CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 24, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Aaeon Announces CoMs, 3.5″ & mini ITX Embedded Boards Powered by Intel Bay Trail Processors

AAEON has announced the release three embedded boards and modules based on Intel Celeron J1900, N2930, N2807 and Atom E3800 series processors, which are all part of Intel’s low power Bay Trail family. EMB-BT1 is s mini-ITX board powered by Intel Atom 3825 or 3845, Gene-BT05 is a 3.5″ industrial board also based on Atom 3815/3815 or Celeron N2930 processors, and COM-BT is a series of COM Express type 6 computers-on-module. EMB-BT1 mini-ITX Board EMB-BT1 is a fanless board designed for digital signage, POS, Kiosk and networking applications among others, with the following key features: SoC – Intel Atom E3825 with 2 cores @ 1.33 GHz (TDP: 6 W) or Atom E3845 with 4 cores @ 1.91 GHz (TDP: 10W) System Memory – DDR3L-1066 MHz (3825) or DDR3L-1333 MHz (3845) Storage – Up to 2x SATA 6.0Gb/s, 2x SATA 3.0Gb/s Display – 1x VGA, 1x HDMI, 1x LVDS with dual […]

May 23, 2014August 18, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Kaiboer announces F5, Q6 and Q9 UHD Android TV Boxes Powered by Mstar MSO9180D1R SoC

Kaiboer (开博尔) has hosted an event in Shenzhen on May 21 to unveil three new 4K Android media player powered by Mstar MSO9180D1R SoC namely Kaiboer F5, Kaiboer Q6 and Kaiboer Q9. Mstar MSO9180D1R processor appears to be similar but less powerful than Amlogic S802 with four ARM Cortex A9 cores @ 1.5 GHz and a quad core Mali-450 GPU. However, details about this SoC are not available, and Mstar Semi did not reply to my information request. Here are the specifications for the new Kaiboer Android media players: SoC – Mstar MSO9180D1R Quad core ARM Cortex A9 @ 1.5GHz with a quad-core ARM Mali-450 MP2 GPU. System Memory F5 – 1GB to 2GB DDR3 Q6 & Q9 – 2 GB DDR3 Storage F5 – 8GB or 16GB eMMC + microSD card slot Q6 – 16 GB eMMC + microSD card slot Q9 – 16 GB eMMC + microSD card slot […]

May 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

PiCore 5.3 is a Lightweight Linux Distribution for the Raspberry Pi

My posts providing and give instructions to generate minimal, headless, images for the Raspberry Pi, such as “84 MB Minimal Raspbian ARMHF Image for Raspberry Pi” and “12MB Minimal Image for Raspberry Pi using the Yocto Project” have been relatively popular with people just wanting to have small base to start with the embedded projects. For desktop users, Slitaz for Raspeberry Pi (34MB) is one option, but I’ve just found out there’s also an other alternative with PiCore 5.3, a Linux distribution for the Raspberry Pi based on Tiny Core Linux that’s just 24.7 MB to download. With an image that size, there’s obviously basically no applications installed, you’ve got flwm window manager, wbar launcher, a control panel, a terminal, a file editor, and that’s about it. There’s no web browser, nor file manager, and you’d have to install the applications you want by yourself using tce-load package manager. If […]

May 23, 2014May 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Android 4.4 Kitkat Beta Firmware for Ugoos UG802 mini PC (Rockchip RK3066)

When you purchase a Chinese Android gadget, or most Android gadgets for that matter, you expect to have a few firmware updates within a year or so at best. But to my surprise, Ugoos has released an Android 4.4 Kitkat (Beta) firmware for their UG802 mini PC / TV stick that started selling in summer 2012 with Android 4.0. That means your “old” device(s) could get a performance boost, as well as some neat new features, thanks to Android Kitkat. The firmware is beta however, so be aware that there may still be a few bugs. The firmware file (Allminipc_ug802_RT8188_4.4_720p.img) is packaged together with RKBatchTool and the Windows drivers in Allminipc_ug802_RT8188_4.4_720p.rar. You can follow RK3188 firmware update instructions, skipping the downloads since everything you need is included, to perform the upgrade. If you’d rather use Linux, you might be able use upgrade_tool, enter recovery mode, and run:

sudo ./upgrade_tool lf
sudo ./upgrade_tool uf Allminipc_ug802_RT8188_4.4_720p.img

1 2	sudo ./upgrade_tool lf sudo ./upgrade_tool uf Allminipc_ug802_RT8188_4.4_720p.img

One of […]

May 22, 2014May 22, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 31 Comments

Unboxing of HD18T Android Media Player with DVB-T2 Tuner

Shenzhen Tomato has sent me a sample of HD18T, an Android TV box powered by Amlogic AML8726-MX dual core processor that features a DVB-T2 tuner with In and Out antenna connectors. This is quite timely as Digital TV in Thailand has just started on April 1st of this year. Today, I’ll go through the specs, unbox the device, and show some pictures of the box, the board and DVB-T2 tuner. HD18T Specifications The device enclosure and specifications are very similar to EM6-S2 DVB-S2 Android TV box I covered previously, expect the DVB-S2 tuner is replaced by a DVB-T2 tuner: SoC – AMLogic AML8726-MX dual cortex A9 @ 1.5 GHz + Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 8GB NAND FLASH + SD card reader Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4, AV Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and optical S/PDIF. Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD pass-through. USB […]

May 22, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

$58 QT900 “AirplayCast” Android Mini PC Features AllWinner A31s Processor

There are few AllWinner A31 powered HDMI TV sticks on the market such as CS868 and Measy U4K, but Q900 is the first I come across with AllWinner A31s, the low cost version of AllWinner A31, with a lower LCD screen resolution capability, which is not used in this type of device… The dongle appears to be also called AirplayCast to boast Airplay and Miracast support, which is now available on most Android TV dongles… QT900 specifications: SoC – Allwinner A31s quad core ARM CortexA7 @ 1.0GHz with PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB + micro SD slot up to 32GB Video Output – HDMI 1.4 (up to 1080p) Connectivity – Dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 b/n, Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 2.0 host, 1x micro USB OTG, 1x micro USB for power Misc – Recovery Key ? Power Supply – 5V/2A The device runs […]

May 22, 2014May 22, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

$15 Open Source Hardware VoCore Wi-Fi Module Runs OpenWRT (Crowdfunding)

There are already low cost Wi-Fi modules that can be used for the Internet of Things such as AsiaRF AWM002 and Hi-Link HLK-RM04. However, AsiaRF mainly caters to companies, and the Hi-Link module has a limited memory (16MB), which may or may not be an issue depending on your application. VoCore Wi-Fi module could prove to be an interesting option as it is the same $15 to $20 price range, runs OpenWRT with 32 MB RAM, will be open source hardware, and provides up to 20 GPIOs in a tiny (25x25mm) form factor. VoCore Wi-Fi module specifications: SoC – Ralink/Mediatek RT5350 MIPS processor @ 360MHz with dual band 802.11n Wi-Fi with data Rate up to 150Mbps System Memory – 32 MB RAM Storage – 8MB SPI Flash (for firmware) / 16 MB on limited edition Available Signals (Via through holes): 10/100M Ethernet USB UART, I2C, SPI I2S, PCM JTAG Over 20 […]

May 21, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

ARM Cortex A15/A17 SoCs Comparison – Nvidia Tegra K1 vs Samsung Exynos 5422 vs Rockchip RK3288 vs AllWinner A80

We’re now starting to get quite a few players with ARM Cortex A15 cores on the market, as well as some with ARM Cortex A17. So a comparison table of different quad and octa SoCs might be a useful thing to do. I’ve put aside SoCs such as HiSilicon K3V3, and OMAP5, and focused on the four latest processors: Nvidia Tegra K1 (32-bit), Samsung Exynos 5422, Rockchip RK3288 and AllWinner A80. I haven’t included Mediatek MT6595 and Qualcomm SnapDragon 805, because the two companies mainly focus on smartphones and tablets (although it appears to be slowly changing for Qualcomm), documentation is usually difficult or impossible to find, and in the case of Qualcomm they use their own ARMv7 Krait cores. I’ve highlighted some features in green, in case a particular SoC appears to have an edge. Rockchip RK3288 AllWinner A80 Nvidia Tegra K1 Samsung Exynos 5422 CPU 4x ARM Cortex-A17 […]