Pradeep Kathail, Cisco Chief Software Architect

Posted by – March 15, 2014

The Linaro Networking Group marked its first anniversary at the Linaro Connect Asia. Here Bob Monkman, ARM Enterprise Segment Marketing Manager, interviews Pradeep Kathail, Cisco Chief Software Architect, Network Operating System Group, to reflect on the year’s accomplishments and current activity within LNG. In addition to delivering Big Endian support in the Linux kernel, LNG launched the OpenDataPlane (ODP) project to enable data plane applications to easily port across different hardware platforms and architectures while retaining the ability to exploit hardware acceleration features unique to each platform. Pradeep discusses the importance of ODP and its relationship to other open source initiatives like OpenDaylight (ODL) as part of the larger industry trends of Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV).

and here’s my Interview with him:

and here is his keynote video from the LinaroOnAir channel:

HiSilicon D01, 16-core ARM Cortex-A15 presented by Huawei


Here’s the 16-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor from HiSilicon Huawei on a development board for ARM Powered Networking and Servers coming up. Hacked on in this video by Linaro Toolchain Engineer Rob Savoye (2), who now is climbing the Mount Everest. Linux kernel v3.13 is running on this board, with three SATA ports and two Gigabit ethernet ports driver ready. The BSP code will soon be upgraded to kernel v3.14 and be upstreamed in parallel. Source code and binaries are released through Linaro website. Ubuntu Server is verified on this board. In this demo, it runs a GCC toolchain native build. Linaro Toolchain Working Group plans to use this board to run multiple builds per board, to maximally saturate D01’s computing and storage capability.

Kernel source: http://git.linaro.org/landing-teams/working/hisilicon/kernel.git (branch: integration-hilt-d01)
Binary release: http://www.linaro.org/downloads/ (found ‘HiSilicon D01’)
WiKi page: https://wiki.linaro.org/Boards/D01

Energy Harvesting BonsaiLight, wireless light switch, no batteries needed

Posted by – March 15, 2014

Dr. Eri Takahashi is founder and CEO of EcoHarvester, green-technology startup, winner of the 2008 UC Berkeley Venture Lab Prize and 2009 NASA Innovation prize at the Rice Business Plan competition. In this episode hosted by William Lumpkins, Senior Member of IEEE, Dr. Takahashi presents her patented energy-harvesting technology that allows humans to power remote switches and controls using kinetic energy, reducing the need for batteries. Combining deep expertise in electronic design and energy-harvesting technology with an award-winning design team, BonsaiLight creates wireless light switches and controls that are battery-free and elegant in design and can operate with Bluetooth and other RF standards to eliminate the need for multiple standards in a system.

G-ONE Ripple Light

Posted by – March 15, 2014

G-ONE makes ripple light which is a radio frequency controlled LED lighting system. G-ONE Inc is a Japanese company. The lighting system can be controlled through a mobile device such as an Android device. The protoypes have AAA batteries and the final version will have built in batteries with a battery life of 6 hours and potentially being rechargeable.

Linaro VP of Engineering Mark Orvek talks Security with Joakim Bech and Kernel with Deepak Saxena

Posted by – March 14, 2014

Mark Orvek, Linaro VP of Engineering chats with Joakim Bech, Tech Lead Security Working Group; and Deepak Saxena, Tech Lead Kernel Working Group about the work that their teams are focusing on in 2014.

Ongoing activity on the Energy Aware Scheduler

Posted by – March 14, 2014

Linaro and ARM engineers talk about their current activities to integrate power management into the Linux scheduler. By integrating cpuidle and cpufreq mechanisms into the scheduler, they hope to work with the community to create an energy-aware scheduler as an alternative to the current performance-oriented scheduler. This work will require improvements in other parts of the scheduler such as better description of processor topology, load estimation in the scheduler and better tools to measure the performance impact of changes to the scheduler.

Linaro engineers implementing ACPI for ARMv8

Posted by – March 13, 2014

Linaro is working on implementing ACPI for general purpose servers using the ARMv8 architecture. This has been controversial as it is a competing technology to FDT which has been used now for the 32bit ARM world.

ACPI has been chosen on for the general purpose servers to allow standard distributions such as RHEL and Ubuntu server to boot on hardware which they have no special support in the same way as x86 world. ACPI is used to abstract the hardware to the level the standard distribution can boot to the point it can be useful.

There is a large overlap between FDT and ACPI but they actually do things a different way. FDT is currently holding fast the the mobile and tablets market for ARM. But with Intel implementing ACPI phones and tablets nothing is certain for the future.

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Linaro’s validation team demonstrates using LAVA for native toolchain builds and “hack” sessions on Arndale Octa and APM X-Gene ARMv8 platforms

Posted by – March 12, 2014

Linaro’s automated validation architecture (LAVA) is typically used to execute automated tests to validate Linaro’s engineering output. However, LAVA has recently integrated features to automate builds and provide secure remote interactive sessions to developers. Linaro’s lab lead Dave Pigott shows a native toolchain build orchestrated by LAVA. This technology enables developers to validate the toolchain on many ARM processor designs as well as other architectures. Tyler Baker a technical architect at Linaro explains how LAVA abstracts the image deployment, boot process, and installation of software needed to support these “hack” sessions.

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You can read more at:
http://validation.linaro.org
http://community.validation.linaro.org

Samsung ISOCELL CMOS Image Sensors at 16Mp and 13Mp

Posted by – March 12, 2014

Samsung’s new CMOS image sensor technology, ISOCELL, substantially increases light sensitivity and effectively controls the collection of electrons, resulting in higher color fidelity even in poor lighting conditions. By incorporating ISOCELL, the image sensor will have 30 percent decrease in crosstalk; 30 percent increase in full well capacity; and 20 percent wider chief ray angle. Using the new technology with 1.12µm ISOCELL pixels, Samsung is introducing two new CMOS image sensors —16 and 13Mpixel.

The 16Mpixel ISOCELL imager provides a wider, clearer viewing experience to mobile device users by implementing a 16:9 aspect ratio, allowing for full-size, high-resolution images and video to be displayed on screen without field-of-view (FOV) loss. This high-speed sensor captures full FOV 16:9 full HD (1080p) video at 60fps, and for the first time in the industry, enables continuous shooting of all 16Mpixels at 30fps. Samples of the 16Mpixel ISOCELL CIS are available now and scheduled for mass production in the first quarter of 2014.

Samsung’s new 13Mpixel ISOCELL CIS features Smart Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) technology, which allows users to capture images at 30fps. With a mosaic pattern of multiple exposures, images are then processed with an advanced algorithm for wider dynamic range. This enables users to capture details clearly in both bright and dark areas even in high contrast lighting conditions. This Smart WDR feature is based on Samsung’s advanced 65nm stacked process, where the pixel array is attached right on top of the logic circuit. Samsung’s 13Mpixel product is sampling now and is scheduled for mass production in the second quarter of 2014.

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Samsung Exynos 5410 in Android Set-top-box

Posted by – March 12, 2014

Samsung shows the Exynos 5 used for advanced Android Set-top-box systems, showing multi-window, content sharing, camera integration, supporting everything in the house through this Samsung Octa Core set-top-box and Android. Gaming, advanced VOD and more. 4K video playback also supported and more.

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Samsung S5N2120 Low Power Wi-Fi MCU for the IoT market

Posted by – March 12, 2014

Samsung offers its first wireless connectivity solution, S5N2120, for the growing Internet of Things (IoT) market. This solution supports IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz, and has an extremely small footprint, which is essential for a wide array of applications.

This solution features an integrated micro control unit (MCU) with a power amplifier, power management, audio codec and direct microphone functions. With this MCU, OEM customers can easily reconfigure their existing designs to add Wi-Fi connectivity functions. This allows for a shorter development lead-time and less engineering resources are required.

This flexibility along with excellent performance and a small footprint is optimal for battery-constrained applications such as Wi-Fi speakers, headsets, remote controls, digital & sports cameras, smart heating/cooling meters, sensors and other types of IoT or M2M applications. Samsung’s new Wi-Fi connectivity solution, S5N2120, is currently sampling and scheduled for mass production in the second quarter of 2014.

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Samsung Widcon, 17GB/s+ Memory Bandwidth for future ARM Processors

Posted by – March 11, 2014

Using Widcon, the latest and future Samsung ARM Processors and memory are stacked directly through TSV (Through Silicon Via) technology, this is the next step after Package-on-Package (PoP) designs where there is a circuit board between the processor and memory, thus data had to move through wires. In the new Widcon Processor and Memory package from Samsung, this means data can move through each ball and memory bandwidth becomes wider up to and beyond 17GB/s. This structure also brings better energy efficiency. Higher bandwidth allows application processor to perform maximum performance even at low clock speed. Moreover, superior thermal dissipation comes from TSV structure also enables the new Exynos 5 Octa processor and likely future Exynos6 to maximize the full potential performance of the processor at a lower power consumption. You can also see my previous video with Samsung talking about Widcon Wide IO memory technology here: http://138.2.152.197/2013/11/21/samsung-wide-io-memory-interface-for-the-faster-and-lower-power-arm-processors-of-the-future/

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Linaro Enterprise Group LEG accelerating Linux development on ARM Servers

Posted by – March 11, 2014

The Linaro Enterprise Group (LEG) is dedicated to accelerate Linux ARM server ecosystem development and extends the list of Linaro members beyond ARM silicon vendors to Server OEM’s and commercial Linux providers.

Linaro Enterprise Group (ARM Servers) engineers Ed Nevill, Leif Lindholm, Andrea Gallo, Al Stone, Hanjun Guo share key achievements in the OpenJDK, HipHopVM, UEFI and ACPI areas, building on new hardware, defining plans towards upstream acceptance, solving bugs and more.

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299€ Huawei MediaPad M1 8″ Tablet with 4G LTE

Posted by – March 11, 2014

This is Huawei’s budget 8″ 1280×800 IPS tablet with the HiSilicon Kirin 910 1.6GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with Mali-450 GPU, 5-megapixel camera, 1-megapixel front-facing camera, 4800mAh battery, dual front-facing speakers, 7.9mm thinness and a weight of 329gr.

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Barcelona Carnival Greasy Thursday

Posted by – March 11, 2014

Greasy Thursday is dedicated to the Greasy and Vice and celebrated with many festivals, here featuring the giant couple dancing through the streets of Barcelona.

Nokia Here Maps, an overview

Posted by – March 11, 2014

Nokia makes Here Maps, to compete with Google Maps, Baidu Maps and Bing Maps. Now Nokia has ported Here Maps for Android, exclusively for now on the Nokia X Android phone. This video features an 18 minute overview of Nokia Here maps, including the UI, technology overview, automotive and more.

$299 OMATE MT6572 Smartwatch

Posted by – March 11, 2014

OMATE shows their latest Smartwatch in Pink color, a lighter form factor still with a 500mAh battery, camera, with a retail price of $299, they are ramping up the mass production now. You can also see my video with the founder and CEO of OMATE here: http://138.2.152.197/2013/12/18/omate-truesmart-mt6572-android-smart-watch/

$119 Sandisk 128GB MicroSD

Posted by – March 11, 2014

SanDisk launches the world’s highest capacity MicroSD card, the SanDisk Ultra 128 GB microSDXC class 10 UHS-I card. Twice the speed of ordinary cards with file transfer speeds up to 30MB/s. Write speeds were closer to 15MB/s.

4K video on Sony Xperia Z2

Posted by – March 10, 2014

4K video recording and playback on a phone is amazing. Here Sony shows and talks about their Qualcomm S801 powered 4K video support on their new flagship Sony Xperia Z2 phone. They also show awesome 4K video playback using MHL 3.0 to a huge Sony 4K TV. Sony also ships a new stereo microphone accessory for higher quality microphone support.

NXP shows Worlds Smallest 5V Qi Wireless Charger

Posted by – March 10, 2014

NXP Semiconductors demonstrates their new Qi wireless charging transmitter device, which integrates all the circuits for a 5V mobile phone charger in an extremely small package measuring only 5-mm square. Using the NXP solution, fewer than 10 external components are needed to build a complete low-power 5V Qi A5/A11 wireless charging transmitter, alongside the Qi coil and resonant capacitors. The small footprint of the NXP NXQ1TXA5 system-on-chip means that the whole transmitter sits on a PCB of less than 1.5 cm-square with components on a single side. This opens up interesting possibilities for innovative wireless charging pad designs, including fitting the transmitter within the center of the Qi coil.

Text from press release