CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

February 20, 2020February 20, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Qualcomm Snapdragon X60 5G Modem to Deliver up to 7.5 Gbps Download Speeds in 2021

While 5G networks are ramping, most people don’t have coverage, let alone a 5G capable smartphone or laptop, but after Snapdragon X50 and Snapdragon X55, Qualcomm has just unveiled its third-generation 5G modem with Snapdragon X60. The new 5G modem is said to feature the world’s first 5-nanometer 5G baseband and the first 5G modem-RF system to support spectrum aggregation across all key 5G bands, namely mmWave and sub-6 using frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD). Snapdragon X60 key features: Cellular Technology 5G NR – 5G TDD, SA (standalone), 5G FDD, NSA (non-standalone) LTE – LTE FDD, LTE TDD including CBRS support, LAA, LTE Broadcast WCDMA (DB-DC-HSDPA, DC-HSUPA), TD-SCDMA, CDMA 1x, EV-DO, GSM/EDGE 5G Spectrum – mmWave-sub6 carrier aggregation, sub-6 carrier aggregation (FDD-TDD, FDD-FDD, TDD-TDD), Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS), mmWave, sub-6 GHz mWave specs – 800 MHz bandwidth, 8 carriers, 2×2 MIMO sub-6 GHz spec -: 200 […]

February 19, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

GIGABYTE Unveils Four BRIX Comet Lake-U mini PC’s

Intel unveiled Intel Comet Lake processors last summer with two sub-family namely the 15W Comet Lake-U processors and the lower power 7W Comet Lake-Y processors. We’ve found the latter in products such as OneMix 3 Pro mini laptop, and the former in some System76 Linux laptops. But so far, I had not really paid attention to Comet Lake mini PCs. There have been a few announcements at CES 2020 with Asus “Mini PC PN62“, ECS Liva Z3 Plus, ZOTAC MI662 nano and a few others all based on Intel Comet Lake-U processors. GIGABYTE has also unveiled four Comet Lake mini PC’s with the following key features and specifications: SoC BRIX BRi3H-10110 – Intel Core i3-10110U dual-core/quad-thread processor @ 2.1/4.2 GHz (Turbo) with 23EU Intel UHD Graphics; 15W TDP BRIX BRi5H-10210 – Intel Core i5-10210U quad-core/octa-thread processor @ 1.6/4.2 GHz (Turbo) with 24EU Intel UHD Graphics; 15W TDP BRIX BRi7H-10510 – […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

February 19, 2020February 19, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

NetBSD 9.0 Released with Aarch64 Support, Arm ServerReady Compatibility

Yesterday, we wrote about Raspberry Pi 4 getting UEFI+ACPI firmware for Arm SSBR compliance allowing the board to run operating systems designed for “Arm ServerReady” servers out of the box. NetBSD 9.0 was just released on February 14, 2020, with support for Aarch64 (64-bit Arm) which had been in the works for a few years, and includes support for “Arm ServerReady” compliant machines (SBBR+SBSA). NetBSD 9.0 main changes related to hardware support: Support for AArch64 (64-bit Armv8-A) machines Compatibility with “Arm ServerReady” compliant machines (SBBR+SBSA) using ACPI. Tested on Amazon Graviton and Graviton2 (including bare metal instances), AMD Opteron A1100, Ampere eMAG 8180, Cavium ThunderX, Marvell ARMADA 8040, QEMU w/ Tianocore EDK2 Symmetric and asymmetrical multiprocessing support (big.LITTLE) Support for running 32-bit binaries via COMPAT_NETBSD32 on CPUs that support it Single GENERIC64 kernel supports ACPI and device tree based booting Supported SoCs Allwinner A64, H5, H6 Amlogic S905, S805X, S905D, […]

February 18, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 38 Comments

Raspberry Pi 4 UEFI+ACPI Firmware Aims to Make the Board SBBR-Compliant

As Arm wanted to enter the server market, they realized they had to provide systems that could boot standard operating system images without modifications or hacks – just as they do on x86 server -, so in 2014 the company introduced the Server Base System Architecture Specification (SBSA) so that all a single OS image can run on all ARMv8-A servers. Later on, Arm published the Server Base Boot Requirement (SBBR) specifications describing standard firmware interfaces for the servers, covering UEFI, ACPI and SMBIOS industry standards, and in 2018 introduced the Arm ServerReady compliance program for Arm servers. While those are specific to Arm server, some people are pushing to implement SBBR compliant for Arm PCs, and there’s one project aiming to build an SBBR-compliant (UEFI+ACPI) AArch64 firmware for the Raspberry Pi 4. The UEFI firmware is a build of a port of 64-bit Tiano Core UEFI firmware, and version […]

February 18, 2020April 30, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Antmicro GEM ASIC Leverages zGlue Technology to Quickly Bring Custom Arm/RISC-V SoC’s to Market

Introduced in 2018, ZiP (zGlue Integration Platform) chip-stacking technology aims to produce chips similar to Systems-in-Package (SiP) but at much lower costs and lead times. We first found it in a Bluetooth tracker featuring ZGLZ1BA custom chip manufactured with zGlue technology and integrating an Arm Cortex-M0 MCU, flash memory and sensors into a single package. But now the technology is back in the news with Antmicro announcing GEM chiplet-based ASIC last December. At the time of the announced the company’s GEM1 chip featured two Lattice iCE40 FPGAs with a MIPI CSI-2 switch, and they had started working on GEM2 chip combining a hard RISC-V processor and Lattice iCE40 FPGA. Those are so-called demonstrators chip as Antmicro customers will be able to easily and quickly design their own 6×9 mm chip(s) with RISC-V and/or ARM CPUs, FPGAs, sensors, radios and other functional elements to meet the requirements of their specific applications. […]

February 18, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

$99 RAK7246 LoRaWAN Developer Gateway Features Raspberry Pi Zero W SBC

Outdoor LoRaWAN gateways meant to be deployed in the field usually cost several hundred dollars, so companies also offer cheaper gateways for indoor use that can be used by developers. RAKWireless offers this type of gateway with products such as Pilot Gateway Pro RAK7243 based on Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ board, or RAK7244 LoRaWAN Developer Gateway featuring the more recent Raspberry Pi 4 board and sold for $212 and up with price depending on options such as cellular connectivity. The company has now worked on providing much cheaper indoor/developer gateways with their RAK7246 and RAK7246G LoRAWAN developer gateways with the latter adding GPS. RAK7246 is available. RAK7246 key features and specifications: SBC – Raspberry Pi Zero W board with Broadcom BCM2835 ARM11 processor @ 1GHz, 512MB RAM Storage – 16GB MicroSD card Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 via Cypress CYW43438 module found on RPi Zero W board […]

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

February 17, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Sonoff GK-200MP2-B is a $30 IP Security Camera with RTSP Support

ITEAD Studio is popular for its Sonoff family of home automation devices include smart switches, smart sockets, and smart light bulbs among other similar products. But I’m just found out the company also launched an RTSP capable IP security camera called Sonoff GK-200MP2-B and sold for just $29.99 plus shipping and that can also be found for $32.99 including shipping on Banggood. Main features of Sonoff GK-200MP2-B IP camera: Camera Lens Aperture – F1.2 Viewing Angle – 340° horizontal (motorized) + 120° vertical (manual adjustment) 2x IR LEDs for night mode Motion detection Resolution – 1080p H.264 video encoding Storage – MicroSD card socket up to 128GB Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 Audio – Speaker and microphone; two-way audio Misc – Reset button Power Supply – 5V/1A Dimensions – 109 x 109 x 80 to 120mm (ABS plastic) Temperature Range – 0°C-55°C Like for other Sonoff devices, the […]

February 17, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

How to Build & Run Linux on Kendryte K210 RISC-V NOMMU Processor

A few months ago, we wrote that Western Digital was working on Linux & BusyBox RISC-V NOMMU, and managed to boot a minimal Linux OS on Kendryte K210 powered Sipeed Maix Go board. RISC-V NOMMU support was scheduled for Linux 5.5, and now that the new kernel has been released, Damien Le Moal has pushed the code allowing to build Linux and a busybox based roofs for RISC-V 64-bit NOMMU platforms using buildroot. I could start the build following the instructions on Github, but it failed as a Linux 5.6 RC1 tarball was missing. But I noticed “Vowstart” picked up on Damien’s work, and wrote detailed instructions. So let’s try the build out using a machine running Ubuntu 18.04. We’ll have to make sure dependencies are installed first:

sudo apt install build-essential device-tree-compiler bison \
    flex file git curl wget cpio python unzip rsync bc texinfo

1 2	sudo apt install build-essential device-tree-compiler bison \ flex file git curl wget cpio python unzip rsync bc texinfo

Then we can retrieve the source code and do some preparations (e.g. extract Linux 5.6 RC1 tarball):

git clone https://github.com/vowstar/k210-linux-nommu.git
cd k210-linux-nommu
export PROJ_ROOT=$(pwd)
sh ./prepare_buildroot.sh

git clone https://github.com/vowstar/k210-linux-nommu.git

cd k210-linux-nommu

export PROJ_ROOT=$(pwd)

sh ./prepare_buildroot.sh

The next step […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications