arm News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 13, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Linux 7.0 Release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 7.0 on LKML: The last week of the release continued the same “lots of small fixes” trend, but it all really does seem pretty benign, so I’ve tagged the final 7.0 and pushed it out. I suspect it’s a lot of AI tool use that will keep finding corner cases for us for a while, so this may be the “new normal” at least for a while. Only time will tell. Anyway, this last week was a little bit of everything: networking (core and drivers), arch fixes, tooling and selftests, and various random fixes all over the place. Let’s keep testing, and obviously tomorrow the merge window for 7.1 opens. I already have four dozen pull requests pending – thank you to all the early people. Linus This follows the Linux 6.19 release about two months ago, which brought us PCIe link encryption and […]

April 8, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

ASUS Zenbook A16 – A $1699 Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme CoPilot+ laptop

ASUS Zenbook A16 is one of the first Copilot+ PCs/laptops based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme 18-core Armv9 SoC and is now available for $1,699 on BestBuy or $1,999 on the ASUS website. The laptop features a 16-inch “3K” OLED with touchscreen, 48GB of RAM, a 1TB NVMe SSD, HDMI 2.1 video output, WiFi 7 and Bluetooth connectivity, and a few Thunderbolt and USB ports. ASUS Zenbook A16 (UX3607) specifications: SoC – Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (X2E-96-100) CPU – 18x Armv9 cores with 12 Prime cores up to 5.0 GHz (single/dual core) / 4.4 GHz (multicore), and 6 Efficiency cores up to 3.6 GHz GPU – Adreno X2-90 @ 1.85 GHz with support for DirectX 12.2 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, OpenCL 3.0 VPU Encode: HEVC, AVC: Dual 8K UHD @ 30 FPS, AV1: 8K UHD @ 15 FPS, UHD @ 60 FPS Decode: AV1, HEVC, AVC: Dual 8K @ 60 […]

March 30, 2026March 30, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

PineTime Pro smartwatch to feature dual-core Cortex-M33 MCU, 2.13-inch AMOLED, GPS, and more

Pine64 has announced progress on the PineTime Pro smartwatch, powered by a dual-core Cortex-M33 microcontroller with Bluetooth 5.2 Classic and LE and 800KB SRAM. The watch also features a 2.13-inch AMOLED display, GPS support, a heart rate monitor, and a 6-axis motion sensor. It’s an upgrade to the PineTime project unveiled in September 2019, and one of the most popular Pine64 devices thanks to open-source software projects such as InfiniTime firmware. For reference, the PineTime ships with a Nordic nRF52 Arm Cortex-M4 Bluetooth MCU with 64 KB SRAM, a 1.3-inch IPS display, and basic HRM and accelerometer. The PineTime Pro is a massive upgrade that should support a wider range of firmware. PineTime Pro specifications: SoC – Unnamed wireless MCU CPU – Arm Cortex-M33 MCU @ up to 200 MHz Memory – 800 KB SRAM Wireless – Bluetooth 5.2 Classic (BR/EDR) & Low Energy (additional Cortex-M33) Memory – 8 MB […]

March 23, 2026March 23, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

CIX ClawCore Armv9.2 CPU family targets OpenClaw deployments

OpenClaw was just introduced a few months ago, but we’ve already seen several low-footprint implementations, and some companies even ship mini PCs preloaded with OpenClaw. But today, I was just informed that CIX had gone further, and introduced the ClawCore Armv9.2 CPU family specifically designed/optimized for OpenClaw. The family will be comprised of three main SKUs: ClawCore-P (勁螯芯 “Powerful Claw”) – High-performance model with 12-core CPU @ 3.2GHz, Immortalis-G720 GPU, 45 TOPS AI compute, and support for up to 64GB LPDDR5 RAM. Aimed at high-parallelism, large-capacity scenarios. Shipping starts now in March 2026. ClawCore-A (智螯芯 “AI/Smart Claw”) – Octa-core CPU @ 3.0GHz, 80 TOPS AI compute (expandable to 200 TOPS via PCIe AI card), up to 64GB LPDDR5. It’s designed for 24/7 use, supports full-chain ECC, hardware security (encryption/key management), and enables up to 50% reduction in model token costs via local inference. In practise, 80 to 90% of requests […]

March 19, 2026March 19, 2026 by Debashis Das - 2 Comments

Clintech Pico – The first Raspberry Pi RP2354B board offers 48 GPIOs in Raspberry Pi Pico form factor

Designed by Clintech Ltd. in Bulgaria, the Clintech Pico Board appears to be the first development board based on the Raspberry Pi RP2354B chip with 2MB on-chip flash. It retains the same form factor as a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 but adds extra GPIOs to make use of the 48 general-purpose GPIOs provided by the RP2354B chip. Like the Raspberry Pi Pico 2, this board features 40 castellated and through holes on the sides, exposing GPIOs 0–22 and 26–28, along with 3 debug pins. Additionally, the board includes 27 extra on-board through holes that break out the remaining GPIOs (23–25 and 29–47) as well as the QSPI interface (SD0–SD3 and SCLK) for external memory. Clintech Pico specifications: SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2354B CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot Dual-core 32-bit RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz (3-stage in-order pipeline; RV32IMAC with Zba, Zbb, Zbs, Zbkb, Zcb, Zcmp, and […]

February 24, 2026February 24, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

GyroidOS virtualization solution aims to secure embedded devices, ease cybersecurity certification

Maintained by Fraunhofer AISEC, GyroidOS is an open-source, multi-arch OS-level virtualization solution designed for embedded devices with hardware security features, and aiming to support security certification processes such as Common Criteria (ISO/IEC 15408), DIN SPEC 27070 – IDS Trust Security profile, and IEC-62443 cybersecurity standards. The virtualization layer is based on Linux-specific features like namespaces, cgroups, and capabilities to provide isolation of different guest operating system stacks on top of a single, shared Linux kernel. It offers a much smaller footprint and additional separation of privileged instances compared to other container solutions, such as Docker. GyroidOS security features Container isolation based on a modularized OS-level virtualization layer Secure boot (e.g., UEFI on x86) Kernel module signing Signed GuestOSes (containers) Measured boot and remote attestation Full disk encryption coupled to TPM and secure boot Restriction of superuser in containers with Linux capabilities Fine-grained device access with device cgroups whitelists Secure Element […]

February 10, 2026February 10, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

PicoClaw ultra-lightweight personal AI Assistant runs on just 10MB of RAM

PicoClaw lightweight personal AI Assistant embedded systems

PicoClaw is an ultra-lightweight personal AI Assistant designed to work on less than 10 MB RAM and suitable for resource-constrained embedded boards such as the Sipeed LicheeRV Nano SBC going for around $15 and powered by a SOPHGO SG2002 RISC-V SoC with 256MB on-chip DDR3. I keep reading news about the OpenClaw personal AI assistant, after first finding out about it when the Cubie A7S SBC was launched. OpenClaw (previously ClawdBot) clears your inbox, sends emails, manages your calendar, and checks you in for flights from WhatsApp, Telegram, or any chat app. It’s been shown to run a range of hardware platforms, but it can be resource-intensive, and HKUDS created the nanobot ultra-lightweight personal AI assistant with about ~4,000 lines of Python code, or roughly 99% smaller than Clawdbot’s 430k+ lines. PicoClaw further builds on the nanobot project, and has been “refactored from the ground up in Go through a […]

February 9, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Linux 6.19 Release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 6.19 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): No big surprises anywhere last week, so 6.19 is out as expected – just as the US prepares to come to a complete standstill later today watching the latest batch of televised commercials. The betting man would expect them all to be AI-generated, but maybe some enterprising company decides to buck the trend? Doubtful, but there’s always a slight chance. But for anybody outside the US, maybe taking the newest kernel out for a spin instead is an option? I have more than three dozen pull requests for when the merge window opens tomorrow – thank you to all the early maintainers. And as people have mostly figured out, I’m getting to the point where I’m being confused by large numbers (almost running out of fingers and toes again), so the next kernel is going to […]