CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 6, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Specifications Published

Qualcomm Tech Summit 2018 started yesterday, and while the company mentioned Snapdragon 855, they focused on the benefit of 5G technology. Today is another day, and this time the company released details specifications about the new 5G mobile platform. Snapdragon 855 specifications: CPU – 8x Qualcomm Kryo 485 64-bit cores @ up to 2.84 GHz; 7nm Process Technology; based on leaks, tri-cluster configuration: 1+3+4 Visual Subsystem Adreno 640 GPU OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0 FP, Vulkan 1.1 API support HDR gaming Hardware-accelerated H.265 and VP9 decoder. HDR Playback Codec support for HDR10+, HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision Volumetric VR video playback 8K 360 VR video playback Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence Engine Qualcomm Hexagon 690 Processor Qualcomm Hexagon Vector Accelerator Qualcomm Hexagon Tensor Accelerator Qualcomm Hexagon Voice Assistant Qualcomm All-Ways Aware Hub Qualcomm Adreno 640 GPU Qualcomm Kryo 485 CPU System Memory – 4×16-bit, LPDDR4x, up to 16GB @ 2133 MHz Display […]

December 6, 2018December 6, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

PHYTEC phyCORE-AM65x SoM Features TI Sitara AM654x Processor

We already knew Texas Instruments was working on AM654 processor, the first 64-bit Arm SoC from the company, featuring four Cortex A53 cores, a PowerVR SGX544 GPU, dual lock-step capable Cortex R5F cores, and interfaces targeting industrial applications. Now at least one company has announced a system-on-module based on the solution. PHYTEC phyCORE-AM65x is equipped with AM654x processor, DDR4 and ECC DDR4 memory, up to 32GB eMMC flash, as well as built-in Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth connectivity. phyCORE-AM65x specifications: SoC – Texas Instruments Sitara AM65x with 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores, dual-core Arm Cortex-R5F MCU subsystem, PowerVR SGX544 GPU, 6x PRU-ICSSG System Memory – DDR4 with support for discrete DDR4 ECC Storage – Up to 32GB eMMC Connectivity Optional 2.4 or 5GHz Certified WiFi Solution 10/100/1000 Mbit/s Ethernet PHY on SOM Board-to-board connectors – 2x “high-density PCB interconnects” Dimensions – 65 x 55 mm The company provides Linux (Yocto Project), Android, […]

December 6, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Steam Link Beta now Available for Raspberry Pi 3 / 3B+

Steam is a digital distribution platform developed by Valve Corporation for purchasing and playing video games that was first launched in 2003 for Windows computer only. Since then Mac OS (2010), Linux / Ubuntu, as well as mobile devices running Android & iOS (2012) have been supported in Steam. Mobile could only be used to browse the storefront, manage games, and access the community. However more recently, the company released Steam Link app that allows players to stream games to their mobile devices, while being rendering on more powerful machines. The good news is that Steam Link (beta) has now been released for Raspberry Pi 3 / 3B + boards. All you need is either board running Raspbian Stretch, and install Steam Link as follows:

curl -#Of http://media.steampowered.com/steamlink/rpi/steamlink_1.0.5_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i steamlink_1.0.5_armhf.deb

1 2	curl -#Of http://media.steampowered.com/steamlink/rpi/steamlink_1.0.5_armhf.deb sudo dpkg -i steamlink_1.0.5_armhf.deb

Once the app is installed launch it in the command line with steamlink, or launch it from the Games menu in the desktop environment. Steam […]

December 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

MicroSemi Introduces PolarFire FPGA & RISC-V SoC

In the past we’ve covered SoCs comprised of Arm cores and FPGA fabric via Xilinx Zynq-7000 series SoCs and Zynq UltraScale+ series MPSoCs, respectively featuring up to two Arm Cortex A9 cores, and up to four Cortex A53 cores. MicroSemi has now announced an alternative, not based on Arm cores, but instead based on SiFive U54-MC RISC-V cores combined with PolarFire FPGA fabric. PolarFire FPGA RISC-V SoC key features & specifications: FPGA – Microsemi PolarFire FPGA Processor Cores – Up to 4x SiFive U54-MC RISC-V cores clocked at up to 1.5GHz (performance similar to Cortex-A35 cores); 28nm process Deterministic Coherent Multi-core CPU Cluster Deterministic L2 Memory Subsystem System Memory I/F – Integrated DDR4/LPDDR4 Controller and PHY Storage – Secure Boot, 128K Boot Flash Debug capability Rich I/Os Low Power – Low static power; power optimized transceivers, up to 50% lower power compared to SRAM based FPGAs So we don’t have […]

December 5, 2018December 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 is the First 5G Mobile Processor

Most (all?) CNX Software readers already know 5G cellular technology is coming soon, and companies have already announced 5G modems such as Samsung Exynos 5100, MediaTek M70 or Snapdragon X50, some 5G picocells, but AFAIK, so far nobody had officially unveiled 5G mobile processor. Qualcomm has finally announced their Snapdragon 855 5G mobile processor platform codenamed SDM8150, also delivering 3 times improvement for artificial intelligence workloads thanks to its 4th generation AI engine. As usual, Qualcomm has not provided the full details about the processor during the first announcement, but they just listed some highlights: 4G and 5G connectivity with sub-6 GHz and mmWave support 4th Gen AI engine with 3x performance improvement Improved photography and video via Computer Vision ISP, true 4K HDR video capture Ultrasonic fingerprint support Process – 7nm That’s it, so we have to rely on leaks and benchmarks found around the web to get some […]

December 4, 2018December 4, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

WeTek Air Android TV 4K HDR Set-Top Box Comes with DVB-T2/C, DVB-S2 or ATSC Tuners

WeTek was one of the first manufacturers to launch Android set-top boxes with built-in tuners starting with WeTek Play, later followed by WeTek Play 2 model a few years later. In recent years, the company also introduced other Android media devices for the business sector with WeTek Hyperion 4G LTE Android TV TV box, and WeTek Nix with all DRM required for the IPTV market. But it appears WeTek is coming back to the consumer market with their Google certified WeTek Air TV box running Android TV, and equipped with DVB-T2/T/C (Europe), ATSC (US), or DVB-S2 (Worldwide) tuner. WeTek Air hardware specifications are pretty similar to their WeTek Play 2 model, but with various improved features thanks to a new processor: SoC – Quad core Arm processor (Likely S905D, TBC) System Memory – 2 GB DDR4 Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot Video & Audio […]

December 4, 2018December 4, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

Up2Stream WiFi Audio Receiver Module Targets DIY Wireless Speakers

If you own a set of very good speakers, and are interested in making them smarter, Arylic Up2Stream WiFi audio receiver module may be a solution to look into. The module allows to make your own DIY wireless speakers by adding WiFi connectivity, and features such as multiroom, AirPlay, DLNA streaming, Spotify, and Internet radio streaming. Up2Stream (WA31) hardware specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7688AN MIPS processor @ up to 580 MHz System Memory – 64MB DDR2 Storage – 16MB flash Connectivity – 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n 1T1R WiFi up to 150 Mbps with 5 dBi I-PEX antenna Audio – 24-bit / 192 KHz decoding, 20 Hz – 20KHz frequency range, 4-pin speaker connector with 2.0mm pitch USB – 1x USB 2.0 port port Power Supply – 5VDC / 1A via 2-pin header (2.0mm pitch) Power Consumption – 160 to 320 mA Dimensions – 55.21 x 41.37mm The module ships with a […]

December 4, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Orange Pi 3G-IoT Board Finally Gets a Linux Image

Shenzhen Xunlong has launched several cellular IoT boards over the last few years with Orange Pi 2G-IoT, Orange Pi 3G-IoT and Orange Pi 4G-IoT, but each time, they are launched with Android support only. Linux support on the 2G board has never been great, while the Android 8.1 SDK for Orange Pi 4G-IoT was released earlier this year, but no Linux image are available. This leaves us with Orange Pi 3G-IoT board that just got its first Linux based firmware images released today on both Baidu and Google Drive cloud storage storage services. Four images are available for Orange Pi 3G-IoT-A (256MB DDR2) and Orange Pi 3G-IoT-B (512MB DDR2) boards with images booting from eMMC flash or micro SD card. A shell script (tar_image.sh) is provided to flash the image to the micro SD card since the latter for follow a specific partition layout. Sadly, there’s no mention of the […]