CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 30, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Artila Matrix-516 ARM9 Industrial Linux Computer Features 8 RS-485 Ports

Artila Matrix-516 is a Linux-based industrial computer powered by Atmel AT91SAM9G20 CPU (ARM9) with 64MB SDRAM and 128MB NAND Flash inside, and several I/O interface including 8 isolated RS-485 serial ports. This device targets industrial applications, including intelligent transportation system (ITS), building automation, energy-saving system, and factory automation. Here are the specifications of this industrial Linux computer: CPU – ATMEL AT91SAM9G20 w/MMU @ 400MHz System Memory – 64MB SDRAM Storage – 128MB NAND Flash + 2MB DataFlash for system backup (recovery boot) + micro SD socket (Up to 32 GB) Network Interface – 2 x 10/100BaseT, RJ-45 connector with 1.5KV magnetic isolation TTY(Serial) Ports 8 x isolated RS-485 (2500Vrms isolation). Connector: terminal block Baud Rate: up to 921.6Kbps Parity: None, Even, Odd, Mark, Space Data Bits: 5, 6, 7, 8 Stop Bit: 1, 1.5, 2 USB Ports – 2x USB Host Ports, 1x client port (reserved). Up to full-speed (12Mbps) […]

April 29, 2013May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

iben Gamepad Android Game Consoles Powered by AllWinner SoCs

Earlier this month, AllWinner exhibited many devices from their customers at the Hong Kong Fair, including an Android game console called iben GamePad. There are now more details about this gaming device, one of them being there are three models: Game Pad L1-B – Based on AllWinner A20 – $110 per unit for 500 pieces order. Available in May. Game Pad L1-C – Based on AllWinner A31 – $150 per unit for 500 pieces order. Available in May. Transformer Game Pad L2 – Same as L1-C except the actual gamepad is detachable, so you can just use it as a normal tablet when you don’t play. Available in June. Game Pad L1-C / L2 Specifications: SoC – AllWinner A31 Quad-Core ARM Cortex A7 CPU + PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16GB flash + microSD slot Display – 7″ touch screen (5pts), IPS display. Resolution: 1280×800 […]

April 29, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Arndale Octa Exynos 5410 Development Board is Now Available for Pre-order

After the Arndale board based on Samsung Exynos 5250 processor (dual core Cortex A15), Insignal is in the process of completing the development of Arndale Octa board powered by Exynos 5410 with 4 Cortex A15 and 4 Cortex A7 (aka Samsung Exynos 5 Octa), and howchip.com is now accepting “pre-orders”, at an undisclosed price, and the board is expected to ship by July. A picture of the board is not available yet, but the specifications are (sort of): ARM Cortex-A15 (eagle or big core) Quad CPU with NEON/VFP as high performance processor with 32/32KB I/D Cache, 2 MB L2 Cache. ARM Cortex-A7 (kingfisher or little core) Quad CPU as power-efficient performance processor with 32/32 KB I/D Cache, 512 KB L2 Cache. This processor is architecturally aligned with Cortex-A15 128-bit multi-layer Network-on-Chip (NoC) architecture Cache Coherent Interface (CCI) among Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7, G2D, and SSS DRAM access through two channels of […]

April 29, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

TP-Link TPmini “Android-on-TV” Box Features 2MP Webcam

Since the beginning of the year, we’ve started to see more and more Android media player with a camera that can be apposed on top of your TV such as the Archos TV Connect. Let’s call them “Android-on-TV” boxes / media players. Several Chinese manufacturers are also selling this type of device, but none of them have brand recognition in the West. TP-Link, however, is relatively well known for its cheap routers, and the company has introduced the TPmini powered by a dual core processor with 1GB RAM, 4GB flash, and a 2.0MP camera. Here are the specs of the device: SoC – Dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processor @ 1.6 GHz + Quad core ARM Mali 400 GPU (They did not say, but it looks like Rockchip RK3066 to me) System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 4GB NAND Flash + microSD slot (Up to 32GB) Video Output – HDMI […]

April 29, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linux 3.9 Release

Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux Kernel 3.9: So the last week was much quieter than the preceding ones, which makes me suspect that one reason -rc7 was bigger than I liked was that people were gaming the system and had timed some of their pull requests for just before the release, explaining why -rc7 was big enough that I didn’t actually want to do a final release last week. Please don’t do that. Anyway. Whatever the reason, this week has been very quiet, which makes me much more comfortable doing the final 3.9 release, so I guess the last -rc8 ended up working. Because not only aren’t there very many commits here, even the ones that made it really are tiny and not pretty obscure and not very interesting. Also, this obviously means that the merge window is open. I won’t be merging anything today, but if […]

April 29, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

CoAction Hero – Low Cost ARM Cortex-M3 Board Running Open Source CoActionOS RTOS

CoAction Hero is a tiny board based on an ARM Cortex-M3 micro-controller (NXP LPC1759), that makes use of CoActionOS ecosystem that includes the hardware, but also an open source RTOS allowing multiple app to run concurrently, and a graphical interface to communicate with the board. First, let’s have a look at the hardware specs: Micro-controller – NXP LPC1759 ARM Cortex-M3 processor @ 120MHz with 64kB RAM and 512kB Flash ROM. Storage – 1MB serial flash chip (pre-loaded with CoActionOS) Expansion port micro USB connector. 40 I/O pins are available on both sides of the board, and the board can be inserted in a breadboard. You can currently connect 2 modules to the board: Bluetooth and LCD device boards. CoActionOS RTOS will come pre-loaded on the board, and if you don’t want to, you don’t even need to know it’s there, and it’s use will be transparent. But let’s have a […]

April 28, 2013April 29, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

AMLogic To Unveil 4 Core Cortex A9 AML8726-M8 SoC with 8 Core Mali GPU

Last Thursday, Geniatech announced an upcoming Android Set-Top Box called ATV1800 featuring a quad core AMLogic processor, more memory, and running Android 4.2, and that will support XBMC. They also expect the device to be available in May for 20 to 24 USD more than the dual core version. There are not enough details about the device itself, so I won’t cover it now, but I had never heard about quad core processor from AMLogic. I’ve finally been told it was AML8726-M8 without much details, except it should be available in Q3 2013, which does not seem match May target for Geniatech’s STB. Luckily, a Google search helped a lot, so we already know some of the key features for this new SoC: Quad Core Cortex A9 @ 2.0 GHz (20,000 DMIPS) Eight Core “Next-Gen” Mali GPU with 3,000 MPixel/s fill rate, 110MT/s, and 45GFLOPS. The GPU is said to […]

April 28, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Collaborative Comparison Table for HDMI TV Dongles

With so many HDMI TV dongles available on the market, wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a database to compare them all? The only issue is that it’s a lot of work to setup and maintain, so it’s unlikely one person is ready to spend his/her time entering such a lot of data. To work around this issue, and use the power of the crowd, Ian Morrison posted a link on Google+ mini PCs community to a “USB-dongle computers comparison table” powered by socialcompare.com where anybody can add or edit entries with the detailed specifications for each device I’ve given it a try and added GK802 / Hi802 mini PC. You’ll need to sign-in to Social compare, or simply use Facebook for login. You can then click on “+” icon, then enter the name of the device, and click on “Create an Item”, and a new column should […]