Category: ARM TechCon

List of my ARM Powered devices used for video-blogging:

Posted by Charbax – November 14, 2011

Andy Frame is interviewing me on ARM’s official YouTube Channel about my ARM Powered devices used for video-blogging and live video streaming from consumer electronics trade-shows.

List of devices featured in this video:

- Headmounted Display: Kopin Golden-i, OMAP3530 based, provides SVGA screen at eye-level for real-time monitoring of an IRC chat for asking better questions
- Headmounted Logitech c910 Webcam connected to the ARM Powered One Laptop Per Child XO-1.75, Marvell Armada 618 based, live-streaming the webcam video feed to http://ustream.tv (an optimal Headmounted computer, maybe Motorola’s next version, can include the webcam and Android based software to live-stream the video to any live video streaming service built-in)
- Archos 101 G9, OMAP4430/OMAP4460 1Ghz to 1.5Ghz tablet, similar specs as in the Galaxy Nexus but in a 10.1″ tablet form factor. Starts $269 unlocked no contract for 8″. This is probably my favorite high-end tablet at the moment. I’ll post my full video-review of the Archos 101 G9 in the next few days.
- Archos 70 Internet Tablet, OMAP3630 1Ghz single core, released about 13 months ago. I use this tablet every day as 7″ tablets fit in any jacket pocket. Thus I mostly use this for checking emails, web browsing, watching video, playing games, using apps when I am outside. I am looking forward to upgrade this to a dual-core 7″ tablet.
- My $87 FG8 Android Smartphone, it’s my main smartphone for the past 7 months since I found it in Shenzhen China. It supports Dual-SIM cards (so I can use my home and foreign SIM numbers at the same time, or use voice SIM and data SIM at the same time), has a decent 3.5″ capacitive touch screen, uses the wildly popular in China Mediatek MTK6516 ARM9 processor. I’m looking forward upgrading this to a Galaxy Nexus (because I am eager to try Ice Cream Sandwich) or to a newer faster 3G-capable sub-$100 Android phone.
- ZTE MF61 T-Mobile USA 4G HSPA+ Hotspot, $50 for 3GB/month pre-paid, $141 for the device, no contract.

ARM Mali-T658 announced

Posted by Charbax – November 10, 2011

ARM Media Processing Division’s Jem Davies and Ian Smythe talk about the launch of the new Mali-T658 GPU. It can start to appear in devices by the end of 2012 and beginning of 2013. This is like having a 250 Gigaflops super computer in your pocket. The performance is anywhere from 2x to 4x faster than the Mali-T604 announced last year. Now supporting configurations up to 8 cores. It easilly supports 4K resolutions. It’s compatible with the newly announced ARMv8 64-bit architecture. The Mali-T658 delivers desktop-class performance, achieved by doubling the number of GPU cores, doubling the number of arithmetic pipelines within each core and improving the compiler and pipeline efficiency. Find more information at http://www.arm.com/products/multimedia/mali-graphics-hardware/mali-t658.php

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AppliedMicro X-Gene ARMv8 64-bit Server-on-chip shown on FPGA

Posted by Charbax – November 9, 2011

At ARM TechCon 2011 last week, Applied Micro was able to show their ARMv8 platform design already running on an FPGA, to be sent out to their partners in January so they can start working on the software for when they can have working silicon of their ARMv8 64-bit Server-on-chip platform, they say as early as in the 2nd half of 2012 already. Here is the full keynote presentation featuring Paramesh Gopi, president and CEO of Applied Micro, Lance Howarth, EVP Marketing at ARM, Dr. Christos Kozyrakis of Stanford University, Andrew Feldman, Founder and CEO of SeaMicro and Vinay Ravuri, Vice President of AppliedMicro’s Embedded and Processing Business Unit, presenting the worlds first ARMv8 64-bit processor demo running on an FPGA. I recommend that you watch the full webcast with slides on Applied Micro’s own website (enter a name and email to start watching in full screen with the synchronized slides), and here is the YouTube version without the slides as published by youtube.com/cnxlinux:

One can thus possibly understand from this that the ARM Powered Servers are going to be upgraded twice in the next year. Powered by Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 now such as the HP Moonshot project powered by Calxeda EnergyCore, likely upgraded to ARM Cortex-A15 solutions (up to 8 cores) as soon as those are ready (2H 2012) and then again upgraded to ARMv8 64-bit running at up to 3Ghz which is what Applied Micro is saying that they can deliver early silicon of in just about a year from now. Thus ARM Powered Servers are going to run at up to full performance levels, not only being suitable for lower power consumption and lower price but also aiming to deliver the full maximum performance that some people building servers say they need.

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ARMv8 Technology Preview, a highly technical presentation video

Posted by Charbax – November 5, 2011

Right after the announcement of the ARMv8 64-bit architecture at ARM TechCon, Richard Grisenthwaite, Lead Architect and Fellow at ARM did this following highly technical presentation to a huge packed room of ARM industry insiders and experts, here’s the full video with slideshows as released on the official ARMflix YouTube channel:


At the end of the video you can click through to Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of this 45-minute technology preview.

$5 Sitara AM335x ARM Cortex-A8 and BeagleBone

Posted by Charbax – November 1, 2011

Texas Instruments is launching a $5 ARM Cortex-A8, it’s re-optimized for specific tasks, it can go in tablets, but it can also be used in industrial and medical applications, and certain custom uses, where this can be thought of a high-end microprocessor yet very low cost, it starts at $5 for ordering 100 thousand units. It’s an ARM Cortex-A8 performance for industrial applications at the cost and power usage of ARM9 Microprocessor. TI’s Beagleboard.org community is launching the new $89 BeagleBone to develop on this platform. Watch this 20-minute presentation of this project by TI’s Jakob Alamat, director of marketing for TI’s ARM Microprocessor Sitara platform:

Read the full press release.

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OLPC XO-1.75 hands-on

Posted by Charbax – October 30, 2011

I got to play with the new Marvell Armada PXA618 powered One Laptop Per Child XO-1.75 laptop during the ARM Technology Conference. It seems to already be very stable and run very fast, although this is still a beta prototype, with beta software, OLPC, Red Hat, Marvell still have some work to do to optimize the software and complete the hardware so that it can be mass produced and shipped to children around the world starting early next year. Here in this video I walk around with it outdoors for a few minutes and show you some of how it looks like.

B Labs demonstrates Virtualizating 2 OS on ARM

Posted by Charbax – October 30, 2011

B Labs can run 2x Android OS, for example one secure business install and one for personal use, or to run Android and a version of Linux.

FirstView pre-approves outsourcing partners in India for US

Posted by Charbax – October 30, 2011

FirstView pre-approves potential outsourcing partners and suppliers in India and elsewhere, to enable reliable outsourcing of ARM related PCB design and other ARM optimizations work, tablet, set-top-box designs and more.

ST Microelectronics STM32F4

Posted by Charbax – October 30, 2011

ST is the current leader in ARM Cortex-M series shipments, those microprocessors go into everything.

Marvell Armada 618 in the Vizio V-Tab 8″ capacitive sub-$200 tablet

Posted by Charbax – October 30, 2011

Marvell provides this low leakage highly optimized single core Armada 618 now in end consumer products and reaching sub-$200 pricing.