-6 with 637 speakers, 718 events, and 103 tracks. I’ve made my own little virtual schedule below mostly with sessions from the Embedded, Mobile and Automotive devroom, but also other devrooms including “Computer Aided Modeling and Design”, “FOSS on Mobile Devices”, “Libre-Open VLSI and FPGA”, and others.   Saturday, February 5, 2022 12:30 – 13:00 – Five mysteries in Embedded Linux by Josef Holzmayr Once you start out in embedded Linux, there is a lot to do. Some things are obvious, some less so. First and foremost, […]

Linux 5.16 Release – Main Changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 5.16 release

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.16: Not a lot here since -rc8, which is not unexpected. We had that extra week due to the holidays, and it’s not like we had lots of last-minute things that needed to be sorted out. So this mainly contains some driver fixes (mainly networking and rdma), a cgroup credential use fix, a few core networking fixes, a couple of last-minute reverts, and some other random noise. The appended shortlog is so small that you might as well scroll through it. This obviously means that the merge window for 5.17 opens tomorrow, and I’m happy to say I already have several pending early pull requests. I wish I had even more, because this merge window is going to be somewhat painful due to unfortunate travel for family reasons. So I’ll be doing most of it on the road on a laptop […]

Mercury+ XU6 Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ module is optimized for I/O-intensive applications

Mercury-XU6 Zynq Ultrascale+ SoM

Enclustra, a company headquartered in Switzerland specializing in FPGA solutions, has recently announced the launch of the Mercury+ XU6 system-on-module based on Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC. The module is optimized for I/O-intensive applications with up to 294 user I/Os, up to eight 6/12.5 Gbps multi-gigabit transceivers, and available with six different variants of Xilinx MPSoC. The company also offers Mercury+ ST1 and PE1 baseboards for evaluation and early software development. Mercury+ XU6 SoM Key features and specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC (ZU2CG, ZU2EG, ZU3EG, ZU4CG, ZU4EV, or ZU5EV) with: CPU ARM dual-/quad-core Cortex-A53 processor  up to 1333 MHz ARM dual-core Cortex-R5 up to 533 MHz GPU – Mali-400MP2 GPU (only for EG/EV variants) Video Codecs – H.264 / H.265 Video Codec (only for EV variants) FPGA fabric – Up to 256,000 system logic cells System Memory – Up to 8 GB DDR4 ECC SDRAM (PS side) Storage – […]

Xilinx Introduces Kria K26 SoM and vision AI devkit based on Zynq Ultrascale+ XCK26 FPGA MPSoC

Kria V260 Vision AI Starter Kit

Silicon vendors will usually focus on chip design, and provide an expensive evaluation kit to early customers, leaving the design of cost-optimized boards and system-on-modules to embedded systems companies. But Xilinx has decided to enter the latter market with the Kria portfolio of adaptive system-on-modules (SOMs) and production-ready small form factor embedded boards starting with Kria K26 SoM powered by Zynq UltraScale+ XCK26 FPGA MPSoC with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor, up to 250 thousand logic cells, and a H.264/265 video codec designed for Edge AI applications, as well as computer vision development kit. Kria K26 System-on-Module Kria K26 module specifications: MPSoC – Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ custom-built XCK26 with quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor  up to 1.5GHz, dual-core Arm Cortex-R5F real-time processor up to 600MHz, Mali-400 MP2 GPU up to 667MHz, 4Kp60 VPU, 26.6Mb On-Chip SRAM, 256K logic cells, 1,248 DSP slices System Memory – 4GB 64-bit DDR4 (non-ECC) Storage – […]

Linux 5.12 – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.12

Linux 5.12 release was expected last Sunday, but Linus Torvalds decided to release one more release candidate, namely Linux 5.12-RC8, to “make sure things are all settled down“, so the latest Linux kernel is now expected this weekend.  Tihs should not yield any significant changes, so we can check what’s new in Linux 5.12, notably with regards to Arm, MIPS, and RISC-V architectures often used in SoC’s found in embedded systems. Around two months ago, the release of Linux 5.11 added support for Intel’s software guard extensions (SGX) and Platform Monitoring Technology (PMT), AMD “Van Gogh” and “Dimgrey cavefish” graphics processors, MIPI I3C host controller interfaces, and much more. Some interesting changes in Linux 5.12 include: Added support for ACRN hypervisor designed for IoT & embedded devices Added support for Playstation DualSense & Nintendo 64 game controllers, as well as Nintendo 64 data cartridges Dynamic thermal power management via a […]