CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

June 26, 2019June 26, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Banana BPI-P2 Maker SBC with PoE Support Sells for $13 and Up (Promo)

Last year SinoVoIP introduced Banana BPI-P2 Zero board powered by Allwinner H2+ processor with 512MB, 10/100M Ethernet with Power-over-Ethernet, WiFi & Bluetooth, a mini HDMI port, and an 8 GB eMMC flash. They also launched a lower cost version without eMMC flash nor wireless module for $16, and the optional PoE module going for $6 extra. The company is now selling the board at a promotional price of $13 without PoE, and $19 with RT9600 POE module. The shipping fee is not included in those prices however, and in my case, the prices end up at respectively about $25 and $31 with shipping. Banana Pi BPI-P2 Maker specifications: SoC – Allwinner H2+ quad-core Arm Cortex A7 processor with Mali-400MP GPU. System Memory – 512MB DDR3 SDRAM. Storage – microSD card slot Video Output – mini HDMI port Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet with optional PoE support Camera I/F – Parallel CSI […]

June 25, 2019June 25, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Vosen V1 S905X2 Android TV Box Doubles as a Home Gateway with IR Blaster and Z-Wave Support

At first look, Vosen V1 appears to be like any other 4K HDR Android TV box powered by Amlogic S905X2 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, but it offers a bit more thanks to a built-in IR blaster allowing you to control other appliances in the room such as air conditioner, television, or A/V receiver. The box can be further enhanced by plugging-in a Z-Wave USB adapter to control & monitor even more compatible devices around the house such as light bulbs or water-leak sensors. Vosen V1 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905X2 quad core Arm Cortex-A53 with Mali-G31 MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot up to 32GB Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.1 output up to 4K @ 75 Hz with HDR, 3.5mm AV port (composite + stereo audio) Video Codecs – VP9 Profile-2 up to 4K 60fps, 10-bit H.265/HEVC up to […]

June 25, 2019June 25, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 29 Comments

Khadas VIM3 SBC Launched with Amlogic A311D Processor, 5 TOPS NPU

We’ve previously written about Khadas VIM3 Amlogic S922X development board and revealed the price tag for VIM3 Basic ($69.99) and VIM3 Pro ($99.99) with a launch date announced for June 24. As time has passed, this has become “fake news” except for the launch date, as Khadas VIM3 SBC has indeed launched but for $99.99 (Basic) and $139.99 (Pro). What’s going on? Why the large price increase? That’s because Khadas team has decided to provide a more powerful platform to the community, and replace Amlogic S922X processor with Amlogic A311D processor boasting higher clock speeds and a 5.0 TOPS NPU. Another version may also become available later on with the soon-to-be-released Amlogic S922X-B processor whose Cortex-A73 cores are clocked at up to 2.2 GHz, instead of 1.7 GHz for the original Amlogic S922X processor that will be referred to Amlogic S922X-A in the future. New Khadas VIM3 SBC specifications: SoC […]

June 25, 2019June 25, 2019 by Stephen Vicinanza - 7 Comments

PanGu Board an SBC Based on the STM32MP1 Processor

The PanGu Board is a single board computer (SBC) that is feature-rich and versatile, at an affordable price point. The board powered by STMicroelectronics STM32MP1 processor was released in February of 2019 and hadn’t really made much a splash in the pool of microprocessors available at the time. The processor is now the main feature of the PanGu Board, an SBC with a host of features and utilizing the Arm dual-core Cortex–A7 MPU and the Cortex-M4 coprocessor to allow for more enhanced multimedia ability and all the heavy real-time processing that users are calling for today. Hardware Features MPU Dual Cortex-A7, 650MHz Cortex-M4, 209Mhz 3D GPU Flash & Memory 16-bit DDR3L, up to 1GByte 8-bit eMMC Flash Quad-SPI NOR Flash Supports Micro SD Audio 3.5mm stereo headphone jack support microphone input Display Parallel RGB LCD interface, the resolution up to WXGA (1366×768) MIPI DSI interface Support for resistive and capacitive […]

June 24, 2019June 30, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 63 Comments

Raspberry Pi 4 Benchmarks & Mini Review

Raspberry Pi 4 has just been released with many improvements over Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ including a faster processor, a proper Gigabit Ethernet port, USB 3.0 interfaces, and 4K video support. That’s the theory, but how does it work in practice? I can now let you know as I’ve received a Raspberry Pi 4 sample courtesy of Cytron, and ran some tests and benchmarks on the very latest boards from the Raspberry Pi foundation. System Info Before starting with the benchmarks, let’s go through some basic system info:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat /etc/issue
Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 \n \l

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 4.19.46-v7l+ #866 SMP Fri Jun 7 18:00:39 BST 2019 armv7l GNU/Linux

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root        13G  4.7G  7.4G  39% /
devtmpfs        334M     0  334M   0% /dev
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           463M  6.4M  456M   2% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p6  253M   40M  213M  16% /boot
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1000
/dev/sda4       200G  175G   24G  89% /media/pi/USB3_BTRFS
/dev/sda2       241G  181G   48G  80% /media/pi/USB3_EXT4
/dev/sda1       245G  182G   63G  75% /media/pi/USB3_NTFS

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor	: 0
model name	: ARMv7 Processor rev 3 (v7l)
BogoMIPS	: 270.00
Features	: half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32 
CPU implementer	: 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant	: 0x0
CPU part	: 0xd08
CPU revision	: 3

....
processor	: 3
model name	: ARMv7 Processor rev 3 (v7l)
BogoMIPS	: 270.00
Features	: half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32 
CPU implementer	: 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant	: 0x0
CPU part	: 0xd08
CPU revision	: 3

Hardware	: BCM2835
Revision	: a03111
Serial		: 00000000ea51204b

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat /etc/issue

Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 \n \l

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ uname -a

Linux raspberrypi 4.19.46-v7l+ #866 SMP Fri Jun 7 18:00:39 BST 2019 armv7l GNU/Linux

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/root 13G 4.7G 7.4G 39% /

devtmpfs 334M 0 334M 0% /dev

tmpfs 463M 0 463M 0% /dev/shm

tmpfs 463M 6.4M 456M 2% /run

tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock

tmpfs 463M 0 463M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup

/dev/mmcblk0p6 253M 40M 213M 16% /boot

tmpfs 93M 0 93M 0% /run/user/1000

/dev/sda4 200G 175G 24G 89% /media/pi/USB3_BTRFS

/dev/sda2 241G 181G 48G 80% /media/pi/USB3_EXT4

/dev/sda1 245G 182G 63G 75% /media/pi/USB3_NTFS

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo

processor : 0

model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 3 (v7l)

BogoMIPS : 270.00

Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32

CPU implementer : 0x41

CPU architecture: 7

CPU variant : 0x0

CPU part : 0xd08

CPU revision : 3

....

processor : 3

model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 3 (v7l)

BogoMIPS : 270.00

Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32

CPU implementer : 0x41

CPU architecture: 7

CPU variant : 0x0

CPU part : 0xd08

CPU revision : 3

Hardware : BCM2835

Revision : a03111

Serial : 00000000ea51204b

$ inxi -Fc0
System:
  Host: raspberrypi Kernel: 4.19.46-v7l+ armv7l bits: 32 Console: tty 1 
  Distro: Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:
  Type: ARM Device System: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.1 details: BCM2835 
  rev: a03111 serial: 00000000ea51204b 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: ARMv7 v7l variant: cortex-a72 bits: 32 
  type: MCP 
  Speed: 1500 MHz min/max: 600/1500 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1500 2: 1500 
  3: 1500 4: 1500 
Graphics:
  Device-1: bcm2835-vc4 driver: vc4_drm v: N/A 
  Device-2: bcm2835-hdmi driver: N/A 
  Display: tty server: X.org 1.20.4 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev 
  tty: 80x24 
  Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console. Try -G --display 
Audio:
  Device-1: bcm2835-audio driver: bcm2835_audio 
  Device-2: bcm2835-hdmi driver: N/A 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.46-v7l+ 
Network:
  Message: No ARM data found for this feature. 
  IF-ID-1: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full 
  mac: dc:a6:32:00:9e:9c 
  IF-ID-2: wlan0 state: up mac: dc:a6:32:00:9e:9d 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 946.35 GiB used: 540.58 GiB (57.1%) 
  ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 vendor: SanDisk model: SL16G size: 14.84 GiB 
  ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: Seagate model: Expansion size: 931.51 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 12.68 GiB used: 4.71 GiB (37.1%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/mmcblk0p7 
  ID-2: /boot size: 252.0 MiB used: 39.3 MiB (15.6%) fs: vfat 
  dev: /dev/mmcblk0p6 
Sensors:
  Message: No sensors data was found. Is sensors configured? 
Info:
  Processes: 179 Uptime: 4h 37m Memory: 1000.5 MiB used: 324.1 MiB (32.4%) 
  gpu: 76.0 MiB Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.32

$ inxi -Fc0

System:

Host: raspberrypi Kernel: 4.19.46-v7l+ armv7l bits: 32 Console: tty 1

Distro: Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)

Machine:

Type: ARM Device System: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.1 details: BCM2835

rev: a03111 serial: 00000000ea51204b

CPU:

Topology: Quad Core model: ARMv7 v7l variant: cortex-a72 bits: 32

type: MCP

Speed: 1500 MHz min/max: 600/1500 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1500 2: 1500

3: 1500 4: 1500

Graphics:

Device-1: bcm2835-vc4 driver: vc4_drm v: N/A

Device-2: bcm2835-hdmi driver: N/A

Display: tty server: X.org 1.20.4 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev

tty: 80x24

Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console. Try -G --display

Audio:

Device-1: bcm2835-audio driver: bcm2835_audio

Device-2: bcm2835-hdmi driver: N/A

Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.46-v7l+

Network:

Message: No ARM data found for this feature.

IF-ID-1: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full

mac: dc:a6:32:00:9e:9c

IF-ID-2: wlan0 state: up mac: dc:a6:32:00:9e:9d

Drives:

Local Storage: total: 946.35 GiB used: 540.58 GiB (57.1%)

ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 vendor: SanDisk model: SL16G size: 14.84 GiB

ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: Seagate model: Expansion size: 931.51 GiB

Partition:

ID-1: / size: 12.68 GiB used: 4.71 GiB (37.1%) fs: ext4

dev: /dev/mmcblk0p7

ID-2: /boot size: 252.0 MiB used: 39.3 MiB (15.6%) fs: vfat

dev: /dev/mmcblk0p6

Sensors:

Message: No sensors data was found. Is sensors configured?

Info:

Processes: 179 Uptime: 4h 37m Memory: 1000.5 MiB used: 324.1 MiB (32.4%)

gpu: 76.0 MiB Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.32

For reference, you’ll find Raspberry Pi 4 Linux boot log here. Phoronix benchmarks Let’s go ahead and install the latest version of Phoronix benchmarks:

sudo apt install php-cli php-gd php-xml php-zip 
wget http://phoronix-test-suite.com/releases/repo/pts.debian/files/phoronix-test-suite_8.8.1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i phoronix-test-suite_8.8.1_all.deb

sudo apt install php-cli php-gd php-xml php-zip

wget http://phoronix-test-suite.com/releases/repo/pts.debian/files/phoronix-test-suite_8.8.1_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i phoronix-test-suite_8.8.1_all.deb

Now let’s run the test to compare the performance of Raspberry Pi 4 model B to some other Arm Linux boards including Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.

phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1709271-TY-1704029RI26

1	phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1709271-TY-1704029RI26

For reference, my office has an […]

June 24, 2019June 24, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Raspberry Pi 4 vs Pi 3 – What are the differences?

So now that the Raspberry Pi 4 model B has just been launched, it may be worth checking out the differences against the previous latest single board computer from the Raspberry Pi foundation, namely Raspberry Pi 3 model B+. Let’s get straight to the Raspberry Pi 4 vs Pi 3 B+ comparison table. Features/Specs Raspberry Pi 4B Raspberry Pi 3 B+ Release date 24th June 2019 14th March 2018 SoC Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 @ 1.5 GHz Broadcom BCM2837B0 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.4 GHz GPU VideoCore VI with OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0, 3.0 VideoCore IV with OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0 Video Decode H.265 4Kp60, H.264 1080p60 H.264 & MPEG-4 1080p30 Video Encode H.264 1080p30 Memory 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB LPDDR4 1GB LPDDR2 Storage microSD card Video & Audio Output 2x micro HDMI ports up to 4Kp60 3.5mm AV port (composite + audio) MIPI DSI connector 1x HDMI 1.4 port up […]

June 24, 2019June 25, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 140 Comments

Raspberry Pi 4 Features Broadcom BCM2711 Processor, Up to 4GB RAM

Long expected, the Raspberry Pi 4 model B has finally launched, and it should not disappoint with a much more powerful Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor clocked at up to 1.5 GHz, 1 to 4GB LPDDR4, 4K H.265 video decoding and output support, a proper Gigabit Ethernet port, as well as USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports. Raspberry Pi 4 comes with all those extra features, but the form factor remains the same, and importantly the price is still $35 for the version with 1GB RAM, making Raspberry Pi alternatives suddenly much less interesting. Raspberry Pi 4 specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 (ARMv8) @ 1.5GHz with VideoCore VI GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics System Memory – 1GB, 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – microSD card slot Video Output & Display I/F 2x micro HDMI ports up to 4Kp60 (Currently 1080p60 max. in dual-display configuration, although 2x 4Kp30 is […]

June 24, 2019July 17, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

ODROID-H2 Rev B Review – Part 1: Kit Unboxing and Assembly

ODROID-H2 was announced in October 2018 as the first x86 SBC from Hardkernel. The board features an Intel Celeron J4105 Gemini Lake processor, two SO-DIMM slots for memory, two SATA ports and M.2 NVMe slot for storage, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a mix of USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, as well as HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs. The board went for sale the following month for $111, and the first batch of 2,000 boards was sold within 24 hours. In normal cases, this should not be a big problem, and in a few weeks, the company should have been able to produce more boards to fulfill the demand. But Intel decided to prioritize higher-end processors, and Gemini Lake SoCs’ manufacturing was put on the back foot. That means Hardkernel had to wait over 6 months to get supply of the Celeron J4150 processors. In the meantime, the company slightly redesign […]