Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on Wear Estimation for Devices with eMMC Flash Memory

Wear Estimation for Devices with eMMC Flash Memory

flash wear leveling & garbage collection

CNXSoft: This is a guest post by Marcel Ziswiler, Platform Manager – Embedded Linux, Toradex and Leonardo Graboski Veiga, Technical Marketing Engineer, Toradex related to Marcel’s upcoming talk “Wear Estimation for Devices with eMMC Flash Memory” at the Embedded Linux Conference 2019 later this month. Flash memory has been an important topic in embedded systems for decades. It allows for drastic improvements to the size and robustness of electronic devices compared to other storage technologies. Other benefits of flash storage include a lack of moving parts and reduced power consumption. However, the challenges that come with flash memory are not as widely publicized in consumer electronics. Among them are limited durability and greater software complexity. As shown in Figure 1, flash memory is everywhere in our daily lives, ranging from devices used specifically to store data, such as thumb drives, SD cards and SSDs, to other consumer electronics that use it internally, like smartphones, Wi-Fi modems and smart light bulbs. …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Toradex Torizon Industrial Linux Distribution Targets Windows Developers

Toradex Torizon Industrial Linux Distribution Targets Windows Developers

Toziron Linux Docker Yocto

When we interviewed Toradex right before Embedded World 2019, they told us they would focus on their new software offering called Torizon, an easy-to-use industrial Linux Platform, especially targeting customers are coming from the Windows / WinCE environment or who have only experience with application development and are not embedded Linux specialists. The company has now officially launched Torizon, and provided more details about their industrial open source software solution especially optimized for their NXP i.MX modules. Torizon specifically relies on foundries.io Linux microPlatform which provides  full system with a recent stable kernel, a minimal base system built with OpenEmbedded/Yocto, and a runtime to deploy applications and services in Docker containers. The microPlatform is part of TorizonCore (light blue section above) that also includes an OTA client (Aktualizr). TorizonCore is free open-source software, and serves as the base to run software containers. To get started, Torizon provides a Debian container including apt package manager that allows developers to easily download …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments on Systems-on-Module Market Update – An Interview with Toradex CMO

Systems-on-Module Market Update – An Interview with Toradex CMO

Daniel Lang Toradex CMO

I’ve been interviewing Daniel Lang, Toradex Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), over email just before Embedded World 2019, to learn a bit more about the system-on-module market, and what’s ahead. CNXSoft: We’ve already covered several Toradex systems-on-module and development kits on CNX Software, but for readers who may not know Toradex yet, could you provide a short description of what the company does in the embedded systems space? Daniel Lang: Thanks for having me. Toradex builds high reliable Arm-based System on Modules. Our focus is to make the life of developers easier and to reduce the complexity and time-to-market. We sell hardware, but most of our engineering resources focus on Software and Support. Our products are used in areas such as Industrial Automation, Medical, Transportation, Test and Measurement, Building Automation and many more. CNXSoft: Could you explain why / what type of customers go the SoM route instead of designing for a complete custom single board computer? DL: Toradex SoMs are …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on Adding Machine Learning based Image Processing to your Embedded Product

Adding Machine Learning based Image Processing to your Embedded Product

Convert model tensorflow runtime to NNEF

CNXSoft: This is a guest post by Greg Lytle, V.P. Engineering, Au-Zone Technologies. Au-Zone Technologies is part of the Toradex Partner Network. Object detection and classification on a low-power Arm SoC Machine learning techniques have proven to be very effective for a wide range of image processing and classification tasks. While many embedded IoT systems deployed to date have leveraged connected cloud-based resources for machine learning, there is a growing trend to implement this processing at the edge. Selecting the appropriate system components and tools to implement this image processing at the edge lowers the effort, time, and risk of these designs. This is illustrated with an example implementation that detects and classifies different pasta types on a moving conveyor belt. Example Use Case For this example, we will consider the problem of detecting and classifying different objects on a conveyor belt. We have selected commercial pasta as an example but this general technique can be applied to most other …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Toradex Colibri iMX8X SoM Features NXP i.MX 8X Dual / Quad Arm Cortex-A35 Processor

Toradex Colibri iMX8X SoM Features NXP i.MX 8X Dual / Quad Arm Cortex-A35 Processor

Toradex Colibri imx-8x som

Designed for infotainment and dashboard in automotive applications, industrial control, robotics, healthcare, mobile payments, handheld devices, and more, NXP i.MX 8X Arm Cortex-A35 processor was first spotted in 2016, before being formally announced in March 2017. But it took quite longer to see actual products launched, and several vendors announced i.MX 8X modules in the last week while NXP also released documentation. One of them is Toradex with their Colibri iMX8X system-on-module with up to 2GB LPDDR4 memory, 8GB flash, a built-in 802.11ac 2×2 MIMO WiFi + Bluetooth 5 module, dual channel LVDS, MIPI DSI display interface, a quad-lane MIPI CSI-2 camera interface, etc… Toradex Colibri iMX8X specifications: SoC (one of the following options) NXP i.MX 8QuadXPlus quad core Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.2GHz, Arm Cortex-M4 MCU @ up to 266MHz, HiFi4 DSP, Vivante GC7000Lite performance optimized GPU, 4K video support NXP i.MX 8DualXPlus dual core Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.2GHz, Arm Cortex-M4 MCU @ up to 266MHz, …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments on Visual Studio 2017 with an Embedded Linux Arm Device

Visual Studio 2017 with an Embedded Linux Arm Device

This is a non-sponsored guest post written by Marc Goodner: Principal Program Manager, Microsoft, and Jeremias Cordoba: Innovation Engineer, Toradex. Today many embedded devices run some flavor of Linux as their primary operating system. This poses a challenge to developers who run Windows on their development machine. This article explains a new way to use the latest Visual Studio for C++ development on an embedded Arm Devices from a Windows Host PC using containers for the build environment. The device we are deploying to is from the Toradex Colibri Family of System on Modules using the NXP i.MX 6ULL SoC, which features an Arm Cortex A-7. As a demo project we will connect a Bluetooth Sensor with the Toradex Colibri Module. Please note that Visual Studio support for this case is in an early state, you will see improvements from Microsoft and Toradex in the coming months. Prerequisites Colibri i.MX 6ULL with Wi-Fi/BT and an Aster Carrier Board TI SensorTag (Bluetooth low energy) …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Linux 4.17 Release – Main Changes, Arm & MIPS Architectures

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 over. That was what happened for 4.0, after all. As …

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Toradex Launches Apalis iMX8 Computer-on-Module based on NXP i.MX 8QuadMax SoC

Toradex Launches Apalis iMX8 Computer-on-Module based on NXP i.MX 8QuadMax SoC

Toradex-Apalis-i.MX8-SoM

Toradex Apalis iMX8 is another system-on-module powered by NXP i.MX 8QuadMax hexa core Arm Cortex A72 + 53 processor, which comes with 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, up to 16GB flash, and an on-board dual-band 802.11ac 2×2 MU-MIMO Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 ready module. The company has just opened early access for selected customers, so it has become possible to start developing products with the MXM3 computer-on-module. Apalix i.MX8 module specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8QuadMax hexa core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 cores @ 1.6 GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores @ 1.26 GHz, 2x Cortex-M4 real-time core @ 266 MHz, and dual Vivante GC7000XSVX GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 (64 Bit) Storage – Up to 16GB eMMC flash On-module Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet via Microchip KSZ9031 transceiver with low power features Dual-band 802.11ac 2×2 MU-MIMO Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 via Azurewave AW-CM276NF M.2 1216 LGA module Audio – NXP SGTL5000 low power stereo codec 314-pim MXM3 edge connector with: Storage – …

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