CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

November 8, 2013November 8, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Ninja Pi Crust Let You Connect Arduino Shields to the Raspberry Pi

There are quite a few projects using both the Raspberry Pi and an Arduino board and its shields together. These are working but the cabling may get messy. People have already found solutions to plug Arduino shields into the Raspberry Pi with products such as Cooking Hacks’ Raspberry Pi to Arduino shield connection bridge (40 Euros) or Open Electronics’ Raspberry Pi bridge (22.50 Euros). Those two boards are fine, but do not include an Atmel MCU, and use Raspberry Pi GPIOs directly, except for their ADC. Another solution is the Paperduino Pi, a DIY Arduino board that can be plugged on top of the Raspberry Pi, and compatible with Arduino shields. But if you want an Arduino board that can easily be stacked between the Raspberry Pi, and Raspberry shield, the upcoming Ninja Pi Crust by Ninjablocks may be an interesting option, especially if you plan to use the 433MHz […]

November 8, 2013November 8, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

$179 Arndale Octa Developement Board Gets an Upgrade to Exynos 5420 big.LITTLE SoC

Hardkernel ODROID-XU may have been the first low cost big.LITTLE development board, but since it’s using Exynos 5410 SoC, big.LITTLE processing is limited to cluster migration that means using A15 cores or A7 cores. Insignal’s Arndale Octa was also initially announced with Exynos 5410, but the good news is that we’ll soon get a fully functional big.LITTLE development board as Arndale Octa has been upgraded to Exynos 5420 Octa-core SoC. This board will support both In-Kernel Switching (IKS) and Global Task Scheduling (GTS) implementations, and be officially supported by Linaro like the first Arndale board based on Exynos 5250 dual core Cortex A15. Here are the specifications of the board (derived by me from several pages, and pictures): SoC – Samsung Exynos 5420 octa core SoC with 4x Cortex A15 cores up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex A7 cores up to 1.3 GHz in big.LITTLE configuration, and ARM Mali T-628 […]

November 7, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Frindo Open Source Robotics Platform for Arduino and Raspberry Pi Boards

Frindo is both a community and an open source robotics platform designed to work with Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and possibly other micro-controller boards. The platform is said to have been designed as an educational platform so that beginners can start with a simple robot, and build a more complex robot as their skills grow. There are currently three Frindo kits available from RobotBits.co.uk: Frindo chassis only kit for £64.95 (~$104) – Chassis plates, motors, wheels, wheel brackets, Arduino & Pi mounting kit & all hardware. Frindo Arduino kit for £110.95 (~$178) – Chassis only kit + Arduino, RobotShield, battery clip, power cable & USB cable Frindo Arduino kit plus sensors for £159.9 (~$257) – Arduino kit + 3x each: GP2Y0A21 analog distance sensors, bracket, cable & fixings The RobotShield is an Arduino shield optimized for mobile robotics applications with the following features: Dual bi-directional motor driver circuit (2 Amp Peak, […]

November 7, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

VIA Unveils VAB-820 Pico-ITX Board Powered by Freescale i.MX6 Quad

About two weeks ago, VIA announced the VAB-820, which according to the company, is the first ARM based quad core Pico-ITX single board computer (SBC) on the market. A claim that looks to be incorrect by the way. The board is powered by Freescale i.MX6Quad quad core ARM Cortex A9 processor, and comes with 1GB DDR3 SDRAM and 4GB eMMC Flash. This is an industrial board targeting in-vehicle, surveillance and industrial applications, designed to work in an operating temperature range from -20°C ~ 70°, and with a seven years longevity support. VAB-820 Specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX 6Quad ARM Cortex-A9 @ 1.0GHz with Vivante GC2000 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3-1066 SDRAM using 128M x16 memory devices Storage – 4MB SPI Serial Flash, 4GB eMMC Flash, and microSD slot (up to 64GB) Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet using Micrel KSZ9031RNX Ethernet transceiver with RGMII support Audio – Freescale SGTL5000 low power stereo […]

November 7, 2013November 7, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Imagination Technologies Announced MIPS P5600, the First “Warrior” Core

At the end of June, Imagination Technologies unveiled their MIPS Series5 ‘Warrior’ architecture, featuring 32-bit and 64-bit CPU cores, with features such as hardware and software virtualization, and Extended Virtual Addressing (EVA). The company has recently announced the first member of the family with their MIPS P5600 CPU IP core. The MIPS P5600 core is a 32-bit CPU IP that is said to offer 1.2 to 2x more system performance compared to proAptiv cores, and it supports peak frequencies above 2GHz on TSMC’s 28HPM process node. Performance-wise the core achieves 5 CoreMark/MHz and 3.5 DMIPS/MHz for a single core, which appears to be equivalent to ARM Cortex A15 according to values listed in Wikipedia and EEMBC Coremark results. MIPS P5600 features and benefits: 32-bit MIPS32 Release 5 Instruction Set Architecture 16-stage, wide issue, out-of-order (OoO) pipeline Quad instruction fetch per cycle Triple bonded dispatch per cycle Instruction peak issue of […]

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Geniatech ATV1800 Android TV Box To Feature AMLogic Quad Core Processor & Android 4.3

A few months ago, we learned AMLogic was working on a Quad core Cortex A9 SoC with the new ARM Mali-450MP6 (8 cores) GPU called AML8726-M8. It turns out AML8726-M8 may not only be one processor, but a family of processors (M801, M802, M803, and M805) according to a recent article in Chinese. This SoC was going to be part of Geniatech ATV1800 Android STB, but specifications were not available. More details have now surfaced. Geniatech (aka Mygica) ATV1800 Enjoy TV Specifications: SoC – AMLogic M801 or M802 Quad core Cortex A9 @ 1.6 to 2.0 GHz + ARM Mali-450MP6 GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND + microSD card slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p, and composite Audio Output – HDMI, Stereo RCA output, and optical SPDIF (TBC) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, built-in 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, and Bluetooth USB – 4 USB 2.0 […]

November 6, 2013November 7, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Android 4.4 KitKat on Galaxy Nexus – ROM, Linaro, and Petition

Google has already released the binaries for Android 4.4 “KitKat” for the Nexus 5, and images are coming for Nexus 4, Nexus 7, and Nexus 10, in the next few weeks. Source code is also available in AOSP (Android Open Source Project). However, even though KitKat has been optimized for older devices, the Galaxy Nexus won’t an official Android 4.4 released because it was released at the end of 2011, which is over the 18 months update window guaranteed by Google. Many people are upset about this decision, and several people have started working on KitKat for Galaxy Nexus. The Linaro team found a solution within minutes by going to the convenience store, and providing KitKat on Galaxy Nexus as shown below. However, usability was not really ideal, so they had some more work to do… In the meantime, Grabak, a developer and member of XDA Forums, provided an alpha […]

November 6, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

$69 Intel Gallileo Development Board Combines x86 Processor and Arduino Compatibility

After UDOO, a Linux development board powered by Freescale i.MX6 ARM Cortex 9 processor and an Atmel SAM3U MCU for Arduino compatibility, here’s another single board computer (SBC) that both runs Linux, and is claimed to be software and hardware compatible with shields designed for Arduino Uno R3: Intel Gallileo. Instead of using two ARM processors, the board is powered by Intel Quark SoC X1000, a 32-bit Pentium class SoC, that handles both Linux and I/Os. Intel Galileo Specifications: SoC – Intel Quark SoC X1000 @ 400MHz with 16 KBytes on-die L1 cache, 512 KBytes of on-die embedded SRAM, single thread, single core, constant speed, ACPI compatible CPU sleep states supported, and integrated Real Time Clock (RTC). Max TDP: 2.2W. System Memory – 256 MByte DRAM Storage – 8 MByte Legacy SPI Flash for bootloader and sketch + 11 KByte EEPROM + optional microSD card (Up to 32GB) Connectors: 10/100 […]