MinnowBoard Turbot SBC Gets an Intel Atom E3826 Dual Core Processor, FCC & CE Certification

MinnowBoard MAX launched las year as a low cost board based on Intel Bay Trail-I single or dual core processor, and was mostly targeting developers of embedded systems and hobbyists, but could not be used by OEMs as it lacked FCC & CE certifications. ADI Engineering designed a MinnowBoard compatible board named MinnowBoard Turbot with a faster Intel Atom E3826 dual core processor, FCC & CE certifications, and various other hardware modifications bringing improved HDMI, a better voltage regulator, and populating several connectors. MinnowBoard Turbot specifications: SoC – Intel Atom E3826 dual-core processor @ 1.46 GHz (7W TDP) System Memory – 2GB DDR3L 1333 MT/s (Soldered) – Options: 1GB, or 4GB DDR3L Storage – 1x Micro SD card slot, 1x SATA2 3Gb/sec, 8 MB SPI Flash for firmware (Tianocore UEFI, Coreboot / SeaBIOS) Video & Audio Output – micro HDMI connector Connectivity – 10/100/1000M Ethernet RJ-45 connector USB – 1x […]

Samsung Artik is a Family of Arduino Compatible Boards for IoT Applications

There was a time when development boards were only reserved to companies, then boards like Arduino or Beagleboard made these available and affordable to consumers, and with the introduction of the Raspberry Pi, the maker movement grew even more rapidly, and many low cost boards started to be designed and manufactured mostly my smallest companies. But now larger companies like Intel or Qualcomm have jumped on the makers’ bandwagon, and the latest entry is Samsung with their Artik platform currently comprised of three boards that are programmable with the Arduino IDE. Let’s go through specifications for the three boards: Artik 1 SoC – Dual Core MIPS32 processor @ 250MHz (microAptiv UP) and 80MHz (microAptiv UC) without GPU Memory – 1MB RAM on-chip Storage – 4MB SPI flash Display – Up to WVGA (800×480) Connectivity – Bluetooth Low Energy with chip antenna Security – Secure element Sensor – 9-axis motion sensor […]

Ventana GW5220 ARM Linux SBC Supports WiFi, Wimax, 3G Cellular Connectivity & PoE

Gateworks recently launched another Freescale i.MX6 board part of theur Ventana family with Ventana GW5220 single board computer with Freescale i.MX6 dual processor, HDMI out, Ethernet, and a PCIe slot that takes modules adding WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/a, 4G Wimax, and 3G (CDMA/GSM) connectivity, as well as other compatible PCIe modules. Gateworks GW5520 board specifications: SoC- Freescale i.MX6 Dual with 2x Cortex A9 core @ 800MHz and Vivante GPU System Memory – 512 MB (default) to 2GB DDR3-800 SDRAM Storage – 256 MB (default) to 2GB Flash, micro SD slot, serial configuration EEPROM Connectivity – 1x Gigabit Ethernet port (RJ45) Video Output and Input – HDMI 1.4 out, CVBS, Y/C, and YPbPr inputs, LVDS output (TIA/EIA 644-A) Audio – HDMI, analog stereo Line In/Out, or Headphone/Mic Expansion – 2x Mini PCIe sockets including one supporting USB and SIM socket, and the other supporting PCIe, mSATA and USB signals. Other I/O ports: […]

Variscite DART-MX6 is a Tiny SoM with Freescale i.MX6 SoC, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

Variscite has unveiled what they claim to be the world’s smallest i.MX6 SoM with DART-MX6, a 50x20mm system-on-module featuring Freescale i.MX6 dual or quad processor, up to 1GB RAM, up to 32GB eMMC flash, as well as a wireless module for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. Other small i.MX6 modules include TechNexion PICO-iMX6, or SolidRun microSoM found in Hummingbird board, and DART-MX6 has indeed the smallest area among the three. DART-MX6 specifications: SoC- Freescale i.MX6 dual or quad core Cortex A9 processor up to 800 MHz with Vivante GC2000 3D GPU System Memory –  512 to 1024 MB LPDDR2 (PoP) Storage – 4 to 32GB eMMC flash, 4KB I2C EEPROM Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n + MIMO, Bluetooth 4.0  BLE (TI WL183xMOD WiLink) Audio Codec – Texas Instruments TLV320AIC3106 Interfaces and I/Os via 2x 80-pin and 1x 50-pin board to board connectors Camera Interfaces – 1x CSI, 2x CPI Display – […]

TechNexion Introduces Intel Edison Compatible PICO-iMX6 SoM and DWARF Board

Intel Edison is a board made for wearables featuring an SoC with Intel Atom and Quark CPU cores. TechNexion, an embedded systems company based in Taiwan, has decided to make a mechanically and electrically compatible system-on-module featuring Frescale i.MX6 Solo or Duallite ARM Cortex A9 processor called PICO-iMX6. The company is also providing a PICO-DWARF baseboard that’s both compatible with PICO-iMX6 SoM and Edison board. DWARF stands for “Drones, Wearables, Appliances, Robotics and Fun”, so that pretty much explains what the platform is for. PICO-iMX6 System-on-Module Two version of the modules are available: PICO-iMX6-SD and PICO-iMX6-EMMC, the former with a micro SD slot for storage, and the latter a 4GB eMMC. Both share the followings specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX6 Solo / Duallite  single/dual core ARM Cortex A9 @ 1Ghz with Vivante GC880 3D GPU and Vivante GC320 2D GPU (Composition) System Memory – 512MB or 1GB DDR3 Storage – […]

Build a Raspberry Pi 2 Minimal Image with The Yocto Project

The Yocto Project is a build system that allows developers to make custom Linux distributions matching their exact needs. I’ve already shown how to build a 12MB Compressed image for the Raspberry Pi with Yocto, but the Raspberry Pi 2 has recently been added to the project, so I’ve tried to build it too in a machine running Ubuntu 14.04. I’ll use poky since it’s the default, but you could also build the system for Angstrom or without distributions (OpenEmbedded Core only). The steps to get the code is just the same as for the Raspberry Pi:

You just need to checkout master, and not any branch (like dizzy) since R-Pi 2 is not yet supported in any release. Initialize some environment variables and the build directory:

Now edit conf/local.conf with vim or nano to set the machine to raspberrypi2 instead of qemux86:

There are more Raspberry […]

Freescale Announces i.MX 6SoloX ARM Cortex A9 & Cortex M4 Processor

Freescale i.MX6 SoloX processor started to show up in the ARM Linux Kernel mailing list last year, and Cortex A9 + Cortex M4 processor showed up in some marketing documents, but so far all documentation was tied to a non-diclosure agreement. However, all resources are now publicly available, as the company officially launched i.MX 6SoloX processor at Embedded World 2015. Freescale i.MX 6SoloX specifications: CPU – ARM Cortex-A9 up to 1 GHz with 512 KB L2 cache, 32 KB instruction and data caches and NEON SIMD media accelerator MCU – ARM Cortex-M4 up to 200 MHz with 16 KB instruction and data caches, 64 KB TCM, MPU and FPU Memory Interface 16/32-bit DDR3-800 and DDR3L-800, 16/32-bit LPDDR2-800 SLC/MLC NAND, 62-bit ECC, ONFI2.2 2x DDR Quad SPI NOR flash, 16/32-bit NOR Flash Display and Camera Interfaces Parallel RGB LVDS 20-bit parallel CMOS sensor interface NTSC/PAL analog video input interface Multimedia GPU […]

Toucan-0700 HMI Panel Runs Linux or Android on Freescale i.MX6 Processors

TechNexion Toucan-0700 is an HMI (Human Machine Interface) panel based on Freescale i.MX6 modules and a baseboard following EDM standard for system-on-modules. The 7″ panel PC features the same EDM1-CF-IMX6 SoM used in Wandboard development boards, and runs various Linux distributions, as well as Android 4.3 or 4.4. Toucan-0700 specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX6 Solo/Duallite Cortex A9 processor with Vivante GPUs (i.MX6 Dual/Quad on request) System Memory – 512MB (Solo), 1GB (Duallite) Storage – 4GB eMMC + micro SD slot Display – 7″ LCD display with LED backlight, 1024×600 resolution;  16M colors;  500 cd/m²; 4 points touchscreen Video Output – HDMI 1.4 for external display Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet with POE function 802.3at, and optional WiFi 802.11 b/g/n + Bluetooth 4.0 (Broadcom BCM4330) USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x USB OTG 3.0 connector, 2x internal pin headers Serial – 1x RS-232 (galvanic isolated), 1x RS-232/422/485 (galvanic isolated), 2x […]

EDATEC Raspberry Pi 5 fanless case