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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on UP Squared Apollo Lake Development Board Comes with Up to 8GB RAM, 128 GB Storage for 89 Euros and Up (Crowdfunding)

UP Squared Apollo Lake Development Board Comes with Up to 8GB RAM, 128 GB Storage for 89 Euros and Up (Crowdfunding)

Up-Squared-Board

AAEON Introduced a Intel Atom X5 based Raspberry Pi-like development board named “UP Board” last year that sold for as low as 89 Euros via a Kickstarter campaign. The company is now back with the first Apollo Lake development board for makers I’ve seen so far, powered by either a dual core Celeron N3350 or a quad core Pentium N4200 processor, featuring an Altera MAX 10 FPGA, and called UP2 (“UP Squared”). There are six variants of UP Squared board sharing most of the same technical specifications: SoC Intel Celeron N3350 dual core “Apollo Lake” processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.4 GHz with 12 EU Intel HD graphics 500 @ 200 MHz / 650 MHz (6W TDP) Intel Pentium N4200 quad core “Apollo Lake” processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.5 GHz with 18 EU Intel HD graphics 505 @ 200 MHz / 750 MHz (6W TDP) FPGA – Altera Max […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Getting Started with RabbitMax Flex IoT and Automation Hat for Raspberry Pi

Getting Started with RabbitMax Flex IoT and Automation Hat for Raspberry Pi

At the beginning of the month I showed how to assemble RabbitMax Flex, a Raspberry Pi HAT compliant add-on board for Raspberry Pi boards with 40-pin header, that targets IoT and home automation project with its relay, IR transmitter and receiver, I2C headers for sensors, buzzer, RGB LED, and more.  Since I’ve already described the hardware, I’ve spend some time this week-end following the user’s guide to play around with the board using a Raspberry Pi 2 board, and try various features. The user’s manual explains that you need the latest version of Raspbian, but I’d not played with my Raspberry Pi 2 board for a while, so the kernel and firmware were quite old:

So the first thing I had to do was to upgrade Raspbian. There are basically two options to upgrade, either downloading and dumping the latest Raspbian firmware image to your micro SD card, and […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on NanoPi S2 Quad Core ARM Linux Board Comes with WiFi & BT Connectivity, HDMI, LVDS, and LCD Interfaces

NanoPi S2 Quad Core ARM Linux Board Comes with WiFi & BT Connectivity, HDMI, LVDS, and LCD Interfaces

FriendlyARM has released a bunch of Allwinner based NanoPi Allwinner boards recently, but they also have some Samsung/Nexcell S5P ARM Cortex A9 boards in their portfolio, and the latest is NanoPi S2 with Samsung S5P4418 quad core processor, three display interfaces, a camera interface, wireless connectivity through WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0, a 40-pin “Raspberry Pi” header, and more. NanoPi S2 specifications: SoC – Samsung/Nexcell S5P4418 quad core Cortex A9 processor @ 400 MHz to 1.4 GHz with Mali-400MP GPU System Memory – 1 GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash  + micro SD slot Video Output / Display I/F – micro HDMI port up to 1080p60, 24-pin LCD RGB interface, 24-pin LVDS interface Audio – 3.5mm audio jack, micro HDMI Camera – 24-pin DVP camera interface Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi + Bluetooth 4.0 classic & LE (AP6212 module); IPEX/u.FL antenna connector USB – 1x USB 2.0 Host, 1x micro […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Fujitsu Launches F-Cue 96Boards Compliant Board Powered by SocioNext MB86S71 Processor

Fujitsu Launches F-Cue 96Boards Compliant Board Powered by SocioNext MB86S71 Processor

While 96Boards platforms may not be selling like Raspberry Pi boards, the form factor is quite popular with vendors, as there are now around 10 development board either directly supported by 96Boards, or at least compliant for the form factor. Fujitsu has also made their own 96Boards compliant F-Cue board powered by SocioNext MB86S71 quad core Cortex A15/A7 processor, as well as F-Cue extension board with Ethernet & PCIe interfaces. F-Cue board specifications: SoC – Socionext MB86S71 big.LITTLE quad core processor with 2x Cortex-A15 cores @ 1.2GHz, 2x Cortex-A7 cores @ 800MHz, and Mali-T624 GPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 1333MHz Storage – 16GB eMMC 4.51 flash, micro SD 3.0 UHS-I slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4b Multimedia Capabilities – 1080p@30fps encode/decode, 4 stream H.264 decode; 32k x 32k JPEG codec Connectivity – 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac WiFi , Bluetooth 4.2 USB –  1x USB 3.0 host port, 1x USB […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on Samsung Introduces $5 ARTIK 0 and $50 ARTIK 7 Smart IoT Module Families

Samsung Introduces $5 ARTIK 0 and $50 ARTIK 7 Smart IoT Module Families

Samsung unveiled ARTIK 1, 3 and 5 boards for the Internet of Things in 2015, and started to sell them, together with development with WiFi, BLE and Zigbee connectivity earlier this year. The Korean company has now announced two new family with ARTIK 0 modules powered by an ARM Cortex-M MCU and destined to be used in HVAC, lighting, industrial sensors, personal health monitoring and more, as well as ARTIK 7 family powered by an Octa-core Cortex A53 processor, and targeting IoT gateways. ARTIK 0 Family ARTIK 0 family is now comprised for ARTIK 020 with Bluetooth, and ARTIK 030 for applications requiring Thread and/or Zigbee. Beside the different radios, both modules share the same key features: MCU – ARM Cortex-M4 up to 40 MHz with Floating Point Unit, 256KB flash, 32 KB SRAM, advanced hardware cryptographic engine with support for AES-128/-256, ECC, SHA-1, SHA-256, and a Random Number Generator […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Quirky Linux 8.1 Lightweight Linux Desktop Distribution Released for Raspberry Pi 2 and Pi 3

Quirky Linux 8.1 Lightweight Linux Desktop Distribution Released for Raspberry Pi 2 and Pi 3

Barry Kauler, the creator of Puppy Linux, may have retired from maintaining Puppy Linux a few years ago, but he appears to be still active, as he’s just released Quirky Linux 8.1 for Raspberry Pi 2 and Pi 3 boards, a lightweight Linux desktop distribution based on Ubuntu Xenial Xerus 16.04, and including LibreOffice & Inkscape to have the same out of the box experience as Raspbian, but with a 360 MB download size instead of 1.3 GB for Raspbian. A build for ODROID-XU4 development board should also be coming soon. The image has been designed for 8GB micro SD card, and needs to extracted and dumped onto the card with the usual Win32DiskImager or dd tools. There are three mirrors for quirky-pi2-sd-8gb-xerus-8.1.img.xz firmware: iBiblio.org, nluug.nl, and archive.org. You can read the full release notes if you want more details. In case you don’t have a spare micro SD card, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Intel Introduces 3 Atom E3900 Apollo Lake Processors for IoT, Industrials and Automotive Applications: x5-E3930, x5-E3940, x7-E3950

Intel Introduces 3 Atom E3900 Apollo Lake Processors for IoT, Industrials and Automotive Applications: x5-E3930, x5-E3940, x7-E3950

Intel previously introduced Celeron and Pentium Apollo Lake processors for laptops and mini PCs, and it seemed Atom was gone for good from that processor family, but the vendor has now introduced Atom E3900 “Apollo Lake” processor family for IoT, industrial and automotive applications with three models: x5-E3930, x5-E3940, and x7-E3950. All three new processors will support up to 8 GB of LPDDR4/DDR3L memory, come in a FCBGA1296 package, be manufactured using 14 nm process, support 4K UHD video output up to 60 Hz on three independent displays, up to 15 simultaneous 1080p30 video stream, as well as 13MP cameras for photos and 1080p60 video capture. Peripherals interfaces include SATA 3.0,  PCIe lane, HDMI, DisplayPort, embedded DisplayPort, USB 3.0 & 2.0 ports and more. The new processors also integrate Intel Time Coordinated Computing (TCC) Technology that “coordinates and synchronizes peripherals and networks of connected devices, achieving improved determinism. It can […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Congatec Unveils conga-SA5 SMARC 2.0 Modules based on Intel “Apollo Lake” Atom x5/x7, Celeron and Pentium Processors

Congatec Unveils conga-SA5 SMARC 2.0 Modules based on Intel “Apollo Lake” Atom x5/x7, Celeron and Pentium Processors

congatec, a company specialized in embedded computer modules, single board computers and embedded design and manufacturing services, has just introduced their conga-SA5 system-on-module family compliant with SMARC 2.0 specifications, and powered by the latest Intel Apollo Lake processors. conga-SA5 SoM’s specifications: SoC (one of the list) Intel Atom x7-E3950 quad core processor @ 1.6 / 2.0 GHz with 2MB L2 cache, 18 EU Intel Gen 9 HD Graphics (12W TDP) Intel Atom x5-E3940 quad core processor @ 1.6 / 1.8 GHz with 2MB L2 cache, 12 EU Intel Gen 9 HD Graphics (9W TDP) Intel Atom x5-E3930 dual core processor @ 1.3 / 1.8 GHz with 2MB L2 cache 1MB, 12 EU Intel Gen 9 HD Graphics (6.5W TDP) Intel Celeron N3350 dual core processor @ 1.1 / 2.4 GHz with 1MB L2 cache, 12 EU Intel Gen 9 HD Graphics (6W TDP) Intel Pentium N4200 quad core processor @ […]