Author:

Charbax

Cavium ThunderX2 benchmarks compared with Intel and AMD

Posted by Charbax – June 5, 2018
Category: Servers, Exclusive videos, Cavium, Computex, Android, Ubuntu, Windows

Patrick Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief at ServeTheHome.com talks about the independent benchmarks on ThunderX2 that he published at ServeTheHome.com as Cavium announced General Availability of the ThunderX2 ARM Server at their event in San Francisco last month.

The ThunderX2 family includes over 40 different SKUs for both scale up and scale out applications, ranging from top bin 32 core 2.5GHz parts to 16-core 1.6GHz parts, mapping directly across Intel’s Xeon Skylake server CPUs from highest end Platinum to low end SKUs. With list prices for volume SKUs (32 core 2.2GHz and below) ranging from $1795 to $800, the ThunderX2 family offers 2-4X better performance per dollar compared to Xeon Skylake family of processors. The ThunderX2 family is fully compliant with Armv8-A architecture specifications as well as the Arm Server Base System Architecture and Arm Server Base Boot Requirements standards. The ThunderX2 SoC family is supported by a comprehensive software ecosystem, ranging from platform level systems management and firmware to commercial Operating Systems, Development Environments and Applications. Cavium has actively engaged in server industry standards groups such as UEFI and delivered numerous reference platforms to a broad array of community and corporate partners. Cavium has also demonstrated its leadership role in the Open Source software community driving upstream kernel enablement and toolchain optimization, actively contributing to Linaro’s Enterprise and Networking Groups, investing in key Linux Foundation projects such as DPDK, OpenHPC, OPNFV and Xen and sponsoring the FreeBSD Foundation’s Armv8 server implementation.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 for Windows 10 Laptops

Posted by Charbax – June 5, 2018
Category: Laptops, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, Qualcomm, Computex, Windows

35% performance upgrade compared with Snapdragon 835 Windows 10 Laptops such as the Asus Novago which I filmed here features Qualcomm Kyro 385 which is their customized Octa-core quad ARM Cortex-A75 and quad ARM Cortex-A55, going up to 2.95GHz with less throttling. Samsung announces that they will be making Windows 10 on Snapdragon 850 device. Other manufacturing partners Asus, HP and Lenovo are also going to release new devices featuring this chipset. The Snapdragon 850 features 1.2Gbit/s LTE using the X20 modem on SoC (20% faster than 835), fast Wi-Fi, 3x faster AI performance than 835, up to 25 hours of continuous usage. Qualcomm Aqstic enables virtual surround sound, native DSD support, aptX HD as well as 4K capture (possibly up to 4K video-conferencing possible). Microsoft has published this session video from their recent Build conference explaining how developers can compile, build and optimize ARMv8 versions of any Windows app, on stage they showed how to compile the Windows VLC app for the ARM64 Windows 10 platform. Working with Gemalto, Qualcomm demonstrates Integrated SIM (iSIM) on their Snapdragon 850 trusted secure hardware element, to be able to select, load Telecom packages full securely, perhaps eventually also load and store any SIM card into the device and switch between each one.

Libre Computer Development Boards S905X, RK3328, H2+/H3/H5 form-factor compatible with Raspberry Pi

Posted by Charbax – June 5, 2018
Category: Set-top-boxes, Robots, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Allwinner, Rockchip, AmLogic, Android, Ubuntu

Libre Computer introduces three products of their CC-series which are form-factor compatible with the Raspberry Pi boards and based on open-market hardware. Depending on the model, these single-board computers (SBCs) offer higher performance, more RAM, and/or more IO while sharing the existing aftermarket parts ecosystem. All three products were featured on crowdfunding and supported by free and open source software (FOSS) like Linux and u-boot.

AML-S905X-CC, nicknamed Le Potato, is based on the popular Amlogic S905X SoC. It offers up to 2GB of RAM, four 64-bit cores, 4K60 video playback with HDR, and built-in infrared receiver. This board is the most power-efficient platform of the three and uses less than one watt at idle. There is a large suite of available software for the S905X SoC and it is the only one that has previously passed certification for Google’s Android TV platform. Currently, video decode is missing from upstream Linux and is only available from Amlogic’s BSP with Linux 4.9. Android up to 8 Oreo is available with design contract.

ROC-RK3328-CC, nicknamed Renegade, is based on the Rockchip RK3328 SoC. It offers up to 4GB of high-speed DDR4, four 64-bit cores, 4K60 video playback with HDR, USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet. Perfect for IO intensive application like home media center, NAS, microservice virtualization, and more. HDMI support in upstream Linux is scheduled to be completed in Q4 2018. Ubuntu and Debian with accelerated video and 3D is available based on Rockchip’s BSP with Linux 4.4. Android up to 8 Oreo is schedule to be available in Q3 2018 with design contract.

ALL-H3-CC, nicknamed Tritium, is based on three separate Allwinner SoCs: H2+, H3, and H5. The H2+ variant offers 512MB of RAM, four 32-bit cores, and 1080P video playback. The H3 variant is the H2+ variant with 1GB of RAM and 4K30 video playback. The H5 variant offers 2GB of RAM, four 64-bit cores, and 4K30 video playback. There is a large software community behind Allwinner SoCs called linux-sunxi and they have been upstreaming Linux hardware support for almost a decade. This platform also has a crowdfunded effort for video decode Linux upstream underway by Bootlin. Android up to 7 Nougat is available.

Full Comparison of Board Features

Libre Computer platforms are radio-less, FCC and CE certified, long-term-supported (LTS 5Y+) single-board computers. Libre Computer offers hardware customization on all supported SoC platforms. Standard boards with components added/removed can be ordered with 1K MOQ. Small effort customization/mezzanine design contract can be requested with 5K MOQ. Full custom design contracts are available for orders with 20K MOQ. Industrial design, software, project management resources are available as part of design contract.

ARM Press Conference at Computex 2018, ARM Cortex-A76, Mali-G76, Mali-V76

Posted by Charbax – June 5, 2018
Category: Exclusive videos, Computex, ARM

Here’s my full video in 4K from my front row seat of the ARM Press Conference at Computex 2018. You can also watch my Interview with Nandan Nayampally here.

Dr. Yamazaki, President of SEL, inventor of CAAC-IGZO and the basic element of Flash memory

Posted by Charbax – June 4, 2018
Category: Displays, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, SID Display Week

In 1970, Dr. Shunpei Yamazaki invented the basic element of flash memory, now widely used for storage everywhere. Shunpei Yamazaki holds the Guinness World Record for the most patents credited as inventor, at 11,353 as of 30 June 2016. At present, he is the president of Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) and is energetically doing R&D on many different advanced technologies with his team. His present R&D theme is the crystalline Indium-gallium-zinc (IGZO) oxide semiconductor, namely, C-axis aligned crystalline (CAAC)-IGZO. Displays using CAAC-IGZO are already being manufactured by companies such as Sharp. You can see my videos of Sharp IGZO displays here. CAAC-IGZO can be used not only in displays but also is CPUs and memories. If silicon LSI is replaced with IGZO LSI, the power consumption for processors may become less than 1%. Silicon used mainly at present will be replaced with CAAC-IGZO in the near future. In the coming AI age, it is indispensable to develop IGZO LSI. Dr. Yamazaki and the researchers of SEL are concentrating on R&D of IGZO LSI.

$1299 Nvidia Jetson Xavier dev kit, 8-core ARMv8, 512-core Volta GPU for AI Robotics

Posted by Charbax – June 4, 2018
Category: Robots, Internet of Things, 4K UHD, Development Boards, Cars, Exclusive videos, Nvidia, Computex, Ubuntu

Nvidia launes Jetson Xavier with 20x the performance of Jetson TX2 and 10x the energy efficiency with 512-core Volta GPU with Tensor Cores in an embedded module with more than 9 billion transistors it runs at under 30W, with multiple operating modes at 10W, 15W, and 30W. The Jetson Xavier ARM SoC has 6 kinds of high-performance processors on its SoC, a Volta Tensor Core GPU, an eight-core ARM64 CPU, dual NVDLA deep learning accelerators, an image processor, a vision processor and a video processor. Jetson Xavier has a peak performance of up to 30 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of mixed-precision FP32/FP16/INT8 performance. It can encode dual 4K60 H265 and decode dual 4K60 H265 at up to 12bit. Comes with 16GB LPDDR4x RAM with 137GB/s memory bandwidth, 32GB eMMC storage. It also has a dual NVDLA DL/ML Accelerator Engines which are open source available at http://nvdla.org and a 7-way VLIW Vision Accelerator. Nvidia Jetson Xavier runs using the Nvidia Isaac platform, a toolbox for the simulation, training, verification and deployment of Jetson Xavier. This robotics software consists of: Isaac SDK, APIs and tools to develop robotics algorithm software and runtime framework with fully accelerated libraries, Isaac IMX (Intelligent Machine Acceleration) applications, a collection of NVIDIA-developed robotics algorithm software, Isaac Sim, a highly realistic virtual simulation environment for developers to train autonomous machines and perform hardware-in-the-loop testing with Jetson Xavier. The Nvidia Jetson Xavier developer kit, which includes the Isaac robotics software, will be priced at $1,299, with early access starting in August from distributors worldwide.

ARM Cortex-A76, Mali-G76, Mali-V76

Posted by Charbax – June 4, 2018
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, Computex, ARM

ARM Cortex-A76 is a new microarchitecture based on DynamIQ technology, delivers 35% faster 7nm laptop-class performance (Intel Core-i3, Core-i5 comparable performance) with 40% improved efficiency maintaining the power efficiency of a smartphone. ARM Cortex-A76 also delivers 4x compute performance improvements for AI/ML at the edge. The new ARM Mali-G76 enables higher performance gaming, cross-platform experiences 30% more efficiency and performance density, as the gaming market is expected to reach $137.9 billion in 2018 and possibly as high as $180 billion by 2021 where 60% of that might be on mobile. ARM Mali-V76 support 8K60 video decode, it can also support simultaneous 4K encode and decode for 4K video-conferencing.

BOE Flexible Phone, 8K, 5644PPI micro-display (17x Retina), Printed OLED, QLED and more

Posted by Charbax – June 2, 2018
Category: Tablets, Laptops, Smartphones, Displays, VR, Robots, Internet of Things, Speakers, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, SID Display Week

BOE presents their latest flexible AMOLED display solutions for the future of smartphones that can be bent, folded, and rolled and even flap in the wind. BOE’s flexible displays is demonstrated for robots with touch control, smart loudspeakers, an S-shaped in-car flexible AMOLED display. 8K displays, micro displays, QLED displays and other IoT solutions such as their TFT based AMOLED fingerprint recognition system that works in any spot of the display area

The foldable all-screen WQHD AMOLED display launched by BOE can achieve minimum dynamic bending with a radius of only 1mm. It can be bent more than 100,000 times and has an NTSC color gamut up to 118%. BOE is exhibiting a 5.99″ FHD+ 2160×1080 Flexible AMOLED foldable mobile phone and a 7.56″ foldable tablet. The display can be used for mobile phones when it is folded up and for tablets or monitors when it unfolds.

As one of the upcoming possibly revolutionizing OLED technical directions, BOE demonstrates their OLED printing technology to possibly just print the future of Smartphone displays showing their 5.5″ FHD (1920×1080) printing flexible OLED display.

UHD has become a keyword of SID 2018 for material and equipment suppliers and device manufacturers, signaling the advent of the 8K era. In addition to the 110-inch 8K, 75-inch 8K, and 65-inch 8K glasses-free 3D displays, BOE also presents 13.3-inch 8K display products, promoting the development of small and medium-sized 8K products.

BOE has gathered speed in building an 8K ecosystem ever since it launched the “8425 strategy” which means “promoting 8K, popularizing 4K, replacing 2K and making good use of 5G”. BOE has recently launched the 8K solution that incorporates BOE’s 4K/8K image service cloud, 8K decoder player, and 8K display device, making it possible to shoot, edit, transmit and broadcast 8K content. This helps to solve problems like the costliness and massive size of traditional decoder players, as well as the lack of 8K content, thus promoting the faster popularization of 8K.

Among several micro displays at BOE’s booth is a silicon-based OLED AR product which features monocrystalline silicon as the active drive backplane as well as high resolution, high level of integration, low power consumption, small size, and light weight. The AR product is backed by a 0.39-inch silicon-based OLED which has the world’s leading pixel density of 5644PPI, 17 times that of a Retina display, and a contrast ratio over 10000:1, which enables the overlapping and interaction between virtual 3D images and real scenes. All these secure an ultimate experience for users as well as bright prospect in the field of education and training, video games, home decoration, etc.

Moreover, BOE shows its cutting-edge technologies and products such as QLED, mini-LED displays, a number of new applications and products including curved in-car display instruments and BOE iGallery.

E Ink shows Color, Flexible, Shelf labels, OTFT and more at SID Display Week 2018

Posted by Charbax – May 31, 2018
Category: Tablets, Smartphones, E-readers, Displays, Exclusive videos, SID Display Week, E Ink

E Ink shows their new 10.3″ flexible display with digitizer, also on the Onyx Note, reMarkable, the 13.3″ Sony e-reader, the dual 13.3″ Guido music score reader and note taker. The latest generation 13.3″ and 32″ color E Ink with new optimized color gamuts, pigments, wave forms, electronics, starting with the signage market for advertising, transportatation and other. Autonomous E Ink tiles such as they have installed at the San Diego airport. The Sony watch where the whole band is an E Ink display. Organic TFT (OTFT) displays backplanes done with Flexterra. Battery-less smart shelf labels, other demos with Plastic Logic, video speed refresh rates, embedded into credit cards, electronic shelf labels with displaydata and JDI. Visionect, Epson smart watch, LTS Smart Patch, eManga, Yotaphone and more.

Samsung Displays Booth Tour at SID Display Week 2018

Posted by Charbax – May 31, 2018
Category: Smartphones, Displays, VR, 4K UHD, Cars, Exclusive videos, Samsung, SID Display Week

Samsung Displays showcases their 5.09″ and 5.77″ light field displays for advanced AR applications, the first of it’s kind to combine AR, 3D and light fields into one portable display. Sound integrated in display through a future AMOLED phone, aqua force sensor, their highest resolution VR display does 4K in a 2.43″ 1200ppi display, with 250nits. They have an unbreakable display, a rollable display, a curved conformed display. Transparent HUD displays to eventually integrate into the windows and windshield of a car. Samsung’s 4K 31.5″ QD Glass and their 8K 65″ QD Glass displays are also showcased to highlight their cutting edge Quantum Dot based LCD technology.

CLEARink color reflective displays double resolution, 30% more color, 100% more contrast

Posted by Charbax – May 31, 2018
Category: Tablets, Displays, Wearables, Exclusive videos, SID Display Week

CLEARink demonstrates their improvements at SID Display Week 2018, doubled the resolution, increased the color gamut by 30%, increased contrast by 100%, brought down the operating voltage to 5V compared with the 10V that they were operating at last year, significantly lowering the power consumption towards possibly weeks of battery life, they are looking at a 90% reduction compared with LCD. CLEARink’s eSchoolBook project has been in trial manufacturing in China over the past several months aiming for a mass production release by Q2 in 2019. CLEARink is showing 202dpi with sub-pixel rendering made on their own backplanes made in China. They have customized a front light that is totally reflection based using little power.

Visionox Flexible OLED Booth Tour at SID Display Week 2018

Posted by Charbax – May 31, 2018
Category: Displays, Exclusive videos, SID Display Week

Based in China and founded in 2001, Visionox Co., Ltd., is a high-tech enterprise focusing on OLED technology development.

Bill Doane, inventor of CH-LCD, founder of Kent Displays

Posted by Charbax – May 29, 2018
Category: Displays, Exclusive videos, SID Display Week

Dr. J. William Doane is a world renowned expert in the field of liquid crystal materials and devices. Together with William Manning he co-founded Kent Displays, Inc. in 1993 and the company is now famous for its Cholesteric LCD based Boogie Board writing tablets that use Dr Doane’s inventions which I have filmed here. Dr. Doane, was the director of the world-renowned Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University from 1983-1996 and led the effort during that time to establish the National Science Foundation Center for Advanced Liquid Crystalline Optical Materials (ALCOM). As an active member of the international science community, he has held visiting appointments and maintained cooperative research programs in several countries. Dr. Doane was instrumental in formalizing the International Liquid Crystal Society and served as the organization’s first treasurer from 1990-1996. Dr. Doane was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1982 and retired from the Kent State University in 1996 after a 31-year teaching and administrative career. Dr. Doane received the first ever presentation of the Slottow-Owaki Prize for Display Education, by SID.

Chris King, Planar Systems, inventor of the EL Display

Posted by Charbax – May 29, 2018
Category: Displays, Exclusive videos, SID Display Week

Dr Chris King, is the co-founder of Planar Systems of Oregon, that was spun off from Tektronix. Dr King invented various Thin Film Electroluminescent technologies that led to the creation of the then state of the art flat panel displays, so called EL Displays, that went into laptops, medical equipment, even battle tanks. Dr King was CTO for Planar, also ran the most profitable industrial business unit, championed the cause for various display technologies. Dr. King has been going to SID’s DisplayWeek for 40 years and is currently volunteering for its Pacific NorthWest chapter as well as other committees at SID.

Helge Seetzen, president of SID at SID Display Week 2018

Posted by Charbax – May 28, 2018
Category: Displays, Exclusive videos, SID Display Week

Helge Seetzen, current president of The Society for Information Display (SID), is a successful multi-media technology entrepreneur with deep experience in the university tech transfer space. He currently serves as the CEO and general partner of TandemLaunch – a startup foundry that works with driven entrepreneurs to turn research from the world’s best universities into exceptional consumer technology companies. Under his leadership, TandemLaunch has created over 20 technology companies, accounting for hundreds of jobs, and has commercialized technologies from over 50 international universities one of which technologies he has commercialized is HDR.

SID Display Week 2018 opening, ribbon cutting

Posted by Charbax – May 25, 2018
Category: Displays, Exclusive videos, SID Display Week

About 1000 more people attend the SID Display Week 2018 compared with last year’s event which I video-blogged all listed in my YouTube playlist for SID Display Week 2017 here, in this video, after filming of the Ribbon Cutting which opens the SID Display Week 2018 exhibition, I interview SID President Helge Seetzen about the strong growth in the Display industry, many volunteers have joined the SID, one of the largest exhibits, CEO Forum, Women in Tech forum. The inventors of LCD, OLED, Plasma, LCD blue LED, Micro LED, TFT, Active Matrix, HDR, IGZO, Flash memory and so much more, all are attending this event and I will be publishing all my videos from this event in the coming days and weeks, so please check back all my videos in my SID Display Week 2018 YouTube playlist here: YouTube Playlist for SID Display Week 2018

Honor 10, Notch, Kirin970 without PC Mode, glimmering back

Posted by Charbax – May 20, 2018
Category: Smartphones, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, HiSilicon, Android

Huawei’s Honor group launches the new Honor 10 Smartphone at $399, it comes with a Notch (which I don’t understand why, except for copying Apple’s mistake), it runs on the ultra fast Hisilicon Kirin 970 processor but they did not include the PC Mode in this one, that PC Mode is only available in Huawei Mate 10 and P20. The very glimmering back side of the phone is a fingerprint magnet, not sure if the effect looks as good if a transparent back case is used. They use an ultrasonic based front side finderprint reader, though I prefer when fingerprint readers are on the back.

Inneos Invisicable 18Gbit/s Real4K Optical Adapters

Posted by Charbax – May 10, 2018
Category: 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, CES

Inneos Real4K Optical Adapters are an award winning 18G optical solution that is “designed for deployment”. You can run fiber the same way you install category cabling and then connect Real4K optical adapters wherever you need them. Unlike fixed length optical cables, Real4K optical adapters connect using standard multimode fiber, which can be pulled and terminated in the field. Standard SC connectors and inexpensive optical wall plates make this a better way to deploy 4K video.

They introduce Invisicable technology which is a single translucent fiber that looks like monofilament fishing line. It almost disappears in plain sight because it can be difficult to see against a wall at about 5-6 feet. In addition, it’s so thin that 125 feet fits on a special rubber reel that fits into the palm of your hand. Because it’s so thin, it can also be embedded in dry wall. Not pulled through, but embedded in the surface of dry wall by scoring the wall and inserting the fiber and then painting over it. Feedback at CES, was that this would be “game changing” especially where hiding the cable is important, but pulling through walls not desirable (or not possible in the case of condos/apartments). They introduce three kits with 10’, 125’ and then a complete kits with 300’ of in wall fiber, plus two 10’ Invisicable lengths and wall plates.

Zephyr RTOS on ARMv8-M with Trusted Firmware M

Posted by Charbax – May 1, 2018
Category: Internet of Things, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Linaro Connect

Platform Security Architecture (PSA) is an IoT security framework being developed by Arm. Trusted Firmware M is an open source project to provide PSA compliant secure firmware for M profile devices. Zephyr is a Linux Foundation Collaboration Project to provide a small, scalable RTOS for connected, resource constrained device.

Onyx Boox with PadMu Music e-reader, new e-readers Boox Ligo, Nova, Poke, Note S and more to come

Posted by Charbax – April 21, 2018
Category: E-readers, Exclusive videos, HKTDC Electronics Fair, Onyx, Android, Music

Sandro Casiraghi presents https://www.padformusician.com/en/ based on the awesome Onyx Boox Max2 for a single or dual 97% of full A4 “like A4 paper” digital music notes reading experience, with a synchronized Bluetooth page turning pedal and Smartphone app. There are more than 1 million professional musicians in the world who potentially could benefit from this technology. This is made possible due to Onyx’s Android solution on their Boox E Ink e-reader platform, as this is enabled through Android. The two readers connect via Wi-Fi direct and the master reader connects with the pedal and Smartphone using Bluetooth. Thus far they have been reaching out to professional and amateur musicians to get their feedback. Onyx is bringing their whole E Ink e-reader range up to their new Quad-core 1.6Ghz ARM platform with smoother and faster page turns, faster and better Android support. Onyx shows some of their new 6″ e-reader designs including Boox Ligo, Boox Nova, Boox Poke that will come before the end of the year. While the 10.3″ Boox Note is awesome, it is probably not a large enough screen for the music reading market. The Boox 9.7″ Note S is newer and thinner and lighter too on their new faster platform too.

Interested distributors of the PadMu and potential e-Music reading customers can contact and read more about PadMu here:
sandro@outeringdigital.com
https://www.facebook.com/padformusician/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9X6m6ctJ6PPGYMlngEbNvA