laptop News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

October 4, 2022October 5, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Alibaba T-Head TH1520 RISC-V processor to power the ROMA laptop

The ROMA RISC-V laptop was announced this summer with an unnamed RISC-V processor with GPU and NPU. We now know it will be the Alibaba T-Head TH1520 quad-core Xuantie C910 processor clocked at up to 2.5GHz with a 4 TOPS NPU, and support for 64-bit DDR at up 4266 MT. The TH1520 is born out of the Wujian 600 platform unveiled by Alibaba in August 2022, and is capable of running desktop-level applications such as Firefox browser and LibreOffice office suite on OpenAnolis open-source Linux-based operating system launched by Alibaba in 2020. So that means we now have a better idea of the specifications of the ROMA RISC-V developer laptop: SoC – Alibaba T-Head quad-core RISC-V Xuantie C910 processor @ 2.5 GHz, unnamed Imagination GPU for graphics, 4 TOPS NPU for AI System Memory – Up to 16GB LPDDR4/LPDDR4X RAM Storage – Up to 256GB eMMC flash Display – 14.1-inch […]

October 3, 2022October 3, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Linux 6.0 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.0 has just been released by Linus Torvalds: So, as is hopefully clear to everybody, the major version number change is more about me running out of fingers and toes than it is about any big fundamental changes. But of course there’s a lot of various changes in 6.0 – we’ve got over 15k non-merge commits in there in total, after all, and as such 6.0 is one of the bigger releases at least in numbers of commits in a while. The shortlog of changes below is only the last week since 6.0-rc7. A little bit of everything, although the diffstat is dominated by drm (mostly amd new chip support) and networking drivers. And this obviously means that tomorrow I’ll open the merge window for 6.1. Which – unlike 6.0 – has a number of fairly core new things lined up. But for now, please do give this most […]

August 14, 2022August 14, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

BITBLAZE Titan BM15 Arm Linux laptop features Baikal-M1 processor

Russian company Prombit has unveiled the BITBLAZE Titan BM15 Arm Linux Laptop equipped with Baikal-M1 octa-core Arm Cortex-A57 processor manufactured by TSMC, up to 128GB RAM, SSD storage, and a 15.6-inch Full HD display. Baikal-M1, also called Baikal-M, was already found in desktop PCs and All-in-One Arm Linux computers launched last year for the Russian government and businesses, but I think it’s the first time it shows up in a laptop. BITBLAZE Titan BM15 specifications: SoC – Baikal M1 ((BE-M1000) octa-core Cortex-A57 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-T628 GPU; 28nm manufacturing process System Memory – 16GB RAM, upgradeable up to 128 GB thanks to the two SO-DIMM DDR4 sockets [Update: Our previous article about Baikal M1 only showed the processor to support up to 32GB RAM, and 64GB DDR4 SO-DIMM modules don’t seem to exist, so the 128GB claim appears to be an error] Storage – 250 […]

August 11, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

CrowPi L Review – Part 2: Learn programming and electronics with a Raspberry Pi 4 laptop

CrowPi L review learn programming electronics

In the first part of our review of CrowPi L Raspberry Pi 4 laptop for education, we checked the hardware and accessories such as the CrowTail starter kit with various sensors and other electronics modules, and showed how to install or remove the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC from the laptop shell. I’ve now had more time to play with the educational software, so I’ll report my experience with the laptop when learning game design and hardware control with Letscode visual programming IDE, as well as the Python lessons for more advanced students. Reinstalling CrowPi OS image It’s the rainy season here in Thailand meaning it’s both hot and humid, and even though I’m not entirely sure it’s related, I recently had to reinstall Raspberry Pi OS on one of my Raspberry Pi with a corrupted SD card. It happened again with the CrowPi L after I left it in its […]

July 19, 2022August 11, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

CrowPi L Raspberry Pi 4 laptop review – Part 1: Unboxing and teardown

CrowPi L Raspberry Pi Education Laptop Review

Elecrow CrowPi L is an 11.6-inch laptop shell based on Raspberry Pi 4 designed for STEM education with optional electronics modules and tutorials. That’s an evolution of the CrowPi 2 laptop I reviewed in 2020 with a thinner design and more flexible since the electronics modules are optional, so it can serve the market of people just wanting a Raspberry Pi 4 laptop. The company has sent me a full “CrowPi L Advanced Kit” for review with the CrowPi L laptop fitted with a Raspberry Pi 4, as well as the Crowtail Starter Kit for Raspberry Pi. CrowPi L Advanced Kit Unboxing Let’s check out the laptop package first. Since in this design, the laptop comes with a battery, and mine already had a Raspberry Pi 4 installed, I could just turn it on immediately. Accessories include a wireless mouse, a 12V/2A power supply (with USB Type-C plug… this should […]

July 7, 2022July 7, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Intel Meteor Lake mobile processor highlights leaked

Intel Meteor Lake processor family is supposed to succeed the 13th generation Raptor Lake chips itself coming after the current 12th generation Alder lake processors. It is scheduled to launch next year (2023), but we already have some details about the Meteor Lake U, P, and H mobile processors from a leak. Just like most Alder Lake processors, Meteor Lake will be hybrid processors with power and energy-efficient cores, but they’ll also feature new LP E-cores which should stand for “low power efficiency” cores in order to further lower the power consumption while a laptop or mini PC in standby mode. Meteor Lake mobile processors highlights: CPU P cores + E cores + LP-E cores architecture U-series with up to 12 cores P- and H-series up to 14 cores; Up to 6+8 configuration with up to 24MB LLC/core (Note the LP-E cores don’t seem to be part of the main […]

July 2, 2022July 4, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 27 Comments

ROMA Linux laptop to feature quad-core RISC-V SoC, support Web3, NFT, cryptocurrencies, etc…

ROMA is an upcoming Linux laptop equipped with an unnamed quad-core RISC-V processor with GPU and NPU, up to 16GB RAM, 256GB storage, primarily aimed at software developers, and with Web3 technology integration. The ROMA laptop will be born out of the collaboration between DeepComputing working on engineering and Xcalibyte taking care of system tuning, plus PW (assembly), ECP (security), XC (crypto), Rexeen (voice), and the LatticeX Foundation (PoS blockchain, NFT). ROMA laptop preliminary specifications: SoC – Quad-core RISC-V CPU with GPU for graphics, NPU for AI (12nm chip for the Pro model, 28nm chip for the Standard model) System Memory – 16GB LPDDR4/LPDDR4X RAM Storage – 256GB eMMC flash Security – Arm SC300 security enclave processor Display, keyboard, touchpad I agree that’s a bit light on details. We’re told the laptop will support most Linux operating systems and the company will offer free SoC and SoM upgrades, as well […]

June 29, 2022June 29, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 36 Comments

Arm unveils Cortex-X3 and Cortex-A715 Armv9 cores, improves Cortex-A510 efficiency

Besides announcing the new Immortalis-G715, Mali-G715, and Mali-G615 GPUs, Arm has also introduced the second-generation of Armv9 cores with the Cortex-A715 and Cortex-X3 cores with respectively a 20% energy-efficiency improvement (and smaller 5% performance uplift) over the Cortex-A710 core and a 25% peak performance boost against the Cortex-X2 flagship core. The announcement also includes a “refresh” of the Cortex-A510 core announced last year with a 5% improvement in efficiency and the same level of performance. The Cortex-X3 will also be used in (Windows 11) laptop processors with the single-thread performance improved by up to 34% in that case. Armv9 mobile SoC (Total Compute) in 2023 Future Armv9 flagship mobile SoC worked on this year, and released in 2023 should have a combination of Cortex-X3, Cortex-A715, and Cortex-A510 cores, an Immortalis-G715 GPU, a new DSU-110 “DynamIQ Shared Unit” that supports 50% more cores in CPU clusters (or up to 12 cores […]