Amlogic S905X3 Specifications & Block Diagram

S905X3 Block Diagram

A few days ago, we wrote about upcoming quad core Cortex-A55 processors from Amlogic with S905X3, S905Y3, and S905D3 SoCs. Today, we got a little more information with a product brief including the main features, and a block diagram. Amlogic S905X3 is described as an “advanced application processor designed for hybrid OTT/ IP Set Top Box (STB) and high-end media box applications. Amlogic S905X3 specifications: CPU Sub-system Quad core Arm Cortex-A55 CPU with Armv8-A Neon and Crypto extension, 8-stage in-order full dual issue pipeline, unified system L3 cache Arm Cortex-M3 core for system control processing Optional Arm Cortex-M4 core for always-on processing TrustZone Internal QoS based switching fabrics Optional Neural Network Accelerator – 1.2 TOPS NN inference accelerator supporting TensorFlow and Caffe 3D Graphics Processing Unit – Arm Mali G31MP2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.0 and OpenCL 2.0 support 2.5D Graphics Processor Fast bitblt engine with […]

Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon 855 Hardware Development Kit

Snapdragon 855 HDK

Snapdragon 855 processor is found in premium smartphones such as Samsung Galaxy S10 or Xiaomi Mi 9, but Snapdragon 855 Mobile Hardware Development Kit has now started to show up on Qualcomm developer website. Beside the octa-core processor, the platform comes with WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, GNSS, Gigabit Ethernet, multiple MIPI DSI and CSI interfaces, DisplayPort over USB-C and HDMI outputs and more. Snapdragon 855 HDK preliminary specifications: SoC –  Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Octa-core processor with 1x Kryo 485 Gold Prime core at up to 2.8 GHz, 3x Kryo 485 Gold cores at up to 2.4 GHz, and 4x Kryo 485 Silver low-power cores at up to 1.7 GHz, Adreno 640 GPU System Memory – TBD Storage – TBD flash, micro SD card slot Video Output 2x MIPI 4-lane DSI + touch panel 1x HDMI DisplayPort over USB 3.1 type-C port Camera Input – 3x MIPI 4-lane CSI with support […]

Phicomm N1 Android 7.1 TV Box Supports Multiple Linux Distributions

Phicomm N1

I like to look at new hardware platforms supported by Linux mainline, and recently covered MapleBoard MP130 SBC which I found in Linux 5.0 changelog.  Today, I had a look at another device. Phicomm N1 is an Amlogic S905D powered TV box running Android 7.1 with a user interface geared towards to the Chinese market. Nothing that interesting so far, but a topic on Armbian forums made it more interesting as the box comes with a larger heatsink than most other cheap TV boxes, a 12V/2A power supply which should allow you to connect several USB hard drives, and potentially more importantly, it became popular among Chinese users, with the community releasing several Linux based distributions for the device including  CoreELEC, LibreELEC, Alpine Linux, CentOS, Debian, Deepin, ArchLinux Arm, and more. Phicomm N1 hardware specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905D quad core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-450 […]

4Kopen UHD Video Development Platform Features STMicro STiH418 Media Processor

4Kopen

Back in 2016, I read news about STMicro exiting the set-top box chipset market, so I just assumed all their STiHxx processors would be phased out, and I was surprised to come across 4Kopen, described as an open 4K UHD video development platform powered by STMicro STiH418 media processor, especially it was just showcased at 2019 Integrated Systems Europe (ISE 2019) at the beginning of the month. The development board comes with 2 GB RAM, HDMI 2.0 output, HDMI 1.4 input, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, a mini PCIe slot fitted with an 802.11b/g/n WiFi module, an eSATA connector and more. 4Kopen (B2264) hardware specifications: SoC – STMicro STiH418 quad-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor @ 1.2 GHz,  quad-core Mali-400 GPU, and 4x ST231 DSP (Each Core Quad issue) @ 650 MHz System Memory – 2 GB DDR3 @ 2133 MHz Storage – micro SD socket, eSATA port Video & Audio I/O Output […]

Banana Pi BPI-M4 Board Comes with RTD1395 Processor, M.2 Socket, Raspberry Pi 3B+ Form Factor

Banana Pi BPI-M4

Realtek RTD1395 processor is a lower cost version of RTD1295 / RTD1296 processors found in mid-range TV boxes often including HDMI input and output such as Zidoo X9s or LAKE I Home Cloud. The new processor comes with a lower-end Mali-470MP4 GPU and removed some interfaces like HDMI input and native SATA. So far, we had seen very few hardware platforms built around the processor, but SinoVoIP has just unveiled their latest Banana Pi BPI-M4 board powered by Realtek RTD1395 processor, following Raspberry Pi 3B+ form factor, and adding an M.2 key E socket with PCIe 2.0 and USB 2.0 signals. Banana Pi BPI-M4 specifications: SoC – Realtek RTD1395 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Mali-470 MP4 GPU System Memory – 1 GB DDR4 (option 2 GB) Storage – 8G eMMC flash (max 64 GB), micro SD slot up to 256GB Video Output – 1x HDMI 2.0 port up to 1080p […]

LIVA Q2 Review – ECS Micro PC Tested with Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.10

ECS LIVA Q2 Teardown

ECS (Elitegroup Computer Systems) is a Taiwanese company that has been offering mini PCs for several years now. Last year they announced their ‘pocket-sized’ model the LIVA Q. Originally featuring Apollo Lake SoCs it has now been upgraded and renamed as the LIVA Q2 and offers a choice of Gemini Lake SoCs. The distinguishing feature of the LIVA Q series however is the form-factor. Compared with Intel Compute ‘stick’ PCs and Intel NUC ‘mini’ PCs the LIVA Q2 is a ‘micro’ PC. This micro PC is like a minimalist mini PC that includes just the minimum number of useful ports namely a couple of USB ports (3.1 and 2.0) on one side, a micro SD card slot on another and finally an HDMI (2.0) and gigabit Ethernet at the rear. The resultant micro PC is beautifully small consisting of a 70mm (2.76″) square case by 33.4mm (1.31”) tall which can […]

Kodi 18 “Leia” Released Ahead of FOSDEM 2019

Kodi 18 Leia

As one should have expected based on the abstract of the upcoming Kodi presentation at FOSDEM 2019, Kodi 18 “Leia” has just been released a few days before the 2-day open source developer event. It’s been nearly two years since the release of Kodi 17 “Krypton”, and it took a little longer than initially expected for Kodi 18 to become stable enough for an official since there have been so many changes including half a million lines of code added by 36 open source developers, close to 10,000 commits for almost 9,000 changed files. Some of the improvements in Kodi 18 include: Retroplayer gaming with support for gaming emulators, ROMs and game controls. Digital Rights Management (DRM) decryption support to play subscription content Improved Music Library with better filtering, faster API access, and more Live TV improvements including support for new back-ends like Zattoo, Teleboy, and Sledovanitv.cz, as well as enhanced […]

iCatch V37 4K AI Camera Processor Features a Neural Processing Unit (NPU)

iCatch V37

Taiwan based iCatch Technology has recently announced iCatch V37 SoC for AI camera applications. The processor can capture 4Kp30 video thanks to the company’s 7th generation image signal processor (ISP) and H.264 high-performance encoder, and includes a neural processing unit (NPU) to enable features such as people detection. The V37 series includes V37A and V37M, where V37M has an embedded DRAM in the package to enable smaller form factor designs. iCatch V37 4K AI camera SoC key features: 32-bit RISC CPU Dual CIS Support HDR Combination 5-axis Electronic Image Stabilization Dewarping Engine Video Noise Reduction (MCTF) Rolling Shutter Compensation H.264 4Kp30 Video Encode Neural Processing Unit Security Engine USB 2.0, HDMI v1.4b, GMAC External WiFi/BT Support The SoC can be used to design products such as digital still camera (DSC), action camera, 360° VR Camera, digital video recorder (DVR), home security camera, or body worn camera. One example of use […]