Texas Instruments AM387X Sitara ARM Cortex A8 Microprocessors

Texas Instruments (TI) has introduced three new AM387x ARM Cortex-A8 microprocessors (MPUs): AM3871, AM3872 and AM3874. TI says these MPUs offer integration of the ARM Cortex-A8 core, peripherals for high-bandwidth connectivity (SATA, D-CAN, PCI Express (PCIe), Gigabit Ethernet switch and more), 3D graphics for enhanced GUIs and display subsystems for camera connectivity and viewing. The AM387x ARM Cortex-A8 MPU can connect to and control IP and CAN networks, HD displays, keyboard, mouse, PC, SD card and various general purpose peripherals, all via one highly integrated processor in an industrial automation application controlling a production line and a high-speed, shared data bus allows for reduced communication overhead and quick access to shared data, which results in reduced chip count, discrete memory costs and printed circuit board (PCB) space compared to separate solutions. Those MPUs are targeted at a variety of fanless applications such as: single board computing, network and communications processing, […]

AMD G-Series SDK and Development Boards

Earlier this year, AMD announced its new Embedded processors G-Series aimed at set-top boxes, smart tv, digital signage, point of sales, media servers and more in order to compete with Intel Atom solutions as well as ARM based processors. Please refer to the link above for an overview and details about the 5 processors of the AMD G-series: T56N – Dual core @ 1.6GHz with Radeon HD 6310 GPU T48N – Dual core @ 1.4 GHz with Radeon HD 6310 GPU T40N – Dual core @ 1.0 GHz with Radeon HD 6250 GPU T52R – Single core @ 1.5 GHz with Radeon HD 6310 GPU Today, I’ll discuss about the development boards and software development kits available for this platform. AMD G-Series Development Boards and Reference Designs AMD Provide two reference designs and one development board: AMD Embedded G-Series Platform Mini-ITX Reference Design. No details are publicly available as this […]

QSeven Form Factor Embedded Boards by Seco

QSeven is a new standard (QSeven Specifications 1.20) that provides pinout, electromechanical description and implementation guidelines so that the main boards (with the MPU) be easily exchanged. So that you can a larger board with all connectors and a QSeven boards based on Intel icore, Atom or other processors based on ARM that simply fits into that larger board. The QSeven concept is defined as follows: Qseven Concept The Qseven concept is an off-the-shelf, multi vendor, Single-Board-Computer that integrates all the core components of a common PC and is mounted onto an application specific carrier board. Qseven modules have a standardized form factor of 70mm x 70mm and have specified pinouts based on the high speed MXM system connector that has a standardized pinout regardless of the vendor. The Qseven module provides the functional requirements for an embedded application. These functions include, but are not limited to, graphics, sound, mass […]

Low Cost Freescale i.MX53 (Cortex A8) Development Board

Possibly inspired by Texas Instruments low cost Beagleboard (OMAP 3 – 129 USD) and Pandaboard (OMAP4 – 179 USD) and the large following in the development community, Freescale announced its own “Quick Start Development Board” based on i.MX53 for a cost of 149 USD. i.MX53 QSD Board Hardware Description Listed Hardware Features of the i.MX53 Quick Start Development Board: Processor i.MX53 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 Processor Power management IC 1 GB DDR3 memory Display LVDS connector VGA connector Parallel LCD add-on card (via expansion connector) HDMI add-on card (via expansion connector) Audio SPDIF output via HDMI add-on card Freescale SGTL5000 audio codec Microphone jack Headphone jack Expansion Connector Enables parallel LCD or HDMI output Camera CSI port signals I2C, SSI, SPI signals Connectivity Full-size SD/MMC card slot microSD card slot 7-pin SATA data connector 10/100 Base-T Ethernet port Two High-Speed USB host ports Micro USB device port Debug JTAG connector […]

Ziilabs ZMS-05 and ZMS-08 SDK and Development Boards

Ziilabs (originally 3DLABS) is Singapore company, subsidiary of Creative Technology, that provides media application processors for consumers electronics and has offices in the UK, China, USA and Singapore. Ziilabs Media Processors Overview Ziilabs has two media processors: ZMS-05 – A Low Power HD Programmable Media Rich Processor based on two ARM9 core (ARM9-EJS) mainly aimed at smartphones and tablets with the following media capabilities: High compute density SIMD architecture High resolution – decode to 1080p / 720p encode Simultaneous video encode/decode at D1 Wide rage of optimised CODECs and APIs Accelerated OpenGL ES 3D graphics Hardware compositing Advanced image processing 8 GFlops programmable compute ZMS-08 – A HD Media Rich Applications Processor based on an ARM Cortex A8 running @ 1GHz mainly aimed at media players, set-top boxes and digital signage solutions with the following media capabilities: Blu-ray Quality 1080p H.264 Video Decode 1080p H.264 Video Encode 720p H.264 Video […]

Freescale i.MX Overview, SDK and Development Boards

Freescale i.MX Processors Overview Freescale i.MX multimedia applications processors  are based on ARM9, ARM11 and ARM™ Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 core technologies “delivering an optimal balance of performance and long battery life for rich multimedia experiences on the go”. There are quite a few families within the Freescale i.MX Series namely: i.MXS Processors:ARM9 Core @ 100-200Mhz (i.MX1 (not recommended for new designs), i.MXL and i.MXS). i.MX21 Processors:  ARM9 Core @ 233-266Mhz (i.MX21 and i.MX21S) i.MX23 Processors: ARM9 Core @ 454 Mhz (i.MX233) i.MX25 Processors: ARM9 Core @ 400MHz for industrial and automotive applications  (i.MX251, i.MX253, i.MX255, i.MX257 and i.MX258) i.MX27 Processors: ARM9 Core @ 400Mhz for Video over IP, VoIP, Cordless and Mobile phones… (i.MX27 and i.MX27L) i.MX28 Processors: ARM9 Core @ 454 Mhz  for industrial and consumer applications (i.MX281, i.MX283, i.MX285, i.MX286 and i.MX287) i.MX31 Processors:  ARM11 Core @ 400-532 Mhz for industrial, consumer and automotive applications (i.MX31 and i.MX31L) […]

Qualcomm Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform Available

Qualcomm has just announced the SnapDragon Mobile Development Platform (MDP)  distributed by BSquare is now available for purchase. The development platform (SKU: EA-OBQ8655MDPAN) is based on Snapdragon MSM8655 and comes with Android 2.2. It costs 995.00 USD. The development kit contains: MDP device (preloaded with Qualcomm’s Deep Sea 3D UI, Qualcomm’s Power Profiling application (Trepn Profiler),  3D Graphics Adreno Profiler, Tactel’s Navigation application and SouthEnd Interactive’s ilomilo OpenGLES Game) 8GB SD card HDMI A/V USB cable Battery charger Quick Start Guide One hour of support Here are the MDP Technical Specifications: MSM8655 1 GHz central processing unit (CPU) 3.8″ WVGA Display HDMI port Multi-touch capacitive touch screen WVGA 3D/2D capable Adreno™ 205 graphics processing unit (GPU) 12MP Camera/Camcorder 720-pixel HD video decode and encode Stereo 16mm loudspeakers 512 MB of RAM (2x 32b ports) 4GB on-board Flash Keys: On/off key, Rotary wheel, including key press, Up to 6 side keys for […]

Resources for Atmel AT91SAM9: SAM926X, SAM9GXX, SAM9M1X, SAM9XE…

Atmel AT91SAM9 – or simply Atmel SAM9 – series are versatile microcontrollers and embedded microprocessors used in variety of products such as internet radios, embedded p2p downloaders, smart grid in-home displays, and much more. Atmel SAM9 series are divided into five subsets: The original SAM9 MCU based on ARM926EJ-S running at between 210 and 240 Mhz, namely AT91SAM9260, AT91SAM9261, AT91SAM9261S and AT91SAM9263 SAM9G eMPU (Embedded MPU) based on ARM926EJ-S, a new generation based on SAM9 MCU architecture but running at between 266 and 400Mhz: AT91SAM9G10, AT91SAM9G20, AT91SAM9G45 and AT91SAM9G46. SAM9M eMPU based on ARM926EJ-S clocked at 400Mhz and with a video decoder: AT91SAM9M10 and AT91SAM9M11 SAM9R MCU based on ARM926EJ-S running at 210 Mhz with similar characteristic as the original SAM9 MCU, except it does not support USB Host but can be used as a High Speed USB device: AT91SAM9R64 and AT91SAM9RL64 SAM9XE MCU are also based on ARM926EJ-S running […]