CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

June 6, 2018June 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Linux 4.17 Release – Main Changes, Arm & MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds released Linux 4.17 last Sunday: So this last week was pretty calm, even if the pattern of most of the stuff coming in on a Friday made it feel less so as the weekend approached. And while I would have liked even less changes, I really didn’t get the feeling that another week would help the release in any way, so here we are, with 4.17 released. No, I didn’t call it 5.0, even though all the git object count numerology was in place for that. It will happen in the not _too_distant future, and I’m told all the release scripts on kernel.org are ready for it, but I didn’t feel there was any real reason for it. I suspect that around 4.20 – which is I run out of fingers and toes to keep track of minor releases, and thus start getting mightily confused – I’ll switch […]

June 5, 2018June 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

RAK831 Lite is a $200 LoRa / LoRaWAN Gateway based on Raspberry Pi 3 Board

RAK831 is a Semtech SX1301 based LoRa gateway module that was released by RakWireless in 2017. The board has since then be sold as part of the company’s LoRa gateway developer kit with a Raspberry Pi and a MAX-7Q GPS Module. But now RakWireless offers a nicely packaged solution with Raspberry Pi 3 board, RAK831 module, a GPS board, an enclosure, antenna, and power supply which they call RAK831 Lite, and sells for just $199 + shipping ($6.45 extra here).RAK831 Lite gateway main components and specifications: Main board – Raspberry Pi 3 development board with Broadom BCM2837 processor, 1GB RAM, micro SD card slot, Fast Ethernet, 4x USB ports, HDMI output, audio jack Connectivity RAK831 LoRa Concentrator board based on SX1301 chipset RF frequencies – 433, 470, EU868, AS923, AU915, and US 915 Rx Sensitivity – -140 dBm Tx Power – Up to 25.5 dBm at settings 27 dBm SMA […]

June 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

ASUS Announces 802.11ax WiFi Routers at Computex 2018

802.11ax is a new WiFi standard offering better performance, especially in high-density scenario, where average per usage bandwidth may be improved by up to 4 times, so city dwellers should benefit the most. Last year, we started to see 802.11ax compliant chips from Broadcom, Marvell, Qualcomm, and others, so it should come as no surprise that some of first 802.11ax WiFi routers are launched this year. ASUS introduced two 802.11ax WiFi routers at Computex 2018 with ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 tri-band 802.11ax router, RT-AX88U dual band 802.11ax router , and the AX6100 WiFi System for mesh networking. ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 The ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 is a high-end router with a peak aggregate throughput of about 11000 Mbps. Specifications: Processor – Quad core processor @ 1.8 GHz System Memory – 1 GB RAM Storage – 256 MB flash Connectivity WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax, IPv4, IPv6 Tx/Rx – 2.4 GHz 4×4, 5 GHz-1 4×4, 5 […]

June 5, 2018June 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 is Designed for Windows 10 Mobile PCs

As you all probably know, Qualcomm and Microsoft worked together and launched always-on, always-connected Windows 10 mobile PCs powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Arm processor earlier this year. Battery life is spectacular, but considering the fairly high price of such devices, many were disappointed by performance which in many cases is not much better than much cheaper Intel Apollo Lake laptops. But performance of future Qualcomm based Arm laptops will improve significantly thanks to Snapdragon 850 Mobile Compute Platform featuring eight Kryo 385 cores clocked to close to 3 GHz, and other enhancements. Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 “Mobile Compute Platform” specifications: CPU – 8x Kryo 385 Arm cores clocked @ up to 2.96 GHz GPU – Adreno 630 Visual Processing Subsystem with Open GL ES 3.2, Open CL 2.0, Vulkan, DirectX 12 Ultra HD Premium video playback and encoding @ 4K (3840×2160) 30fps, Slow motion HEVC video encoding of FHD (1080p) […]

June 4, 2018July 12, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

NVIDIA Introduces Jetson Xavier Devkit and Isaac Robotics Software

NVIDIA Xavier was first unveiled in September 2016 as an artificial intelligence SoC with eight NVIDIA Custom 64-bit Arm cores, a 512-core Volta GPU, 8K video encoding and decoding, and a computer vision accelerator (CVA) now called NVDLA (NVIDIA Deep Learning Accelerator). Earlier this year, the company announced Xavier was sampling, and DRIVE IX & DRIVE AR SDKs for the automotive market. On the eve of Computer 2018, NVIDIA has introduced Jetson Xavier development kit, as well as Isaac robotics software for autonomous machines. Jetson Xavier key specifications: SoC – NVIDIA Xavier with 8-core ARMv8.2 64-bit CPU, 8MB L2 + 4MB L3 512-core Volta GPU with Tensor Cores 2x NVDLA engines for deep learning 7-way VLIW Processor for vision acceleration VPU with dual 4Kp60 video decoding and encoding System Memory – 16GB 256-bit LPDDR4x | 137 GB/s Storage – 32GB eMMC 5.1 flash Display – 3x eDP/DP/HDMI at 4Kp60 | […]

June 4, 2018June 4, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Firefly Core-PX3-SEJ SoM Features Rockchip PX3-SE Industrial-Grade Processor

Allwinner is not the only Chinese fabless silicon vendor to offer industrial grade processors, as Rockchip PX3 SE quad core Cortex A7 processor can also operate in the industrial temperature range (-20°C to 80°C). I had covered Rockchip PX3 previously, but it’s the first time I read about Rockchip PX3-SE processor, and Firefly is the first company to integrate the processor into a product, namely Core-PX3-SEJ system-on-module. Core-PX3-SEJ module specifications: SoC – Rockchip PX3-SE quad core Cortex A7 processor @ 1.3 GHz with Arm Mali-400MP2 GPU – See datasheet for details System Memory – 512MB, 1GB or 2GB dual-channel DDR3 Storage – 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB eMMC flash Edge Connector – 204-pin DDR3 SO-DIMM connector with Storage – Micro SD card interface Connectivity SDIO interface for WiFi & Bluetooth module Gigabit Ethernet Display – HDMI up to 1080p, CVBS, MIPI DSI or LVDS for LCD display Audio – Via […]

June 4, 2018June 4, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

UM25C is a Better USB Power Meter with built-in Display, Bluetooth, and Android & Windows Apps

Products such as USB Charger Doctor are good way to test your USB chargers or cables, as well as checking the power consumption of USB powered development boards. You just plug them into a USB port, and connect the load, and you’ll see the real-time voltage and current shown on an LED display. Those do the job, but I’ve just been made aware of UM25C USB meter tester that improves a lot on the concept with a dot matrix display capable of showing charts, and Bluetooth connectivity to send the data to Android or Windows devices. UM25C specifications: Display 1.44″ color LCD display 0-5 brightness setting Auto screen off time – 0 to 9 minutes Refresh rate – 2Hz Measurement Range & Accuracy Voltage – 4-24.000V ±0.5‰ + 2digits Current – 0-5.0000A ±1‰ + 4 digits Capacity – 0-99999mAh Energy accumulation – 0-99999mWh Load impedance – 0.8Ω-9999.9Ω Time range – […]

June 4, 2018June 10, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Tibbo-Pi is a Wirefree Modular IoT Prototyping Platform for Raspberry Pi Board

Tibbo Project System (TPS) is a modular Linux IoT prototyping platform based on the same Texas Instruments Sitara AM335x processor used in BeagleBone Black or a PocketBeagle boards, and comprised of a main board, Tibbit blocks to add features as needed, and an enclosure. I’ve now been informed the company will be at Computex 2018 to showcase their new products including Tibbo-Pi, following the same concept as Tibbo Project System, but leveraging Raspberry Pi 3 board and ecosystem instead. While an English brochure is said to be available, all information in the webpage listed in the photo above is in Japanese. But basically, Tibbo-Pi is said to be an IoT edge device for industrial use, made for build a prototypes, or small scale production system thanks to a choice a 60 different Tibbit Blocks sensor and I/O module blocks, all wire free. Programming of the system is typically done with with […]