Embedian SMART MEN and SMART BEE SBCs Feature a TI Sitara SMARC CoM

Embedian, an embedded company specialized in computers-on-module and single board computers, has recently unveiled SMART MEN and SMART BEE single board computers powered by their SMARC-T335X computer-on-module, compliant with the SMARC (Smart Mobility Architecture) standard, and based on Texas Instruments Sitara AM335x SoCs. SMART MEN SBC SMART MEN single board computer specifications: SoC – Texas Instrument Sitara AM335X ARM Cortex-A8 at 600MHz, 800MHz or 1GHz System Memory – 512MB DDR3 (303Mhz x 2) Storage – 4GB eMMC Flash (eMMC 5.0), 4MB SPI NOR Flash, AT24C32 EEPROM, and SDHC/SDIO slot Connectivity – 2 x 10/100 Mbps Ethernet (vertical RJ45) Display – single channel LVDS 18-bit color depth, single channel LVDS 24-bit color depth. LCD LED backlight driver onboard USB – 2 x USB 2.0 Host, 1 x USB 2.0 OTG, 1 x Serial-to-USB (Client) Additional Interfaces: 6 x RS232s (transceiver onboard, two with handshaking and one can be configured as RS422/RS485),  […]

Embedded Linux Conference 2014 Schedule

The Tenth Embedded Linux Conference (ELC 2014) will take place on April 29 – May 1, 2014 at the San Jose Marriott in San Jose, California. The event will feature 90+ sessions on embedded Linux, Android and IoT with over 450 attendees expected to attend. It will also be co-located with Android Builders Summit and the AllSeen Alliance Hackfest. Even if you can’t attend it’s still interesting to see what will be discussed at the event to get a grasp of on-going developments, learn a few things about different optimization techniques, and so on. So I’ve gone through the sessions’ description, and I’ve designed my own virtual schedule with sessions that could be of interest. April 29 9:00 – 9:30 – Keynote: The Paradox of embedded and Open Source by Tim Bird, Sony Mobile Linux has taken the embedded world by storm.  Billions (with a ‘B’) of devices have now shipped […]

BeagleBone Black Gets 4GB Flash, a Price Increase, and Better Availability

The BeagleBone Black has been launched about a year ago, and this low cost ARM Linux board has become pretty popular with hobbyists, robotics courses at universities, and even people making products. The downside is that it has been difficult for CircuitCo, the manufacturer, to keep producing enough boards to match the demand while keeping the price at a low $45 with very little margin, and there are currently about 150,000 boards on distributor back-orders. To improve availability, Beagleboard.org has announced Revision C of the BeagleBone Black with a 4 GB eMMC, which may be easier to source over time than the original 2 GB eMMC, and that will sell for about $5 to $15 more than the previous version, or between $50 and $60. The rest of the hardware specifications remain identical. There’s also a change on the software side, as the board will be pre-loaded with Debian, instead […]

Intel Announces its First “Bay Trail” Fanless NUC Kit

Intel already announced a Bay Trail NUC selling for $140 earlier this year, but despite the low power dissipation (7.5W TDP) of the Intel N2820 processor, it requires a fan for cooling. The company has now unveiled its first fanless mini PC with Intel NUC Kit DE3815TYKHE powered by Intel Atom E3815 Bay Trail-I processor with 5W TDP. This NUC is destined for industrial and enterprise solutions such as digital signage, point-of-sales, kiosks, and thin clients. Here are the specs of this tiny x86 computer: SoC – Intel Atom E3815 single core processor @ 1.46GHz single core with 512KB cache and 5W TDP, coupled with Intel HD Graphics up to 400 MHz. System Memory – Up 8 GB 1.35V, 1333/1600 MHz (down clocked to 1066 MHz) DDR3L SO-DIMM Storage – 4-GB eMMC, support for one internal 2.5″ SATA HDD or SDD (up to 9.5mm thick) Video Output: 1x HDMI 1.4a 1x […]

Atmel SAMA5D3 Xplained Board Unboxing and Quick Start Guide

Atmel SAMA5D3 Xplained is an evaluation board running Linux powered by SAMA5D36 ARM Cortex A5 micro-processor with 256 MB DDR2, 256 MB flash, two Ethernet ports, 3 USB connectors, and more. This embedded board targets industrial automation, networks, robotics, control panels and wearable applications. The only video output is an LCD connector so it is reserved for headless or flat panel based applications. You can check full specs on my Atmel SAMA5D3 Xplained announcement post. The company kindly sent me a sample, so that I can share my experience with the board. I’ll first post some unboxing pictures, show how to get started with the pre-installed image, and build my own Linux image. The board can be purchased for $79 from Atmel e-Store, as well as several distributors (P/N: ATSAMA5D3-XPLD). Atmel SAMA5D3 Xplained Unboxing I’ve been sent the board via DHL in the following package, which gives  a short desscription […]

How to Upgrade Firmware in Amlogic S802 Devices

Shenzhen Tomato has finally sent me an updated firmware (password: 17r0) for M8 / TM8 Android TV box powered by Amlogic S802. This firmware is rooted, and adds support for Google Apps (Play Store, Gmail and so on), among others things. So it’s a good time to try out and write about the firmware update instructions which are very similar to AML8726-MX firmware instructions. Bear in mind that firmware is usually specific to a given hardware platform, and if you try it on another non-compatible S802 TV box, you may brick your device. Standard “OTA” Method Any Windows, Mac OS, Linux computer or even your own Android device should be able to handle is as you just need to download, extract and copy files to an SD card. I’ve done the procedure from a computer running Ubuntu 13.04: Download the firmware (e.g. TM8 ap6330_03102014A_0410_ROOT.rar), and extract it Copy the files […]

Mixtile LOFT-Q Board and LOFT Kit mini PC Powered by AllWinner A31

Recently most development around AllWinner, at least for Linux, is focusing on AllWinner A20, and there are several AllWinner A20 board and development platforms available on the market such as Cubieboard2, A20-OLinuXino, IBOX and more. But apart from the team at Free Electrons, few people seem to be working on AllWinner A31, so there are few development platform available, if we exclude consumer products such as tablets and Android TV Boxes. There’s now an AllWinner A31 development board thanks to Mixtile LOFT-Q board, which also comes in LOFT Kit to make a complete mini PC with enclosure. Mixtile LOFT-Q specifications: SoC – Allwinner A31 quad core ARM Cortex-A7 processor with PowerVR SGX544 MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB 64-bit DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC (ver 4.51), SATA III connector for 2.5″ drives, and SD card Slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p Audio I/O – HDMI, 1 headphone/TOSLINK […]

Raspberry Pi Compute Module is a $30 Raspberry Pi Compatible System-on-Module

Albeit the initial goal of the Raspberry Pi board was to address computer science education, it has become extremely popular with hobbyists, has made its way in many different kinds of hardware, and is now clearly the number 1 low cost ARM Linux development board. The Raspberry Pi foundation has then decided to design and sell a system-on-module called Raspberry Pi Compute that people can use in actual products. Since the module will be mostly software compatible with the original Raspberry Pi board, the specs are similar: SoC – Broadcom BCM2835 ARM 11 processor @ 700 MHz with Videocore IV GPU System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – 4GB eMMC Flash SoM Connector – DDR2 200-pins SODIMM Dimensions – 67.6x30mm board which fits into a standard DDR2 SODIMM connector The main difference is they’ve replaced the SD card slot found in the board, by an eMMC module which is more […]