CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

September 24, 2020September 24, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Intel Unveils Atom x6000E Series, Celeron and Pentium Elkhart Lake IoT Edge Processors

We’ve been expecting Intel Elkhart Lake processors for more than a year, and the company has now officially announced the “IoT-enhanced processors” with a new Atom x6000E Series, as well as some Celeron and Pentium N/J parts. Last year, we thought Elkhart Lake would succeed Gemini lake, but the new 11th generation 10nm processors may not be found in many consumer devices, as they target IoT edge applications with additional artificial intelligence (AI), security, functional safety, and real-time capabilities. The company has announced a total of 12 Elkhart Lake processors with all but one featuring 10th Generation Intel UHD Graphics and divided into eight Atom x6000E series processors. and four Celeron/Pentium parts Intel further explains Elkhart Lake IoT edge processors deliver up to two times better 3D graphics compared to Pentium J4205 Apollo Lake processor, come with Intel Programmable Services Engine real-time offload engine with support for out-of-band and in-band […]

September 24, 2020 by Ayo Ayibiowu - 2 Comments

Amazon Sidewalk – A Low Bandwidth Network For Connecting Smart Devices and IoT

In 2019, Amazon introduced the Sidewalk with privacy and security at the core. Amazon Sidewalk a low-bandwidth, long-distance wireless protocol that is expected to provide a new way for devices to stay connected especially when smart devices leave their WiFi or Bluetooth coverage range by leveraging the 900 MHz spectrum. Amazon Sidewalk will most likely be an LPWAN type network since it is promising neighborhood-like device connectivity with is crowdsourcing initiative. It uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for short distances, the 900 MHz spectrum, and other frequencies for longer distance coverage. Sidewalk attempts to make sure your BLE devices can still connect to your home network even when you take a walk away from your home. According to Amazon, users can easily access the Sidewalk network using two types of devices: Sidewalk Bridges and Sidewalk-enabled devices. Amazon has now announced that compatible Echo devices can now act as bridges and also some […]

September 23, 2020September 23, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Rivet Networks launches Killer E3100 2.5GbE USB adapter

Gigabit Ethernet has reigned supreme in the home for a long time, but this year, we’ve started to see 2.5 Gbps Ethernet (2.5GbE) solutions with ODROID-H2+ SBC with 2.5GbE ports, the first consumer-grade 2.5 Gbps Ethernet switch, as well as some NAS, mini PCs, and SoM‘s features the faster Ethernet interface. But if you’ve decided to upgrade your local network to 2.5 Gbps it’s not exactly cost-effective to replace all your computers, boards, etc.. So USB dongles can help here, and Rivet Networks has launched Killer E3100 USB-C 3.1 to RJ-45 2.5Gbps Ethernet adapter sold on Amazon for $49.99. Killer E3100 2.5GbE USB adapter technical specifications: Ethernet 10/100/1000Mbps/2.5Gbps Ethernet Compatible with 2.5GBASE-T Alliance PHY Specification Supports 2.5 Gbps with Cat 5e and above Supports jumbo frame to 16K bytes Supports Wake Up Frame or Magic Packet Automatic speed reduction on faulty cable Supports 2.5G Lite (1G data rate) mode USB […]

September 23, 2020September 23, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

AMD Launches Chromebook-Optimized Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-Series Mobile Processors

AMD ChromeBook Athlon & Ryzen Processors

After unveiling Athlon 3000-series of 15W mobile processors earlier this year, AMD has now announced Chromebook-optimized mobile processors with AMD Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-Series family. Designed in collaboration with Google, the new AMD mobile “Zen” processors deliver up to 178% faster web browsing and 212% better performance for multitasking and content creation compare to the previous generation AMD A6-9220C powered Chromebooks. There are currently five 15W Ryzen/Athlon 3000 C-Series processors for Chromebooks. All processors are manufactured with a 12nm CMOS processor and look to be based on existing AMD U-series processors namely AMD Ryzen 7 3700U, 5 3500U, Ryzen 3 3250U, Athlon Gold 3150U, and Athlon Silver 3050U. All basic parameters are the same on AMD Chromebook-optimized processors, and it’s unclear to me what the differences are exactly. AMD also reported other performance metrics around with AMD Ryzen 7 3700C Mobile Processor offering up to 251% better graphics performance, […]

September 23, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Android 11 on Android TV Launches for the Big Screen

Android 11 may have been released for smartphones on September 8th, but Google has just only announced the launch of Android 11 on Android TV for an optimized experience on the big screen. The version of the TV-optimized operating system builds on the many new features introduced for Android 11, but also adds performance and privacy improvements, new features tailored for the TV, and updated developer tools. One of the notable TV-related improvements in Android 11 includes HDMI 2.1’s Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) which allows the latency setting to be automatically established depending on the applications, as for instance, many games require the lowest possible latency, while it’s not really an issue for movies and videos. Android 11 on Android TV also adds low latency media decoding, a new Tuner Framework with updated Media CAS support, extensions to the HAL implementation of HDMI CEC, extended gamepad support, silent boot […]

September 23, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Gateworks Venice Industrial IoT SBC Family Features Dual Ethernet and mPCIe Sockets

US-based Gateworks is known for its Ventana and Newport embedded networking single board computers, and the company has now introduced a third family with Venice SBC family based on NXP i.MX 8M Mini SoC with support for multimedia capabilities through MIPI-DSI, MIPI-CSI and I2S Audio headers, and targetting industrial IoT with dual Ethernet, and mini PCIe expansion sockets that can be used for 802.11ax/ac/b/g/n WiFi, 5G/4G/3G/CATM1 cellular modems, and more. The company plans to introduce four different models with GW7100, GW7200, GW7300, and GW7400 with an increase in size and feature set for each model, and mechanically compatible with previous Gateworks families. But at launch, only GW7300 SBC is available so we’ll focus our reporting on this particular model. Gateworks GW7300 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini single, dual or quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.6GHz, with Arm Cortex-M4 at 400+MHz, 3D GPU (OpenGL ES 2.0), 2D […]

September 22, 2020September 23, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

GigaDevice GD32E5 Cortex-M33 microcontrollers target motor and industrial control

We first mentioned GigaDevice Semiconductor in 2015 for its STM32-compatible GD32 microcontroller, but last year, the company was brought back to our attention again with its GD32V RISC-V microcontroller with similar features as its GD32 Cortex-M3 model but equipped with a faster and more efficient RISC-V “Bumblebee” core. That does not mean the company has given up on Arm though, as GigaDevice recently announced GD32E5 Cortex-M33 high-performance microcontrollers, manufactured using TSMC’s Low Power 40nm process, and designed for embedded systems such as high-precision industrial controllers, motor control applications, digital power supplies, measuring instruments, mixed-signal processing applications, and industrial/consumer controllers. GD32E5 MCU key features & specifications: MCU Core – Arm Cortex-M33 Armv8-M core clocked at up to 180MHz with DSP instruction set and single-precision FPU. Memory – 80KB to 128KB SRAM Storage – 128KB to 512KB on-chip flash, QSPI interface for external storage Peripherals USB 2.0 OTG dual-function controller, including 480Mbps […]

September 22, 2020September 22, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

TechNexion Unveils EDM and AXON SoM’s Powered by NXP i.MX8M Plus SoC

A few days ago we wrote about Variscite’s NXP i.MX 8M Plus-powered AI systems-on-modules and devkits, and now it’s TechNexion’s turn to introduce its own SoM’s for artificial intelligence applications. Just like variscite, the company has two variants with EDM-G-IMX8M-PLUS following the EDM standard with a 260-pin edge connector, and AXON-E-IMX8M-PLUS part of the AXON family with board-to-board connectors better suited to vibration-prone applications. Besides the form factor and different default storage capacities, both SoM’s share the same specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX8M Plus quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.8 GHz with Cortex-M7 real-time core @ 400 MHz, Vivante GC520L 2D GPU, Vivante GC7000UL 3D GPU, 1080p60 hardware decoder (HEVC, H.264, VP9, and VP8) and encode (H.265/H.264), and 2.3 TOPS NPU System Memory – Up to 8 GB LPDDR4 Storage AXON-E-IMX8M-PLUS – 32 GB eMMC flash by default EDM-G-IMX8M-PLUS – 16 GB eMMC flash by default Networking Chips Qualcomm […]