Category: Chip provider

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.

$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.

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.

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.

Wunder360 Evomotion 3K 360-camera with smart 360 video features

Posted by Charbax – April 20, 2018
Category: Cameras, VR, Exclusive videos, Rockchip, China Sourcing Fair, 360 video

Evomotion shows their latest Wunder360 C1 & S1, with features of 360° 3K Video and 4K Photo, Social 360 Live Streaming, Built-in 9-Axis IMU Stabilizer, 5G Wi-Fi, Off-line streaming, ReFrame & Auto Tracking and In-camera stitching Tech for both products. S1 camera also has a waterproof case and removable battery support. I filmed this interview also using the Wunder360 camera which you can watch using your VR headset (by your Smartphone with Cardboard style box or by All-in-one VR headset) here.

$300 Sunchip All-in-one AR on RK3288 (like Hololens), $7 Wi-Fi power plug

Posted by Charbax – April 20, 2018
Category: Set-top-boxes, HDMI Sticks, VR, Internet of Things, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, Rockchip, AmLogic, Intel, HKTDC Electronics Fair, Sunchip, Android, Windows

Sunchip shows some of their latest products including their all-in-one AR system based on Rockchip RK3288, RK3399 board for digital signage. $58 Amlogic S912 TV box, $26 RK3126 HDMI Stick, $200 Apollo Lake Box. 360 panoramic camera. $7 single Smart Wi-Fi Plug, $11 for dual Wi-Fi plug.

Actions S900 in Cubiedboard9 dev board, ATB1103/ATB1109 ARM Cortex-M0

Posted by Charbax – April 20, 2018
Category: Robots, Internet of Things, Speakers, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Actions, HKTDC Electronics Fair, Android

Actions S900 is a Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53, the Actions S500 is a Quad-core Cortex-A9. Actions also shows some other products for video smart speaker, smart door bell, smart kids robots, Actions also provides their MIPS based chipset for Bluetooth speakers, here also they are launching their new ATB1103/ATB1109 ARM Cortex-M0 system for their upcoming Bluetooth and perhaps also low cost smart speakers platform.

Allwinner R18, R16, R6 for Amazon Alexa and other smart speaker systems, B288 for E Ink e-reader

Posted by Charbax – April 19, 2018
Category: Robots, Internet of Things, Speakers, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Allwinner, China Sourcing Fair

Allwinner Smart Home solutions including their chipsets and development kit for the R18 which I also filmed here the $26 (169rmb) Allwinner R16 powered Xiao’ ai Classmate Smart Speaker Mini by Xiaomi to be delivered in over 5 million units quantity, smart speakers by DIngDong. The Allwinner R6 enables even lower priced smart speakers with a maximum of 2 microphone in the microphone array for devices that will be closer to the user. The Allwinner B288 enables E Ink e-reader supported by DongDong which is China’s leading online book store. The Allwinner MR100 powers the fully open source drone project by Kudrone. The Xiaomi Drone uses the Allwinner R16 too. The Allwinner FC1600 powers the Niutingting Early Learning Machine by Benew which reads stories for kids for 2-6 years old. Allwinner T3 for car dashboard and smart mirror, T8 for in-car entertainment. The Xiaomi Robot Vaccum Cleaner uses the Allwinner R16 and uses lasers to calculate distance to walls and navigate to vaccum and mop the floor.

Allwinner V5, real 4K30 action camera and security/smart camera chipset

Posted by Charbax – April 19, 2018
Category: Cameras, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, Allwinner, China Sourcing Fair

Allwinner V5 chip uses the HawkView 5.0 image processing engine, which integrates 2D/3D intelligent noise reduction, frame width dynamic synthesis, sharpening enhancement, specific color enhancement and other image pre-processing technologies, combined with various types of image scene requirements, for each frame of the picture it applies real-time fine detail recovery. This chipset is for the “real” 4K action camera and 4K-enhanced security camera solutions, where smart object tracking can enhance the resolution only of the moving objects to save on bandwidth. Also the Allwinner V5 encodes using H265 to provide for about the same quality at about half the bitrate compared with H264.

Allwinner VR9 (hopefully Daydream All-in-one ready) launched, VR-optimized quad-core ARM Cortex-A53

Posted by Charbax – April 19, 2018
Category: VR, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, Allwinner, China Sourcing Fair, Android

The new Allwinner VR9 is quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor with an independent 32KB L1 I-cache + 32KB L1 D-cache, shared 512KB L2 cache, with MaliT760 GPU and support for OpenGLES 3.2 and OpenCL 1.1. Allwinner VR9 is the first SoC optimized for VR, with as low as dedicated 20ms low latency acceleration module portal, dual-engine direct drive dual-screen system, panoramic 6K visual effects with support for expansive camera positioning, up to 6K30 H265 and 4K60 HEVC/VP9 video decode. Allwinner’s hope is that this SoC can be compatible with the Google Daydream platform for All-in-one VR device usage.

EmdoorVR Allwinner VR9 design house

Posted by Charbax – April 19, 2018
Category: VR, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, Allwinner, China Sourcing Fair, Android

Emdoor is one of the largest design houses in Shenzhen, here they talk about their support for the new Allwinner VR9 quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor with an independent single core 32KB L1 I-cache + 32KB L1 D-cache, shared 512KB L2 cache, with MaliT760 GPU and support for OpenGLES 3.2 and OpenCL 1.1. Allwinner VR9 is the first SoC optimized for VR, with as low as dedicated 20ms low latency acceleration module portal, dual-engine direct drive dual-screen system, panoramic 6K visual effects with support for expansive camera positioning, up to 6K30 H265 and 4K60 HEVC/VP9 video decode.

Allwinner A63, A50, A33G

Posted by Charbax – April 16, 2018
Category: Tablets, Laptops, HDMI Sticks, Robots, Exclusive videos, Allwinner, Android

Allwinner releases their new ARM SoCs for 64bit and 32bit cost effective tablets, featuring their new Allwinner A63 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 with Mali-T760MP2 GPU. This video was filmed at the Allwinner press conference event in Shenzhen where they had a lot of their industry partners, design houses, factories, OEMs, software partners, to see and to hear about the latest of what Allwinner has been working to do for them. The new Allwinner A50 is Allwinner’s mid-range Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 with Mali-400 GPU with support for DDR4 and LPDDR4 RAM, better TLC based Flash memory. For the very entry level Tablet market, Allwinner presents their new Allwinner A33G which is limited at a lower 1.35Ghz clock-speed with a lower resolution display support. While these 3 new ARM Processors by Allwinner are presented as their newest Tablet processors, they are also compatible with all sorts of other devices which could be Robots, interactive Smart Speakers with displays, Smart Rearview Mirrors, Smart Mirrors, Laptops, Desktops, and more. Allwinner also talks about their participation in the Open AI Labs which I also filmed here.

IBM Supercomputer on Power9 and Nvidia GPU

Posted by Charbax – April 8, 2018
Category: Exclusive videos, Nvidia, IBM, Supercomputing

Using IBM Power9 and Nvidia Volta GPU technology, the Summit system is a proven AI pioneer expected to deliver in excess of 200 Peta flops of performance, likely making it one of the world’s most powerful supercomputer.

Cavium ThunderX2 (HPC applications and performance)

Posted by Charbax – April 6, 2018
Category: Servers, Exclusive videos, Cavium, Supercomputing

Surya Hotha, Director, Product Marketing at Cavium, talks Innovative Alternate Architecture for Exascale Computing at the SC17 Supercomputing ARM HPC User Group event in Denver. See my other Cavium ThunderX videos here.

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Keynote: Datacenter Trends with Qualcomm’s Dileep Bhandarkar at Linaro Connect Hong Kong 2018

Posted by Charbax – March 29, 2018
Category: Exclusive videos, Qualcomm, Linaro Connect

For decades we have been able to take advantage of Moore’s Law to improve single thread performance, reduce power and cost with each generation of semiconductor technology. While technology has advanced after the end of Dennard scaling more than 10 years ago, the advances have slowed down. Server performance increases have relied on increasing core counts and power budgets.
At the same time, workloads have changed in the era of cloud computing. Scale out is becoming more important than scale up. Domain specific architectures have started to emerge to improve the energy efficiency of emerging workloads like deep learning
This talk will provide a historical perspective and discuss emerging trends driving the development of modern servers processors.

Bero shows AOSP TV 8.1, Gemini PDA, Android with newer kernels at Linaro LMG/LHG hacking room

Posted by Charbax – March 24, 2018
Category: Development Boards, Exclusive videos, HiSilicon, Qualcomm, Marvell, NXP, Linaro Connect, Android

Bero (Bernhard Rosenkränzer) and his colleagues from the Linaro Mobile Group (Android) and the Linaro Home Group (TV Boxes) are working in the hacking room at Linaro Connect to prepare some demos for Demo Friday including AOSP TV on 8.1 (while most Android TV runs on 7.1), updating the Linux kernel on Android phones to some newer kernel version, and Bero also gives his opinions on the multi-Linux booting Gemini PDA amazing keyboard phone which he has purchased (see my video on Gemini PDA Linux support here)

Tomas Evensen, Xilinx CTO of Embedded Software at Linaro Connect

Posted by Charbax – March 24, 2018
Category: FPGA, Exclusive videos, Xilinx, Linaro Connect

Tomas Evensen talks about FPGA, the Xilinx Ultra96 development board to be available at $249 (also see my video with Xilinx about Ultra96 here) and the announcement by Xilinx of their upcoming 7nm FPGA with ARM cores SoCs to come in 2019 with up to 50 Billion transistors on the SoC.

$99 Rock960 Enterprise Edition “Ficus”, Rock960 Pro with RK3399Pro with NPU for AI

Posted by Charbax – March 22, 2018
Category: 4K UHD, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Rockchip, Linaro Connect, Android, Ubuntu

Tom Cubie of Vamrs introduces two new Rockchip RK3399Pro based development boards with http://96boards.ai at Linaro Connect Hong Kong 2018, a new ecosystem of development boards for Artificial intelligence development, where the new Rockchip RK3399Pro includes an NPU (2.4 TOPS capable NPU) teamed up with Open AI Lab (who I interviewed here) to support the AI framework.

Rockchip has now officially joined 96Boards as Steering Committee member, which means ROCK960 and other futures 96rocks boards based on Rockchip processors now have official identity in the 96boards/linaro community.

ROCK960 Enterprise Edition board runs Rockchip RK3399Pro hexa core dual ARM Cortex-A72, quad ARM Cortex-A53, Mali-T860MP4 GPU with 2.4 TOPS capable NPU, up to 4GB RAM, Dual SATA 3.0 port with RAID 0/1 support, HDMI 2.0/eDP up to 4K @ 60 Hz, Dual MIPI CSI camera interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac WiFi, 3x USB 3.0, 5x USB 2.0, PCIe 2.1 x16 slot and more.

Rock960 consumer edition which I previously also filmed here is about to be manufactured now to be available next month.

Xilinx Ultra96, UltraScale+ FPGA 96Boards development board

Posted by Charbax – March 22, 2018
Category: Development Boards, FPGA, Exclusive videos, Xilinx, Linaro Connect

Ultra96 is an Arm-based, Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC development board based on the Linaro 96Boards specification. The 96Boards’ specifications are open and define a standard board layout for development platforms that can be used by software application, hardware device, kernel, and other system software developers. Ultra96 represents a unique position in the 96Boards community with a wide range of potential peripherals and acceleration engines in the programmable logic that is not available from other offerings.

Ultra96 boots from the provided Delkin 16 GB MicroSD card, pre-loaded with PetaLinux. Engineers have options of connecting to Ultra96 through a Webserver using integrated wireless access point capability or to use the provided PetaLinux desktop environment which can be viewed on the integrated Mini DisplayPort video output. Multiple application examples and on-board development options are provided as examples.

Ultra96 provides four user-controllable LEDs. Engineers may also interact with the board through the 96Boards-compatible low-speed and high-speed expansion connectors by adding peripheral accessories such as those included in Seeed Studio’s Grove Starter Kit for 96Boards.

Micron LPDDR4 memory provides 2 GB of RAM in a 512M x 32 configuration. Wireless options include 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 (provides both Bluetooth Classic and Low Energy (BLE)). UARTs are accessible on a header as well as through the expansion connector. JTAG is available through a header (external USB-JTAG required). I2C is available through the expansion connector.

Ultra96 provides one upstream (device) and two downstream (host) USB 3.0 connections. A USB 2.0 downstream (host) interface is provided on the high speed expansion bus. Two Microchip USB3320 USB 2.0 ULPI Transceivers and one Microchip USB5744 4-Port SS/HS USB Controller Hub are specified.

The integrated power supply generates all on-board voltages from an external 12V supply (available as an accessory).

Cadence HiFi DSP SDK for Android

Posted by Charbax – March 22, 2018
Category: Development Boards, Exclusive videos, HiSilicon, Linaro Connect

Raj Pawate, Niranjan Yadla and Sachin Ghanekar presented a low cost SDK for Cadence HiFi 3 DSP. This Hikey960 development board enables software developers to leverage the power of the HiFi 3 DSP and introduce new algorithms for audio and speech processing. With HiFi 3 DSP running at 533 MHz and access to a large shared system memory of 13MB, software developers are no longer constrained to showcase their advanced algorithms. In addition, the HiFi 3 DSP works closely with an App processor hosting Android allowing software developers to integrate DSP functionality within the context of Android Applications.