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Neutis N5 is a $49 Allwinner H5 SoM with WiFi and Bluetooth

Allwinner, Amlogic and Rockchip SoCs can be found in many single board computers or development boards, but contrary to processors from Texas Instruments, NXP or Atmel, there aren’t that many system-on-modules based on the low cost SoCs with companies like Pine64, Olimex, or Theobroma providing some options in that space. There soon will be more, as Emlid will launch Neutis N5 module based on Allwinner H5 processor in the next couple of months with the module also including WiFi and Bluetooth, beside the processor, memory, and storage. Neutis N5 specifications: SoC – Allwinner H5 quad core  Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Mali-450MP4 GPU System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 RAM Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash Connectivity – Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n. BT: 4.0 dual-mode BLE with on-board antenna and U.FL connector for optional external antenna HW Security – Tamper-resistant dedicated crypto chip for storing cryptographic keys, unique ID, random number […]

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Arm’s Project Trillium Combines Machine Learning and Object Detection Processors with Neural Network Software

We’ve already seen Neural Processing Units (NPU) added to Arm processors such as Huawei Kirin 970 or Rockchip RK3399Pro in order to handle the tasks required by machine learning & artificial intelligence in a faster or more power efficient way. Arm has now announced their Project Trillium offering two A.I. processors, with one ML (Machine Learning) processor and one OD (Object Detection) processor, as well as open source Arm NN (Neural Network) software to leverage the ML processor, as well as Arm CPUs and GPUs. Arm ML processor key features and performance: Fixed function engine for the best performance & efficiency for current solutions Programmable layer engine for futureproofing the design Tuned for advance geometry implementations. On-board memory to reduce external memory traffic. Performance / Efficiency – 4.6 TOP/s with an efficiency of 3 TOPs/W for mobile devices and smart IP cameras Scalable design usable for lower requirements IoT (20 […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Pine H64 Development Board Features Allwinner H6 processor, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 and PCIe for $26 and Up

As expected, Pine64 has now launched Pine H64 development board, powered by Allwinner H6 quad core processor, and contrary to Orange Pi H6 boards, it exposes both Gigabit Ethernet, and a USB 3.0 port, which should please people wanting fast storage combined with Gigabit Ethernet. The board comes in three variants with 1, 2 or 3GB of memory, with all also equipped with a mini PCIe interface, and various I/O headers. Pine H64 specifications: SoC – Allwinner H6 quad core Cortex A53 processor with Arm Mali-T720MP2 GPU System Memory – 1, 2 or 3GB LPDDR3 PC-1600 RAM Storage – 128 Mbit SPI flash, micro SD card slot, and eMMC flash module connector (all bootable) Video Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz Audio – HDMI audio output, Video Decoding – 10-bit H.265 up to 4K @ 60 fps, VP9 and H.264 up to 4K @ 30 fps […]

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Linux 4.15 Release – Main Changes, Arm and MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvald has released Linux 4.15 last Sunday: After a release cycle that was unusual in so many (bad) ways, this last week was really pleasant. Quiet and small, and no last-minute panics, just small fixes for various issues. I never got a feeling that I’d need to extend things by yet another week, and 4.15 looks fine to me. Half the changes in the last week were misc driver stuff (gpu, input, networking) with the other half being a mix of networking, core kernel and arch updates (mainly x86). But all of it is tiny. So at least we had one good week. This obviously was not a pleasant release cycle, with the whole meltdown/spectre thing coming in in the middle of the cycle and not really gelling with our normal release cycle. The extra two weeks were obviously mainly due to that whole timing issue. Also, it is […]

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H2-RK3229 is a Rockchip RK3229 TV Box with a 2.5″ SATA Drive Bay

Rockchip RK3229 is a quad core Cortex A7 for entry-level 4K TV boxes, and usually found in the cheapest TV boxes with factory price (MOQ) starting at around $18, and the bare minimum of 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage. Sometimes, it’s also found in higher quality models, for example Zidoo X1 II, and some models have more memory and/storage such as R-Box 4K. So I was a little surprised when I saw H2-RK3229 TV box with comes with 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, and a SATA bay for 2.5″ drives, that’s sold for around $61 shipped on Aliexpress. H2-RK3229 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3229 quad core ARM Cortex A7 processor @ 1.5 GHz with  ARM Mali-400MP2 System Memory – 2GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash. 2.5″ SATA bay, micro SD slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K2K @ 60 fps & AV port […]

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Firefly ROC-RK3328-CC Development Board Now for Sale for $35 and Up

Remember Libre Computer Renegade SBC – aka ROC-RK3328-CC – based on Rockchip RK3328 processor, and launched last month on Indiegogo? The crowdfunding campaign successfully completed a few days ago with over $20,000 raised from close to 250 backers. When we zoomed on the board we could see markings on the board indicated that it was made by Firefly team, the makers of boards such as Firefly-RK3288 Reload or Firefly-RK3399, and the company is now selling the board with 1 or 2GB RAM for respectively $35 and $50 plus shipping, but the 4GB version is not up for sale at this stage. Firefly-ROC-RK3328-CC board specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor with ARM Mali-450MP2 GPU System Memory – 1, 2, or 4GB DDR4 Storage – eMMC 5.x flash module socket (8 to 128 GB) + micro SD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0a up to […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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More Details about Goldmont Plus Microarchitecture (used in Gemini Lake Processors)

2017 was the year of systems based on Intel’s low power, low cost Apollo Lake processors, and provided Intel does not suddenly decide to cancel yet another product, they will be replaced by Gemini Lake processors in 2018. The former is based on Goldmont microarchitecture, while the latter relies on the updated Goldmont microarchitecture. Intel has now released a document entitled “Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Optimization Reference Manual” where you’ll find more gritty technical details about Goldmont Plus in chapter 16 “SOFTWARE OPTIMIZATION FOR GOLDMONT PLUS, GOLDMONT, AND SILVERMONT MICROARCHITECTURES”. The enhancements over Goldmont include: Widen previous generation Atom processor back-end pipeline to 4-wide allocation to 4-wide retire, while maintaining 3-wide fetch and decode pipeline. Enhanced branch prediction unit. Improved AES-NI instruction latency and throughput. 64KB shared second level pre-decode cache (16KB in Goldmont microarchitecture). Larger reservation station and ROB entries to support large out-of-order window. Wider integer execution […]

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More Low Cost ARM Linux NAS Platforms Coming Soon: Popcorn Hour Transformer (XL), ODROID-HC2

Last summer, Hardkernel launched ODROID-HC1 Home Cloud 1 taking a single 2.5″ hard drive, and based on a modified version of their popular Exynos 5422 powered ODROID-XU4 board where they removed HDMI, and added a SATA interface (via USB 3.0), but based on the initial announcement, we also knew the Korean company was working on ODROID-HC2 supporting 3.5″ drives instead. The device is not available yet, but guys at Armbian got an early unit, so we should not be waiting too long. Hardkernel will also have some competition for their ODROID-HC1 NAS, as Cloud Media (and Pine64?) are working on Rockchip RK3328 based Popcorn Hour Transformer & Transformer XL with support for 2.5″ and 3.5″ drives respectively. Hardkernel ODROID-HC2 ODROID-HC2 preliminary specifications: SoC – Samsung Exynos 5422 octa-core processor with 4x ARM Cortex-A15 @ 2.0 GHz, 4x ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1.4GHz, and Mali-T628 MP6 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 / […]

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