Shiratech LTE and Sensor Mezzanine adds LTE connectivity and full context awareness to devices includes Quectel EC25 LTE Cellular Modem with LTE CAT 4 Max 150Mbps (DL) 50Mbps (UL), LTE category 4 module optimized for M2M and IoT applications, Worldwide LTE, UMTS/HSPA+ and GSM/GPRS/EDGE coverage, Multi-constellation GNSS receiver available for applications requiring fast and accurate fixes in any environment, MIMO technology meets demands for data rate and link reliability in modem wireless communication system, On-Board Sensor Key Features the Bosch BNO055 with fused sensor data – Quaternion, Euler angles, Rotation vector, Linear acceleration, Gravity, Heading. 3 Sensors in one device – triaxial 16bit gyroscope, triaxial 14bit accelerometor and full performance geomagnetic sensor.
Category: Development Boards
Linux Kernel Functional Testing (LKFT) Remote Labs
Linux Kernel Functional Testing (LKFT) build uses OpenEmbedded to build a userspace image, along with the kernel, for each board and branch combination under test.
You can also watch a keynote by Thomas Gall at the Embedded Linux Conference about Linux Kernel Functional Testing (LKFT) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc92uw3m-SI
AOSP TV OP-TEE DRM integrations on HiKey, TI X15, iMX8M, Poplar
Peter Griffin and his colleagues of the Linaro Home Group demonstrate some of their latest advancements with AOSP TV such as their OP-TEE DRM integrations, Playready, Widevine, ClearKey on HiKey, TI X15, iMX8M, Poplar using AOSP and Linux, Chromium and WPE. DRM Secure Data Path on i.MX8M.
96Boards Photobooth with Mani
Manivannan Sadhasivam of Linaro shows the simple photobooth based on 96Boards CE. You can pose yourself in front of it and press Filter button to change the overlay filters and press Capture button to capture the image. The captured image will be stored in AWS S3 bucket with 96Boards watermark and the tinyurl/qrcode will be displayed finally.
More information can be found in 96Boards Projects Org:
Xilinx Ultra96, FPGA 96Boards Development Board
Ultra96 is an Arm-based, Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC development board based on the Linaro 96Boards specification, to help developers develop for the Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ZU3EG SBVA484 FPGA. 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. You can read more about Ultra96 here: http://zedboard.org/product/ultra96
TechNexion shows worldwide pre-certified IoT modules at Computex 2018
TechNexion shows off their new products at Computex 2018: pre-certified IoT modules, Android Things development kits, IP69K embedded systems and more. The booth tour starts with Android Things development kit PICO-PI-IMX7 live demo, based on NXP i.MX7 Dual applications processor and ARM Cortex-A7 architecture has been the go-to development kit since the official Android Things launch at Google I/O in May. The company also demonstrates PICO-IMX8M SoM based on NXP i.MX8M processor and Cortex-A53 + M4 architectures that delivers a whooping 4K UltraHD video performance with HDR and pro audio fidelity for multimedia applications. TechNexion is also launching CE, ETSI, FCC, IC, RCM and TELEC pre-certified IoT wireless communication modules and development kits: PIXI-9377 based on Qualcomm QCA9377, PIXI-6174 based on Qualcomm QCA6174 that deliver high transmission rates, low latency and improved range in noisy industrial environments. The company is showcasing a fully waterproof TWP-1010-IMX6 HMI based on NXP i.MX6 ARM Cortex-A9 processor that was specially designed to withstand extreme environments and cleaning with a jet spray. TWP series likewise includes models based on Intel Braswell architecture. TEK5-APL box PC based on Intel Atom x5-E3930, x5-E3940, x7-E3950 and Apollo Lake architecture, enclosed in a fully ruggedized enclosure for use in a vehicle.
Vuzix Blade Developer Kit AR Smart Glasses about to ship
Paul Travers, President and CEO at Vuzix talks about how Vuzix is about to ship the Vuzix Blade Developer Kit to developers, providing a wearable smart display with a see-through viewing experience utilizing Vuzix’s proprietary waveguide optics and Cobra II display engine, to be able to see overlaid information, indoors or out, such as patient data, mapping directions, restaurant menus, weather information, alerts and more without picking up a smartphone. Vuzix Blade (see my previous videos about the Vuzix Blade here) can also synchronize and interact with a smartphone, allowing users to keep their phone in their pockets for almost everything where fashion meets technology in the wearable display arena. Vuzix also recently announced partnership to use the new Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 Platform and also working with Plessey microLED Microdisplay Technology.
Libre Computer Development Boards S905X, RK3328, H2+/H3/H5 form-factor compatible with Raspberry Pi
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
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.
Zephyr RTOS on ARMv8-M with Trusted Firmware M
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.
Actions S900 in Cubiedboard9 dev board, ATB1103/ATB1109 ARM Cortex-M0
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
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.
Bero shows AOSP TV 8.1, Gemini PDA, Android with newer kernels at Linaro LMG/LHG hacking room
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)
$99 Rock960 Enterprise Edition “Ficus”, Rock960 Pro with RK3399Pro with NPU for AI
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
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
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.
Open AI Lab interview with Mingfei Huang and 96Boards.ai Yang Zhang
OPEN AI Lab aims to promote the industry development of Arm embedded smart machines, build an embedded SoC basic computing framework for smart machine application scenarios, and integrate application scenario service interfaces. Committed to promoting the in-depth collaboration of the entire industry chain of chips, hardware, and algorithm software, artificial intelligence will be available where there is computation. You can also watch Mingfei Huang’s keynote about Open AI Lab here.
