Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 50 Comments on Espressif ESP32 Dual Core SoC Features Faster WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, and More Peripherals

Espressif ESP32 Dual Core SoC Features Faster WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, and More Peripherals

Espressif teased us about a successor to ESP8266 a few months ago that would support both WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy, and John Lee, working for Espressif Systems, has now sent a letter to ESP8266 developers announcing the new wireless SoC with two Tensilica L108 cores and called ESP32. Espressif ESP32 key improvements over ESP8266: Faster WiFi – Wifi has been upgraded to support HT40 speed (144.4 Mbps) and has a new RF architecture to simplify the application schematics Bluetooth Low Energy and Classic Dual core processor – 2x Tensilica L108 processors clocked at up to 160 MHz Low Power Mode Improvements – ADC conversions, level thresholds, etc.. can now be performed in deep sleep Peripherals – Capacitive touch, ADCs, DACs, I2C. UART, SPI, SDIO, I2S, RMII, PMW, etc… but no USB. More RAM – ~400 KB on-chip RAM Security – Hardware accelerated AES and SSL, and more undisclosed improvements. […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Intel Introduces 3 “New” Atom x5 and x7 Processors, a GPU Naming Scheme

Intel Introduces 3 “New” Atom x5 and x7 Processors, a GPU Naming Scheme

Intel has a published a product change notification regarding an update to Intel Atom x7-Z8700, x5-Z8500, and x5-Z8300 processors with the new Intel Atom x7-Z8750, x5-8550, and x5-Z8350 processors with higher CPU burst frequencies, and some graphics fixes (Alpha Blending and ASTC issues). The company has also come up with a naming scheme for the Gen8 GPUs used in the processors with the 12EU (Execution Units) SKU being called HD Graphics 400, and the 16EU SKU called HD Graphics 405. That means there are now 6 Cherry Trail processors: Atom x5-Z8300 quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz with 1.84 GHz burst frequency and HD Graphics 400 Atom x5-Z8350 quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz with 1.92 GHz burst frequency and HD Graphics 400 Atom x5-Z8500 quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz with 2.24 GHz burst frequency and HD Graphics 400 Atom x5-Z8550 quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz with 2.4 […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on EmbPower Provides Nvidia Tegra K1 RTX Modules, Carrier Boards, and Industrial Computers

EmbPower Provides Nvidia Tegra K1 RTX Modules, Carrier Boards, and Industrial Computers

EmbPower is a Taiwanese company that first focused on graphic cards, but has since then also developed other solutions requiring high GPU performance for military & aerospace applications as well as medical equipment. One of these products is TK1 Carrier Board with TK1 SoM powered by Nvidia Tegra K1 quad core processor, that can be encapsulated into TK1 PowerUnit industrial computer. There are actually two TK1 carrier boards: the larger V1.2 with more ports and features, and the smaller V2.0 that is used in TK1 PowerUnit Box, but they share most of the same (preliminary) specifications: SoC – Nvidia Tegra K1 quad core ARM Cotax-A15 processor with Nvidia Kepler 192-core GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 @ 933 MHz Storage – 16GB eMMC flash and SPI serial flash. V2.0 only: Adds micro SD slot; V1.2 only: Adds SD slot and SATA Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet; optional 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 243 Comments on Giveaway Week – A80 Optimusboard Development Board

Giveaway Week – A80 Optimusboard Development Board

Together with Rockchip RK3288, Allwinner A80 is one of the most powerful Chinese ARM processors for mini PCs or development board, and today I’m starting a giveaway for A80 OptimusBoard development board based on Allwinner octa core big.LITTLE processor. When I got the board last year, it was indeed powerful as shown in benchmarks. But unfortunately after Allwinner provided me with a new firmware supposed to fix some NTFS write performance issues, I quickly discovered it also had some stability issues whose reasons were not clear, and Merrii Technology support is not very good to say the least, at least for hobbyists, and even now there’s no operating system for download on the board page. Luckily PcDuino Arches (previously known as PCDuino8) is basically the same, and you can download some Lubuntu & Android images on Linksprite website instead. The firmware has not been updated since 2014 however. To enter […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Wind River Introduces Free Cloud-based Operating Systems for IoT Applications

Wind River Introduces Free Cloud-based Operating Systems for IoT Applications

After Google Brillo operating system was officially launched last week, another company has announced free operating systems for IoT. What’s peculiar is that the company is Wind River a vendor of commercial operating systems whose typical business model is to sell licenses for their operating systems and fees for their development services. Nevertheless, the company has now introduced Wind River Rocket real-time operating system, and Wind River Pulsar Linux operating system.  Both OSes will interface with the company’s Helix Cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) products, which is probably how the company intends to monetize their work, on top of customization services. Wind River Helix App Cloud is currently made of three products: Helix App Cloud cloud-based development environment for building IoT applications Helix Lab Cloud cloud-based virtual hardware lab for simulating and testing IoT devices and complex systems. Helix Device Cloud cloud-based platform for managing deployed IoT devices and their data. Some […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Manifold mini PC Powered by Nvidia Tegra K1 Processor is Designed for Drones

Manifold mini PC Powered by Nvidia Tegra K1 Processor is Designed for Drones

DJI is known for their high-end drones such as Phantom 3 quadcopter, but the company has now launched Manifold mini PC powered by Nvidia Tegra K1 quad core Cortex A15 processor and running Ubuntu 14.04 in order to allow developers run their own applications performing complex computing tasks and advanced image processing “on the fly”. DJI Manifold specifications: SoC – Nvidia Tegra K1 quad core Cortex-A15 processor @ up to 2.2 GHz with 192-core Kepler GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3L Storage – 16GB eMMC 4.51 flash, micro SD slot Video Output – mini HDMI port Audio I/O – mini HDMI, combo audio jack for microphone and headphone Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet port USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB port (supports Force Recovery mode and Host mode) ,  and a non-standard USB 2.0 interface with the drone. Camera – Camera In and […]

Intel Arc Graphics Technology
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Linux 4.3 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linux 4.3 Release – Main Changes, ARM and MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds released Linux Kernel 4.3 last week-end: So it *felt* like the last week of the rc series was busy, to the point where I got a bit worried about the release. But doing the actual numbers shows that that really was just my subjective feeling, probably due to the kernel summit and travel back home from Korea. It wasn’t actually a particularly busy week, it’s just that the pull requests were more noticeable in the last couple of days. We had a network update and a late fix for a x86 vm86 mode bug introduced by the vm86 cleanups, but other than that it’s just a collection of various small one-liners all over. Ok, the vm86 mode thing was a one-liner too, it was just slightly more nerve-wracking because it looked scarier than it was before people (Andy) figured out what was going on. The changes from rc7 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments on Teclast X16 Tablet Comes with an Intel Atom x7-Z8700 Processor and 8GB RAM, Dual Boots Android 5.1 and Windows 10

Teclast X16 Tablet Comes with an Intel Atom x7-Z8700 Processor and 8GB RAM, Dual Boots Android 5.1 and Windows 10

There’s been a few Cherry Trail devices launched recently, but the Intel Atom x5-Z8300 processor found in most new devices does not offer that much over the older Intel Atom Z3735F, and only an handful of devices have been released based on the more powerful Atom x7-Z8700 processor such as Microsoft Surface 3 tablet and Magicstick TV stick. I can also often read people complaining 2GB RAM is not enough, but Teclast X16 Power 11.6″ tablet addresses these two issues with an Atom x7-Z8700 quad core processor, 8GB RAM, and 64GB storage for dual booting Windows 10 and Android 5.1. Teclast X16 Power specifications: SoC – Intel Atom x7-Z8700 “Cherry Trail” quad core processor @ 1.6 GHz (Bust freq: 2.4 GHz) with Intel Gen8 HD graphics with 16EU @ 600MHz (2W SDP) System Memory –  8 GB LPDDR3-1600 Storage – 64 GB eMMC + micro SD slot up to 64GB […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC