OpenBSD 6.2 Adds Support for Orange Pi PC 2, Firefly-RK3399

OpenBSD has been supporting 32-bit (ARMv7) and 64-bit (ARM64) ARM targets, but the just released OpenBSD 6.2 adds support for two more ARM64 boards: Orange Pi PC 2 and Firefly-RK3399. Those two add to the ARM64 list comprised of Raspberry Pi 3, Pine A64/A64+, and AMD Opteron A1100 based development board and SoftIron OverDrive 1000 servers. Other platforms based on Allwinner A64 & H5, and Rockchip RK3399 could likely also be supported. If you want to try it on your board, visit OpenBSD 6.2 ARM64 page to download the files: INSTALL.arm64 – Installation notes SHA256 – Output of the cksum(1) program using the option -a sha256, usable for verification of the correctness of downloaded files. SHA256.sig – The above file, signed with the OpenBSD signing key for the 6.2 release, usable for verification of the integrity of the above file, and thus of the downloaded files. miniroot62.fs – A miniroot […]

Flint OS is a Chromium OS Build for Raspberry Pi & Firefly-RK3288 Boards

Chromium OS for SBC aimed to bring Chromium operating systems to low cost development boards such as the Raspberry Pi 3 board, but the website is now down, and the developer announced he had stopped working on it several months ago due the hardware limitations of the Raspberry Pi 3 board. But others decided it was still worth the effort, and created Flint Innovation company (based in UK/China) to develop Flint OS, a build of Chromium OS with optimizations for Raspberry Pi 3 and Firefly-RK3288 boards with more boards likely coming soon. The developers also provide an x86 image, but after asking more details, it turns out they only changed the boot splash screen for now on the x86 image, with most of the early work done on Raspberry Pi board: At this moment our public Flint OS releases are still pretty much vanilla Chromium OS (we changed the boot […]

Firefly-RK3399 Rockchip RK3399 Development Board Launched on Kickstarter for $139 and Up

Firefly-RK3399 is the first, and for now the only one, development board equipped with the latest Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core Cortex A72 & A53 processor. It’s just not available yet, but the board has now been launched on Kickstarter where it is offered for $139 to $199 depending on options. Firefly-RK3399 board specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with dual core ARM Cortex A72 up to 2.0 GHz and quad core Cortex A53 processor with ARM Mali-T860 MP4 GPU with OpenGL 1.1 to 3.1 support, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL and DX 11 support System Memory Standard – 2 GB DDR3 Plus devkit – 4 GB DDR3 Storage Standard – 16 GB eMMC flash, micro SD card, M.2 socket Plus devkit – 32 GB eMMC flash, micro SD card, M.2 socket Video Output & Display Interfaces 1x HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60 Hz 1x DisplayPort (DP) 1.2 interface up to […]

Firefly-RK3399 Development Board Will Fly with Rockchip RK3399 Hexa-core Processor

ARM Cortex A72 class development boards are usually quite expensive, and cheaper boards like Mediatek X20 development board ($200) appears to be out of stock very often, and software support is limited to Android 6.0. But things look to improve soon, as T-Chip is about to release Firefly-RK3399 development board powered by Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core Cortex A72/A53 processor. Firefly-RK3399 (preliminary) specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core bit.LITTLE processor with dual core Cortex A72 up to 2.0 GHz and quad core Cortex A53 processor with ARM Mali-T860MP4 GPU with OpenGL 1.1 to 3.0 support, OpenVG 1.1, OpenCL and DX 11. System Memory – 2 to 4 GB DDR3 Storage – 16 to 32 GB eMMC flash + micro SD card Video Output & Display Interfaces – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60 Hz, eDP 1.2 interface, YUV interface, 1x MIPI DSI interface Video Decode – 4K VP9 and 10-bit H.265 […]

Multiple Videos Encoding and Decoding in Android on Firefly-RK3288 Development Board

Some applications like digital signage and video surveillance may require simultaneous video playback, and encoding to send over the network. ARM platforms may not be powerful enough to achieve those tasks with the processor only, but luckily many ARM SoCs include powerful video processing unit (VPU) capable of doing both hardware video encoding and decoding, leaving the CPU cores mostly free for other tasks. Firefly team has demoed such capabilities on their Firefly-RK3288 development board by displaying 7 videos on a single screen, including two previews from two USB cameras attached to the board, which are then encoded and decoded on the fly and displayed on the screen. The last three videos are played from 3 different files. So that means that 5 video decode and 2 video encode are running simultaneously.  The board can achieve 26 to 30fps with 720p videos, and around 13 to 15 fps with 1080p […]

Fireduino Arduino Compatible Board Features Rockchip RKnanoD Dual Core Cortex-M3 MCU (Crowdfunding)

Rockchip RKNanoD dual core Cortex M3 micro-controller was introduced last year for IoT and audio applications, and the Firefly team, known for their FirePrime or Firefly-RK3288 development boards, has designed an Arduino compatible board based on the MCU with lots of audio ports, Arduino headers, and WiFi connectivity. Fireduino specifications: MCU – Rockchip RKnanoD dual core ARM Cortex M3 MCU @ up to 250 MHz (system core) / 500 MHz (calculate core) with respectively 640 KB and 384 KB RAM Storage – 4 or 8MB SPI flash + micro SD slot Audio 24-bit/192 KHz audio codec (built in MCU) with HW accelerator for APE, FLAC, OGG, and MP3 audio decoding 1x 3.5mm analog audio jack 2x 3.5mm LINE In jacks 1x On-board microphone DLNA wireless audio support Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi via Ampak AP6181 module Expansion Arduino header with I2C, SPI, ADC, GPIO, PWM, UART LCD interface (Intel 8080 […]

Firefly-RK3288 Reload Board Features a SoM + Baseboard Design, Supports SATA, Three HDMI Ports, and More

Firefly-RK3288 was one the first boards powered by Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A17 processor, and now Firefly team, part of T-Chip technology, has provided a new version called Firefly-RK3288 Reload with the same processor, but more features, and thanks to design comprised of a carrier board and system-on-module (SoM) – connected via an MXM connector – suitable to people or companies wanting to create their own board without handing the complexity of the processor, memory, and storage part. The table below shows Firefly-RK3288 and Firefly RK3288 Reload specifications side-by side. Parameter Firefly-RK3288 (Plus) Firefly-RK3288 Reload SoC Rockchip RK3288 ARM Cortex-A17 quad core processor up to 1.8GHz with ARM Mali-T760 MP4 GPU RAM 2GB Dual-Channel DDR3 (Plus version is 4GB) 2GB Dual-Channel DDR3 Storage 16GB eMMC (Plus version is 32GB) MicroSD (TF) Card Slot 16GB eMMC MicroSD (TF) Card Slot SATA 2.0 (Suggest 2.5 inch SSD or HDD) PMU ACT8846 […]

Android 5.1 SDK Release for Rockchip RK3128 Based FirePrime Board

T-Firefly has just announced the release of Android 5.1 SDK for their newly announced Fireprime development board powered by Rockchip RK3128 quad core Cortex A7 processor. You can get the SDK (fireprime_android5.1_git_20150612.tar), a 6.1GB download with full source code for the board via Baidu or Google Drive, and then upgrade it to the latest version with git pull on the company’s bitbucket account as explained in the Wiki. The SDK must be specific to Fireprime board, but it should be feasible to use to create / modify Android 5.1 firmware for other RK3128 products. If you don’t need the source code, but would just like to install the firmware for Android 5.1, and the other image recently released (Ubuntu 15.04 Desktop or Server, or Android 5.1/Ubuntu 15.04 dual boot image)  via the links provided in the announcement. Thanks to Nanik for the tip. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design