CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

February 14, 2022February 16, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Android 13 virtualization lets Pixel 6 run Windows 11, Linux distributions

The first Android 13 developer preview may have felt a bit underwhelming, but there’s a hidden gem with full virtualization possible on hardware such as the Google Pixel 6 smartphone. What that means is that it is now possible to run virtually any operating system including Windows 11, Linux distributions such as Ubuntu or Arch Linux Arm on the Google Tensor-powered phone, and do so at near-native speed. Android & web developer “kdrag0n” tested several Linux distributions compiled for Aarch64 on the Pixel 6 with Ubuntu 21.10, Arch Linux Arm, Void Linux, and Alpine Linux using “the KVM hypervisor on Pixel 6 + Android 13 DP1”. He/she further explains: As far as I can tell, we can pretty much get full EL2 on production devices now. Protected KVM is optional and can be enabled on a per-VM basis, but for non-protected VMs, it looks like full KVM functionality is available. […]

February 13, 2022February 17, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

RISC-V or Arm? This tiny 4x4cm Linux board with WiFi offers both options

Last fall, we wrote about Allwinner D1s/F133-A RISC-V processor and the upcoming MangoPi MQ1, a tiny 4x4cm board based on the processor. The board is not for sale, but we have more details, and the company is also working on an Arm version equipped with Allwinner T113-S3 dual-core Cortex-A7 processor that is pin-to-pin compatible with F133-A SoC. The Allwinner F133-A board will finally be called MangoPi Nezha-MQ, or MangoPi MQ for shorts, and come with 64MB on-chip RAM while the Allwinner T113-S3 board, with 128MB on-chip RAM, will be named MangoPi MQ-Dual. Both are fitted with a Realtek RTL8189-based Wi-Fi module, offer display and camera interfaces, two USB-C interfaces, and headers for GPIOs. MangoPi MQ RISC-V or Arm Linux board MangoPi MQ/MQ-Dual specifications: SoC (one or the other) MangoPi MQ – Allwinner D1s/F133-A 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 1 GHz with 64 MB DDR2 MangoPi MQ-Dual – Allwinner T113-S3 32-bit dual-core […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

February 13, 2022February 13, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Allwinner T113-S3 dual-core Cortex-A7 SoC features 128MB DDR3, targets automotive and industrial applications

Allwinner T113-S3 is a dual-core Cortex-A7 processor with 128MB DDR3 on-chip memory that is designed for smart control and HMI applications in the automotive and industrial sectors. At first glance, the new processor looks quite similar to Allwinner S3, but with twice the number of cores. However there’s more to it, as a a HiFi4 DSP has been added for smart audio applications, the H.264 encoder is gone replaced by an MPJEG encoder, and the company claims support for “industrial level working temperature”, plus a 10-year life cycle. among other differences. Allwinner T113-S3 specifications: CPU – Dual-core Arm Cortex-A7 with 32 KB L1 I-cache + 32 KB L1 D-cache per core, and 256 KB L2 cache DSP – Single-core HiFi4 Memory – 128 MB DDR3 Storage I/F – SD3.0/eMMC 5.0, SPI Nor/NAND Flash Video Decoding – H.264, H.265, MPEG-1/2/4, (M)JPEG, VC1 up to 1080p60 Encoding – JPEG/MJPEG up to 1080p60 […]

February 12, 2022June 4, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS sells with metal enclosure for $35.99

Shenzhen Xunlong Software previously launched the Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS router board powered by Rockchip RK3328 quad-core processor last November for $27.99 on Aliexpress. As expected, albeit with some delays, the company has now introduced a metal enclosure for the Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS board transforming it into a complete router or gateway. You can get it as part of a kit for $35.99 plus shipping, or if you’ve already purchased the board previously, get the enclosure only for $9 plus shipping. Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS router/gateway specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-450MP2 System Memory – 1GB LPDDR3 RAM Storage – MicroSD card slot, 16 MB SPI flash Connectivity 2x Gigabit Ethernet via YT8531C Ethernet PHY and RTL8153B USB 3.0 to Ethernet chip; both tested by the company up to 945 Mbps Tx and 963 Mbps Rx On-board WiFi is not […]

February 12, 2022February 24, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

NanoPi R2C Plus dual GbE router board adds 8GB eMMC flash

NanoPi R2C Plus is a variation of NanoPi R2C dual Gigabit Ethernet SBC powered by a Rockchip RK3328 processor that adds an 8GB eMMC flash for storage and replaces a 10-pin 2.54mm pitch I/O header with an 8-pin 1.25mm pitch header. FriendlyELEC introduced the NanoPi R2C last August as a lower-cost version of NanoPi R2S replacing Realtek RTL8211E Gigabit Ethernet transceiver with a Motorcomm YT8521S chip for availability and pricing reasons. NanoPi R2C Plus is just an evolution of the original design. NanoPi R2C Plus specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-450MP2 System Memory – 1GB DDR4 RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC 5.1 flash, MicroSD Slot, SPI flash footprint Connectivity 1x Gigabit Ethernet (WAN) up to 941 Mbps (measured) via MotorComm YT8521S Gigabit Ethernet transceiver 1x Gigabit Ethernet (LAN) up to 941 Mbps (measured) via Realtek RTL8153B USB 3.0 to Ethernet controller USB – […]

February 11, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ICARUS Elkhart Lake Pico-ITX board targets IoT, AIoT, and computer vision applications

SECO ICARUS is a Pico-ITX single board computer based on Intel Atom x6000E, Celeron, and Pentium Elkhart Lake processor that’s designed for edge IoT, AIoT, and computer vision applications. The SBC ships with up to 16GB DDR4 IBECC (in-band error-correcting code) memory, eMMC flash and/or SATA storage, supports up to three independent displays, features two Gigabit Ethernet ports with TSN support, M.2 sockets for WiFi/Bluetooth and cellular connectivity, several USB ports, serial ports, and other I/O interfaces. ICARUS specifications: Elkhart Lake SoC (one or the other) with Intel Gen11 UHD Graphics Intel Celeron J6413 quad-core processor @ 1.8GHz (3GHz Turbo); 10W TDP Intel Celeron N6211 dual-core processor @ 1.2GHz (3GHz Turbo); 6.5W TDP Intel Pentium J6426 quad-core processor @ 2.0GHz (3GHz Turbo); 10W TDP Intel Pentium N6415 quad-core processor @ 1.2GHz (3GHz Turbo); 6.5W TDP Intel Atom x6211E dual-core processor @ 1.3GHz (3GHz Turbo); 6W TDP w/ IBECC and IHS […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

February 11, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Android 13 developer preview released with privacy, security, and productivity improvements

Android 12 was only released in October 2021 and Google has already released the first developer preview of Android 13 with better privacy and security, efforts to improve developer productivity, and more work on better support for larger screens like tablets or Chromebooks building on the work done on Android 12L. Android 13 privacy and security features Google announces two new features related to privacy and security: Photo picker and APIs – Android 13 adds a system photo picker to share both local and cloud-based photos securely. Apps can use the photo picker APIs to access shared photos and videos without needing permission to view all media files on the device. So if an app just needs to access photos or videos, there’s no need to request full storage access. The photo picker will also be brought to through Google Play system updates on devices running Android 11 and higher, […]

February 11, 2022February 11, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Low-power Alder Lake-N processors coming to Chromebooks, embedded systems

Intel Alder Lake-N processors succeeding Jasper Lake processors are likely to soon show up in Chromebooks and embedded systems with early clues about the features of the upcoming processors found in the source tree of Coreboot and the Sound Open Firmware (SOF) Project. The person or team at Coelacanth’s dream has been analyzing the commits related to Alder Lake-N and found some interesting information related to the CPU cores, GPU, media capabilities, and peripherals, plus some reference boards by the Google Chromium team. Their latest update analyzes a partial boot log in the SOF Project and so far we know that: Alder Lake-N is an Atom-only “Gracemont” processor (no hybrid variant like Alder Lake-S desktop processors) with up to 8 threads/8 cores Alder Lake-N has two 4-core clusters that share the L2 cache The new processors should come with Intel UHD Gen12 graphics just like Alder Lake-P/M mobile processors, but […]