development board

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Wandboard Development Boards Get Android 6.0 Marshmallow Support

Wandboard Development Boards Get Android 6.0 Marshmallow Support

Wandboard development boards powered by Freescale i.MX6 Solo, Dual and Quad Cortex A9 processors were released over 3 years ago with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Contrary to many other boards that don’t get an updated version, Wandboard boards got support for Android 4.4 Kitkat, Android 5.x Lollipop, and now the community has recently released Android 6.0 Marshmallow. You can try the Android 6.0 SD card image as follows:

Where /dev/sdX is the device for your SD card. If you can remember the first Jellybean release had separate images for each version of the board, but thanks to device tree implementation, a single image is now released with all three versions. The full source code is also available in a 5.0 GB tarball. Since Freescale, now NXP, i.MX6 processors will be available until November 2022, we can most probably expect a few more Android releases for the board. Jean-Luc Aufranc […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments on NanoPC-T3 Octa-core Cortex A53 Single Board Computer Sells for $60

NanoPC-T3 Octa-core Cortex A53 Single Board Computer Sells for $60

FriendlyARM launched NanoPC-T2 single board computer based on Samsung 5P4418 quad core Cortex A9 processor about 3 months ago, and the company has now an update based on Samsung S5P6818 Octa-Core A53 processor with the exact same interfaces and features including Gigabit Ethernet, WiFI, and Bluetooth, HDMI 1.4a, 30-pin expansion headers, etc… NanoPC-T3 specifications: SoC – Samsung S5P6818 octa core Cortex A53 processor @ up to 1.4GHz with Mali-400MP GPU System Memory – 1 or 2GB 32bit DDR3 RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, and 1x SD card slot Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet (RTL8211E), 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth LE 4.0 (Ampak AP6212) with on-board chip antenna and IPX antenna connector Video Output / Display I/F- 1x HDMI 1.4a, LVDS, MIPI DSI, parallel RGB LCD Audio I/O – HDMI, 3.5mm audio jack, on-board microphone Camera – 1x DVP interface, 1x MIPI CSI interface USB – 2x USB 2.0 type A host […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Tibbo Project System is a Modular Linux IoT Prototyping Platform based on TI Sitara Cortex A8 Processor

Tibbo Project System is a Modular Linux IoT Prototyping Platform based on TI Sitara Cortex A8 Processor

If you’ve found yourself needing to quickly demo a system that does not look like a mess of wire to a customer, or your project is requires low production volumes, making the cost of designing your own and mass-producing the hardware prohibitive, Tibbo Project System might be worth looking into. It features an almost bare board powered by Texas Instruments Sitara processor, and a large area for Tibbit blocks to add features as needed, as well as an enclosure. Size 3 Linux Project PCB (LTPP3) specifications: SoC – Texas Instruments Sitara AM335x Cortex A8 processor up to 1.0 GHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – 512 MB NAND flash, 2KB EEPROM, optional micro SD slot Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet (RJ45), optional WiFi (via LW1000 module) and GPRS connectivity (via Tibbit #47) Expansion – 51 I/Os: 7x tiles 14x sockets for Tibbit module including 4x with UART capability up […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Inforce 6601 micro SoM Snapdragon 820 System-on-Module Embeds WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS

Inforce 6601 micro SoM Snapdragon 820 System-on-Module Embeds WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS

We’ve already seem Intrinsyc’s Snapdragon 820 development board and module, but there’s now an alternative thanks to Inforce Computing 6601 micro SoM  which is pin-to-pin compatible to the company’s earlier Inforce 6401 and Inforce 6501 Micro SOMs, also based on Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, and works with the same SYS6501 carrier board. Inforce Computing 6601 Micro SoM specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 (APQ8096) quad core ARMv8 processor with two “Gold” cores up to 2.2 GHz, two “Silver” cores up to 1.6 GHz, Adreno 530 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, and Vulkan, as well as  Hexagon 680 DSP  up to 825 MHz System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 @ 1866 MHz Storage – 64GB UFS 2.0 gear 3 flash up to 5.83Gbps, 1x micro SD card 3.0 interface for support for to HS400,  optional eMMC 5.1 flash. Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.1 & 2×2 dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Getting Started with MPLAB Xpress Board and Online IDE

Getting Started with MPLAB Xpress Board and Online IDE

Microchip launched MPLAB Xpress online IDE and board earlier this year, and as part of the launch they offered 2,000 free boards. I joined the program and received my board. The keyword for the board is “Xpress”, as you should be able to get started in mere minutes thanks to the operating system agnostic online IDE that works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. That also means you don’t need to install any other tool. All you need is a web browser. MPLAB Xpress Board Let’s start by quickly checking out the package, board, and offline documentation. Once you open the package, you’ll get the board, a folded sheet of paper for the schematics, and some information on the package itself with the pinout diagram, and a quick start guide explaining that the board acts as a mass storage device, and all you need is a web browser for […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Chromium OS for SBC Aims to Turn Popular Development Boards into Chromeboxes

Chromium OS for SBC Aims to Turn Popular Development Boards into Chromeboxes

A team of developer has come together last December in order to provide Chromium OS, the open source project which Chrome OS is based on, to single board computers such as Raspberry Pi boards. So far, they’ve provided Chromium OS images for Raspberry Pi 2 & 3, but more boards should be supported in the future. The latest version 0.5 release is said to be usable, but WiFi, Netflix, and HTML5 video are not working. The installation procedure is standard. You simply need to download and uncompress the archive (e.g. SamKinison_v0.5_Pi3_16GB.tar.xz), and dump it on a micro SD card with Win32DiskImage or dd. They have released different images for Raspberry Pi 2 & 3, and different SD card sizes (2GB and 16GB). Chromium OS is using 12 partitions, so that may be why they don’t provide a single image and resize the file system during the first time. You can […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 35 Comments on Orange Pi Plus 2E Development Board with Gigabit Ethernet, 2GB RAM & 16GB eMMC Flash to Sell for $35

Orange Pi Plus 2E Development Board with Gigabit Ethernet, 2GB RAM & 16GB eMMC Flash to Sell for $35

Shenzhen Xunlong has been pretty busy churning out new boards over the last few months and years, but is still not active on the software side. However these days, it’s not that bad thanks to Armbian community which provides Debian based images, and supports Allwinner H3 boards pretty well. The company is now about to launch Orange Pi Plus 2E, based on Orange Pi Plus 2 which comes with 2GB RAM, but at a lower cost, by removing SATA, the need for a USB hub chip, and the camera connector, while still managing to upgrade the eMMC flash capacity to 16 GB. Orange Pi Plus 2E specifications with differences in bold or stricken through: SoC – Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.3 GHz with ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC, micro SD card slot, SATA interface (via a […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 450 Comments on PINE A64+ Board Giveaway

PINE A64+ Board Giveaway

PINE A64 and A64+ board are incredibly inexpensive, but still not free, so when PINE64 asked if they could give eight PINE64+ boards with 1GB RAM and the WiFi & Bluetooth module to CNX Software readers, I thought it was not a bad idea, and I’ve decided to organize a giveaway. The eight boards given away will have the following specs: SoC – Allwinner A64 quad core ARM Cortex A53 processor @ 1.2 GHz with Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 1 GB DDR3 Storage – micro SD slot supporting up to 256 GB Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 4K resolution @ 30 Hz, and 4-lane MIPI DSI connector and touch panel connector Audio – HDMI, 3.5 mm headphone jack Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet + WiFi & Bluetooth module USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports Camera – MIPI CSI camera interface Expansion – 40-pin Raspberry Pi 2 compatible […]