Linux 5.4 Release – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS & RISC-V Architectures

Linux 5.4 Changelog

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.4: Not a lot happened this last week, which is just how I like it. And as expected, most of the pull requests I got were for the 5.5 merge window, which I’ll obviously start working through tomorrow. What little there is here is mostly some networking updates (mix of network drivers and core networking), and some minor GPU driver updates. Other than that it’s a small collection of random other things all over. The appended shortlog is small enough that you might as well just scroll through it. Anyway, this obviously opens the merge window for 5.5. It’s not ideal timing with Thanksgiving week coming up, but it hopefully shouldn’t be too much of an issue. If I fall behind (not because I’m all that big of a fan of the indiscriminate and relentless turkey-killing holiday) it’s because we’ve got […]

Zidoo M9 is a Rockchip RK3399 TV Box/Mini PC/SBC with Android 7.1 + SDK

Zidoo M9

Zidoo has launched several TV boxes running Android over the years, some of which we reviewed such as Zidoo X9 (2015), or Zidoo H6 Pro. They also have experience launched dual-OS systems with Android and OpenWrt running simultaneously for multimedia and router functions respectively through their Zidoo X9S media center. The company has now contacted CNX Software to review their latest model. Zidoo M9 is a higher-end Rockchip RK3399 powered Android 7.1 TV box or mini PC, and Zidoo will also sell it as a single board computer for custom projects in the field of robotics, automotive control, artificial intelligence and more. Zidoo M9 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with 2x Cortex-A72 cores @  2.0GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 cores. and a Mali-T860MP4 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 /3.0, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL, and Directx11 System Memory – Dual-channel 4GB DDR (2GB is optional) Storage – 32GB eMMC5.1 flash  (8GB/16GB/64G/128G […]

Khadas VIM3 NPU ToolKit Release & Video Demo

Khadas VIM3 NPU Toolkit

Khadas VIM3 board based on Amlogic A311D processor with a 5TOPS Neural-network Processing Unit (NPU) launched last June. We’ve reviewed VIM3 with Android 9 shortly after launch, but until recently it was not possible to leverage the NPU since the software was not quite ready yet. The goods news is that Khadas has now released the NPU toolkit for both VIM3, and the cheaper VIM3L boards. The NPU toolkit contains the following directory: docs – Model conversion documentation acuity-toolkit – Model conversion tools linux_sdk – Linux SDK android_sdk – Android SDK The toolkit works in host PCs running Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04 with Tensorflow framework, and inference can run on both Linux and Android OS in Khadas VIM3/3L board. It includes an Inception v3 sample with 299×299 sample photos, among other demos. You’ll find documentation to get started with model conversion and inference in Linux on Khadas Wiki. You can […]

Boardcon EM-IMX8M-MINI SBC Drives a MIPI DSI Display via NXP i.MX 8M Mini Processor

Boardcon EM-IMX8M-MINI Board

We’ve been covered SBC’s and SoM’s from Boardcon for at least 5 years,  with our latest article detailing Boardcon Idea3399 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3399 processor, and launched this September. The company has now launched another single board computer with EM-IMX8M-MINI featuring an NXP i.MX 8M Mini system-on-module (SoM) with 2GB LPDDR4, 8GB eMMC flash, and wireless connectivity. The board is designed for a “wide range of multimedia applications” and offers a MIPI DSI interface for LCDs up to 1920×1080 resolution. Boardcon EM-IMX8M-MINI specifications: SOM-IMX8M-MINI SoM (aka PICO-IMX8MM-V1) SoC – NXP i.MX8M Mini Quad with 4x Arm Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.8GHz, Arm an Arm Cortex-M4F real-time microcontroller @ 400MHz, Vivante GCNanoUltra 3D GPU, and Vivante GC320 2D GPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC 5.1 flash, QSPI NOR flash Connectivity – 802.11n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.0 via an Ampak AP6236 module I/Os via 200-pin […]

Orange Pi 4/4B SBC Comes with Rockchip RK3399 SoC, Gyrfalcon 2801S NPU

Shenzhen Xunlong Software’s Orange Pi RK3399 single board computer launched in early 2018 with 2GB RAM for $109, and earlier this year, the company launched an updated version with 4GB RAM and a lower $99.96 price tag. But there are plenty Rockchip RK3399 SBC’s on the market, including FrienglyELEC NanoPi M4 going for $50 and up ($75 with 4GB RAM), and Pine64 RockPro64 board starting at $59.99 with 2GB RAM, and $79.99 with 4GB. So unless you need the extra features (HDMI Input, SATA port, mPCIe socket…) offered by Orange Pi RK3399, other boards may be more competitive. So the company has been working on lowering the cost with a smaller board. Meet Orange Pi 4. They’ve also provided some extra features with a variant of the board called Orange Pi 4B that adds a Gyrfalcon Lightspeeur 2801S AI accelerator chip/NPU. That says a lot that neither Rockchip RK3399Pro SoC […]

Giveaway Week Winners – November 2019

giveaway week 2019

We just had another of our yearly “Giveaway week” on CNX Software with 7 prizes including Arm and RISC-V development boards, NB-IoT tracker, USB-C hub, as well as development kits based on ESP32 or ESP8266 WiSoCs. People just had to comment within a 48 hours period, and we would randomly select a winner each day. We now have all confirmed winners with a strong start from Europe, Asia catching up mid-week, before with Poland and Brazil taking the week-end prizes: Balena Fin Developer Kit – Laurent H, FRANCE WisCellular NB-IoT & eMTC GPS Tracker – Jimmy, SWEDEN MINIX NEO S1 USB-C Hub with 120GB built-in SSD – Jeroen, BELGIUM Maixduino Sipeed M1 RISC-V AI Kit – Nguyen Tung, VIETNAM ANAVI Gas Detector Starter Kit – Bumsik Kim, SOUTH KOREA Particle Mesh IoT Development Kit – Wojciech Lubicz-Lapinski, POLAND NanoPi M4V2 SBC & Metal Case Kit – Thiago Tavares, BRAZIL I […]

Banana Pi BPI-F2S SBC is Powered by SunPlus SP7021 Processor, Supports Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA Add-on Board

Banana Pi BPI-F2S

BPI Tech, a spinoff from SinoVoIP, has introduced a new single board computer with Banana Pi BPI-F2S powered by SunPlus SP7021 “Plus1” SoC with four Cortex-A7 cores, one older ARM9 real-time core, and one even older 8051 IO controller. The chip also embeds up to 512MB DDR3 memory. The board comes an 8GB flash, dual Fast Ethernet, HDMI, a 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible GPIO header, as well as headers for an optional Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA expansion board. Banana Pi BPI-F2S SBC Specifications: SoC – Sunplus SP7021 “Plus1” with a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.0 GHz, one Arm A926 microprocessor, an 8051 core to handle I/Os, and 128MB or 512MB DDR3 DRAM. Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4 output Camera I/F –  MIPI CSI connector Connectivity – 2x 10/100M Ethernet USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB port Expansion 40-pin GPIO […]

NVIDIA Jetson Nano Review with 52Pi ICE Tower Cooling Fan – Part 1: Unboxing

Jetson Nano Review with ICE Tower Cooling Fan

If you remember soon after Raspberry Pi 4 launch, there were talks about the SBC overheating under load, and depending on room temperature and workload a heatsink may be needed for the board to perform optimally at all times. This gave birth to “interesting” solutions such as 52Pi ICE Tower Cooling Fan, an oversized cooling solution for Raspberry Pi 4. It does the job however, and it allows me to overclock Raspberry Pi 4 to 2.0 GHz while keeping the CPU temperature under 55°C in a room at 28°C. But the latest Raspberry Pi Foundation board is not the only SBC to suffer from overheating, as at least one user noticed the board would just shutdown under load. The solution was to switch from 10W mode to 5W mode, not an ideal solution since it’s also lowering performance. But 52Pi is coming to the rescue again, as they adapted their […]