All You Need to Create a Beaglebone Clone

The Beagleboard community has released Beaglebone Rev 3 hardware design files so that other people can now modify the hardware and/or create a clone. Here are the files: Schematics (PDF) Schematics (Orcad) [update] Bill of materials Gerber files Allegro files (PCB layout) System Reference Manual [update] To open Allegro files, you’ll need to download Cadence Allegro FREE Viewer or purchase one of Cadence PCB Design software if you don’t have it yet. The schematics are only provided in PDF format for now, so you would be able to modify them unless you reproduce the PDF one. Since TI has now released the Orcad schematics you’d also be able to make a custom board by modifying the schematics. Please note that those files comes with the following disclaimer: These design materials are *NOT SUPPORTED* and DO NOT constitute a reference design. THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE DESIGN MATERIALS, TO THE […]

Linaro 11.10 Release with Linux Kernel 3.1

Linaro has just released version 11.10 based on Linux Kernel 3.1. Here are the highlights of the release: Android Audio playback and recording works on LEB-panda. TJBench into all Android builds benchmarked against the original Android libjpeg implementation: TomGall/LibJpegTurbo All strict-aliasing violations in 2.3.5 have been fixed and sent to AOSP. (for build optimization) Linaro Gerrit is integrated with Android Build Service for change verification as part of Continuous Integration effort. Tip toolchain tracked and released against all targets for 11.10. iMX53 will now boot with a 3.0 or later Android Kernel. The multimedia test application has been extended to cover encoding and give better benchmark results. Linaro’s Android distribution can now base builds off a tip toolchain build. Linaro’s 11.09 toolchain has been benchmarked. USB camera (UVC) now works on linaro-android builds. Developer Platform The Linux Linaro packages are now generated and validated in a continuous integration loop. New […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

Xibo Digital Signage on ARM (Full Version)

Last month, I wrote a post showing how to run Xibo Open Source Digital Signage in a BeagleBoard/Overo emulator. That version could communicate with Xibo server, download the required files, display pictures and (maybe) play videos with the real hardware. However, it had serious limitation as Text, RSS and web pages could not be displayed. I’ve now fixed those issues and the full Xibo 1.3.1 can run on ARM platform. First, you need to follow the instructions given in Xibo Digital Signage on ARM (Beagleboard / Overo), although we’ll need to modify something with libavg compilation (see below). Then cross-compile berkelium for ARM using Linaro toolchain. Add libbrowser-node to libavg plugin directory and build libavg again. Also copy the Berkelium header files in to src/test/plugin (i.e. src/test/plugin/berkelium) or add the include file path to CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS.

Create libberkeliumwrapper.so:

Copy the required files to the qemu image: sudo mount -o […]

Epiq Solutions Matchstiq: World’s smallest Software Defined Radio

Epiq Solutions recently announced the Matchstiq, a software defined radio (SDR) combining a broadband RF transceiver with CPU (TI DM3730)/FPGA (Xilinx Spartan-6) processing running Linux 2.6.35. The device offers a complete stand-alone software-defined radio solution with  flexibility at a fraction of the size/weight/power consumption of similar products. Epiq Solutions also provides a library of ready-to-run specialty software applications that allows the Matchstiq platform to be immediately used to solve challenging signal processing requirements. The device can be deployed as stand-alone device in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), as a wireless interface to an (Android) host via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or as wired interface to a PC via USB. The key features include: Integrated CPU (TI DM3730) /FPGA (Xilinx Spartan-6) for signal processing applications Single RF transceiver covering 300 MHz to 3.8 GHz Supports RF channel bandwidths up to 28 MHz Integrated GPS receiver with 1PPS Run-time loadable/executable software applications Full suite of specialty […]

Linux Kernel Debugging – Linaro Connect Q4 2011

Linaro Connect Q4.2011 takes place on the 31 October – 4 November 2011 in Orlando. In the video below, Linaro toolchain developers asked kernel developers about their potential needs for kernel debugging. Several options to improve the kernel debugging experience were discussed. In particular, the toolchain group will make sure that OpenOCD works at least on one of the member boards to allow for easy debugging through JTAG. They also mentioned support for o-profile. This session was an opportunity to review debugging techniques used by kernel developers. It also allowed most participants to discover the GDB Text User Interface (GDB TUI), a very convenient way to interact with GDB, without having to go through heavyweight environments like Eclipse. You can follow this subject on Blueprints for Toolchain support for Kernel Debugging on Linaro website. The audio is quite poor, so use some headphones or boost the volume to hear anything.

TI Unveils Sitara AM335x ARM Series Cortex-A8 Processors

Texas Instruments has just announced the new Sitara AM335X Processors and the low cost Beaglebone development board. The low cost Cortex-A8 SoCs start at 5 US dollars per piece and are aimed at upgrading ARM9 solutions (software compatible) and adding new features such as 3D interfaces and touch screen, high resolution displays with faster performance. Texas Instruments says you could take those new upgraded products to market within 6 months thanks to their inexpensive development board (Beaglebone) and complete SDK. There are six models in the Sitara AM335X series: AM3552: Cortex A8 up to 720 MHz. AM3554: Cortex A8 up to 720 MHz with 3D Graphics (PowerVR SGX GPU). AM3556: Cortex A8 up to 720 MHz with programmable real-time unit (PRU) @ 200 Mhz. AM3557: Cortex A8 up to 720 MHz with PRU @ 200Mhz and EtherCat. AM3558: Cortex A8 up to 720 MHz with 3D Graphics and PRU @ […]

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

Applied Micro X-Gene 64-Bit ARMv8 Server-on-Chip Presentation

Applied Micro Showcases World’s First 64-bit ARMv8 Core at ARM Techcon 2011, Santa Clara California. The day ARM announced the first 64-bit ARMv8 instruction set architecture, AppliedMicro unveiled the launch of the industry’s first 64-bit ARM “Server-on-a-Chip” solution. Most of the presentation is used to explain the competitive advantage this platform would bring including TCO reduced by 30%. There is also an (underwhelming) demonstration of X-Gene based on Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA running Server SoC consisting of ARM-64 CPU complex, coherent CPU fabric, high performance I/O network, memory subsystem along with fully functional SoC subsystem. The FPGA platform and tools will be available for customer evaluation by the first half of 2012. Redhat will be in charge of implementing ARMv8 support in Linux and this will be part of Fedora for ARM in the future. The platform will run LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl/PHP/Python. The silicon will be available in […]

MHL (Mobile High Definition Link) Turns Your Phone into a Set-Top Box, Game Console and more

MHL (Mobile High Definition Link) was introduced at Mobile World Conference 2011, some progress has been done since then. For now Two HDTVs are MHL compliant: the Toshiba WL800A and the Samsung UN46D7000. The Toshiba TV already have a firmware upgrade that provides MHL support, a firmware upgrade will come later for the Samsung HDTV. MHL provides market disruptive features that such as the ability to charging MHL compliant phones and tablets, control them with the TV remote through one simple MHL connector (micro-USB to HDMI). In the demo below, they show the phone connected to the Toshiba WL800A and being controlled with the TV remote control to play videos (including trick modes: pause, ffwd, etc..), play Android games and use a web browser. Once you install Google TV 2.0 in your phone (you’ll probably need Android 4.0) or tablet, you can get a great TV experience via your mobile […]

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