CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

August 23, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Perfetto Profiler Now Supports Mali GPU Hardware Counters via Panfrost

Perfetto is an open-source system profiler, app tracer, and trace analyzer for Linux, Android & Chrome platforms, and user-space apps. The program can already visualize CPU and memory usage, as well as power consumption. GPU support is more limited with the program only capable of sampling the GPU frequency when the driver outputs that information via ftrace. When Perfetto is also extendable thanks to a Tracing C++ SDK that “allows userspace applications to emit trace events and add more app-specific context to a Perfetto trace”. Collabora made use of the tracing SDK to add support for Mali Midgard GPU performance profiling in gfx-pps project using the Mali GPU hardware counters exposed via Panfrost open-source Mali GPU driver. After following the installation instructions, you’ll be able to run the following executables for tracing and profiling: tracedtracing service. traced_probes OS probes service. perfetto command-line tool for recording traces. producer-gpuproviding the Panfrost data […]

August 22, 2020August 22, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

PicoCore RT1 System-on-Module Runs FreeRTOS on NXP i.MX RT1050 Crossover Processor

F&S Elektronik Systeme PicoCore RT1 is a System-on-Module powered by NXP i.MX RT1050 crossover processor designed to offer the real-time capabilities of microcontrollers and the performance of application processors thanks to an Arm Cortex-M7 core clocked at up to 600 MHz. The 40×35 mm module is also equipped with 32MB SDRAM, 256MB “high-reliability QSPI NOR flash, and 16KB EEPROM, and offers various interfaces including Ethernet, RGB LCD, and USB via board-to-board connectors. PicoCore RT1 (V1) SoM specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX RT1050 Arm Cortex-M7 processor @ up to 600 MHz with 32KB L2 cache, 2D graphics accelerator System Memory – 32MB SDRAM Storage – 256MB QSPI Flash, 16KB EEPROM; optional NAND flash 2x 80-pin board-to-board connector with Storage – SD Card Display – 16-bit RG interface, analog resistive and PCAP touch via I2C Networking – 1x 10/100M Ethernet Audio – Line-In, Line-Out, microphone, headphone, I2S USB – 1x USB 2.0 […]

August 21, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Vision FPGA SoM Integrates Audio, Vision and Motion-Sensing with Lattice iCE40 FPGA (Crowdfunding)

tinyVision.ai’s Vision FPGA SoM is a tiny Lattice iCE40 powered FPGA module with integrated vision, audio, and motion-sensing capability with a CMOS image sensor, an I2S MEMS microphone and a 6-axis accelerometer & gyroscope. The module enables low power vision (10-20 mW) for battery-powered applications, can interface via SPI to a host processor as a storage device, comes with open-source toolchain and sample code, and is optimized for volume production. Vision FPGA SoM specifications: FPGA – Lattice iCE40UP5k FPGA with 5K LUT’s, 1 Mb RAM, 8 MAC units Memory – 64 Mbit QSPI SRAM for temporary data Storage – 4 Mbit QSPI Flash for FPGA bitstream/code storage Sensors Himax HM01B0 CMOS image sensor Knowles MEMS I2S microphone, expandable to a stereo configuration with an off-board I2S microphone InvenSense IMU 60289 6-axis Gyro/accelerometer I/Os 4x GPIOs with programmable IO voltage SPI host interface with programmable IO voltage Misc – Tri-color LED, […]

August 21, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Whiskey Lake Thin Mini ITX SBC Features Eight USB Interfaces, Dual SATA, Dual GbE, and More

Advantech AIMB-233 thin mini-ITX SBC is equipped with a choice of 15W Intel Whiskey Lake processors, supporting up to 32GB RAM, and offering plenty of high speed I/Os include eight USB interfaces, two SATA III ports, dual Gigabit Ethernet, several PCIe & M.2 expansion slots, as well as triple display support, six COM ports, and more. The motherboard complies with the “thin mini-ITX” requirement of not exceeding 2.5cm in height, and Advantech expects the thin Mini-ITX SBC to be found in nursing carts, patient care systems, Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI), and mobile devices. AIMB-233 thin mini-ITX SBC specifications: SoC (One or the other) Intel Core i7-8665UE quad-core/octa-thread processor @ up to 1.7 / 4.4 GHz with Intel UHD Graphics 620 – 15W TDP Intel Core i5-8365UE quad-core/octa-thread processor @ up to 1.6 / 4.1 GHz with Intel UHD Graphics 620 – 15W TDP Intel Core i3-8145UE dual-core/quad-thread processor @ up to […]

August 21, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

UPX-Edge BrainFrame Edge AI DevKit Targets Smart Video Analytics

AAEON UP Xtreme Edge (UPX-Edge) is a rugged embedded computer built around the company’s UP Xtreme SBC with a choice of 15W Whiskey Lake-U processors ranging from Celeron 4305UE to Core i7-8665UE, and optional Intel Movidius X AI accelerator cards. We previously noted the company had launched UP Xtreme Smart Surveillance kit integrating Milestone video management software (VMS) and SAIMOS video analytics software to the embedded computer. AAEON has now partnered with another company – AOTU.AI – to announce the launch of the BrainFrame Edge AI Developers Kit (DevKit) aiming to help developers and system integrators to rapidly create and deploy Smart Vision applications. The solution relies on UP Xtreme Edge mini PC fitted with an Intel Core i5-8365UE processor and 16GB RAM, 64GB eMMC flash, and two Intel Movidius Myriad X VPUs. We’ve also gone through Up Xtreme Edge specifications, so let’s instead focus on the software. This is […]

August 20, 2020October 18, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

NanoPi NEO3 and NanoPi R2S Gateways Review – Part 1: Unboxing & Teardown

This morning I received a message from DHL informing me of an incoming package from Hong Kong and sent by a company (i.e. an agent) I had never heard of. My first reaction was “Ah” shortly followed by “Why?!”. But in any case, I’ve just received the package, and after tearing the plastic out, I found a FriendlyELEC branded package. So I thought to myself it must be a NanoPi board for review. Wrong! I actually got two NanoPi “boards” namely NanoPi NEO3 with 2GB RAM, and NanoPi R2S both of which are Rockchip RK3328 powered SBC’s designed for Linux headless applications. Unboxing After opening both packages, I realized I did not get the SBC versions, but instead the complete gateways with their respective enclosure. NEO3 is really light since the case is in plastic, while R2S is a bit heavier due to the metal case. NanoPi NEO3 gateway comes […]

August 20, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

RAK7431 RS485 Bridge Relays ModBUS Data over the LoRaWAN Network

Last year with covered Dragino RS485-LN RS485 to LoRaWAN converter that extends the range of RS485 wirelessly up to 15+km thanks to LoRaWAN connectivity. Rakwireless has now launched a similar product with RAK7431 Modbus RS485 to LoRaWAN bridge. RAK7431 key features and specifications: MCU- STM32L071 industrial-grade MCU with low-power consumption (4uA sleep) LoRa Semtech SX1272 LoRa transceiver Frequencies – RU864, IN865, EU868, US915, AU915, KR920, AS923 Tx Power – 20dBm (Max) LoRaWAN 1.0.3 protocol stack, supports Class A, Class B & C Polling mode, transparent mode and packet mode RS485 6-pin RS485 terminal block Support up to 16x RS485 devices, with up to 32 instruction sets Baud rate – Configurable 9600 to 115200bps Can power RS485 devices via a dedicated output USB – 1x Micro USB configuration port Misc – Reset key, 3x LEDs Input Voltages – 8-48V DC input via 2-pin terminal block; 5V via Micro USB Dimensions – […]

August 20, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Which Are the Most Reliable Hard Drives?

All mechanical hard drives fail after a while. For consumers, it may not be that big of an issue as long as data is properly backed up, but for businesses, a higher failure rate may lead to extra maintenance costs and downtime. As a cloud storage company, Backblaze has lots of drive, and by a lot, we mean over 140,000 hard drives from different vendors, and they happen to provide quarterly and yearly updates to the failure rates of different drives. The latest one is for Q2 2020. Drive days represent the number of days, hard drives were operational during the period, basically drive count x (365/4) – maintenance/replacement days. AFR stands for “Annualized Failure Rate”. HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) was a manufacturer of hard drive acquired by Western Digital in 2012, but the company still sells HGST parts… More on that later. There were three drive models without […]