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eMAG is a family of high-performance ARM server processors designed by Ampere Computing. Ampere’s introduction of eMAG to the market concludes and follows on the X-Gene3 design started out by AppliedMicro. eMAG processors targets server workloads capable of taking advantage of a high core count with high throughput. First generation eMAG processors are based on the Skylark microarchitecture, a design that started out by AppliedMicro. Fabricated on TSMC’s 16FF+ process, those processors feature up to 32 cores operating at up to 3.3 GHz. DDR4 channels, up to 2666 MT/s with ECC; 1 TiB/socket I/O: 42 PCIe Gen 3 lanes TDP: Up to 125 W Second generation eMAG processors are planned for 2019. Those chips will be based on Ampere’s Quicksilver microarchitecture and feature an array of new features and improvements developed also with the new staff that Ampere hired over from Qualcomm’s ARM Server team.
SmugMug achieves 40% cost savings by migrating their photo-serving tier to EC2 A1 instances. SmugMug is able to move their software stack (PHP, Nginx, HAProxy) to A1 instances with minimal effort. And getting everything up and running on A1 instances was like any other EC2 instance for SmugMug.
At MWC 2019, Planet Computers CEO Dr Janko Mrsic-Flogel introduces Auxens who has ported OXI OS to the Gemini PDA and same will be available on the upcoming Cosmo Communicator. While the potential for Displayport support on the Cosmo Communicator is maybe yet still to be confirmed, as the Cosmo will start shipping to their Indiegogo backers in June.
Now crowdfunding the Lapdock project on Indiegogo at http://igg.me/at/lapdock starting at $100. The future of Laptops will not have a powerful CPU in them but will be modular when you buy them, they can be powered by your phone, or you can buy a small compact ARM Powered internal or external Type-C Stick to run them off of. Laptops are all about getting a great keyboard, mouse and display, but the CPU, Memory, Connectivity, those things can be swapped according to progress in the industry. I will be posting updates on this project at http://Lapdock.net and on the Updates tab at http://igg.me/at/lapdock if this project gets funded by at least $100 thousand, then the suppliers in Shenzhen China will be able to deliver the Lapdock at this price. If Lapdocks can become a larger success with a lot of demand then prices will be able to reach sub-$100 for high quality components, high quality keyboard, mouse pad, display and batteries also that last at least 20 hours on a charge. With a lot of support, this concept will also bring high performance and affordable USB Type-C Sticks to run all sorts of productivity user interfaces based on Android (such as the OXI UI) or Linux OSes or even Microsoft can bring Windows support to the Lapdock. This form factor could also bring the developers who use development boards closer to the mass market consumers, as all work done around the development boards of the future (very compact and affordable USB Type-C Sticks) will directly be able to impact also how end consumers can use devices for actual real work and productivity. The Lapdock will also move Smartphone market more towards their “PC Mode” as Samsung and Huawei already support each their PC Modes, and that is great because Samsung and Huawei are the two biggest Smartphone manufacturers in the world, yet most consumers don’t even know that the PC Mode is there. With Lapdocks, the performance of latest 7nm ARM Processors in phones will be tuned further for multi-window, multi-tasking and for running more advanced productivity apps on Android. 2019 will hopefully be the year where ARM Powered productivity finally reaches mass adoption and the mass market and I think that the Lapdock will be at the center point of that major electronics industry upgrade.
System76 is a computer manufacturer based in Denver Colorado specializing in laptops, desktops and servers running Linux. System76 talks about their upcoming efforts to move manufacturing in-house, and what that may mean for the future of the ARM Powered Linux Laptop and Desktop.
GIGABYTE shows their Cavium ThunderX2 Workstation, an upcoming product for ARM software developmers to optimize their code for the ARM server market. It will feature dual Cavium ThunderX2 processors with 4 channels of RDIMM/LRDIMM DDR4 2666/2400Mhz memory per socket, and total capacity of 16 x DIMMS. Networking will include a dedicated MLAN port. Other specifications are still under adjustment for the final product which is something that GIGABYTE and Cavium are discussing with potential customers to satisfy a demand.
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.
The R181-T90 is a 1U height dual socket general purpose ThunderX2 rack server with 8 channels RDIMM / ECC UDIMM DDR4 memory, 24 x DIMM slots, 1 x 25GbE SFP28 LAN port, 1 x 10GbE SFP+ LAN port (optional), 12 x 2.5” hot-swap HDD bays, 2 x OCP mezzanine slots (PCIe 3.0 x16), Aspeed AST2500 management controller, and 1+1 1600W 80 PLUS Platinum PSU. The R281-T91 is a 2U height dual socket general purpose ThunderX2 rack server with 8 channels RDIMM / ECC UDIMM DDR4 memory, 24 x DIMM slots, 1 x 25GbE SFP28 LAN port, 1 x 10GbE SFP+ LAN port (optional), 24 x 2.5” hot-swap HDD bays, 8 x PCIe 3.0 expansion slots, Aspeed AST2500 management controller, and 1+1 1600W 80 PLUS Platinum PSU. The R181-T90 and R281-T91 will be available to order from July 2018. The H261-T60 is a 2U height 4 node density optimized ThunderX2 server with dual ThunderX2 CN9975 sockets for each node (8 x sockets in total) and rear access to the node trays. The sockets will support a CPU up to 195W TDP. Each node supports 4 channels RDIMM / ECC UDIMM DDR4 memory, with 64 x DIMM slots for the system in total. The system contains in total 8 x SFP28 10G/25G LAN ports, 4 dedicated management ports, 12 x 3.5” SATA/SAS hot-swap HDD/SSD bays, 8 x low profile PCIe Gen3 expansion slots, 4 x OCP Gen3 mezzanine slots, and the system includes Aspeed AST2500 remote management controller and 1 + 1 2200W 80 PLUS Platinum redundant PSU. The H261-T60 will be available for shipping in late September or early October 2018. Find more information on GIGABYTE’s server products at http://b2b.gigabyte.com
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.
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.
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.
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.
HiSilicon and Hoperun introduces their new HiKey 970 development board, 10nm HiSilicon Kirin 970 based (same chipset that is in the recent Huawei Mate 10) quad ARM Cortex-A73 at 2.36GHz with quad ARM Cortex-A53 at 1.8GHz with Mali-G72MP12 and their new Dedicated Neural-network Processing Unit (NPU) with 256MAC/cycle @ 960MHz performance. To be available next month for $299 on Amazon and at http://hihope.org this is their Super Edge AI Computing Platform with Huawei HiAI SDK that can provide up to 25X Performance and 50X better Power Efficiency compared with doing the AI tasks by CPU or GPU. This enables the Heterogeneous multi processing Resource Management for use in applications such as Deep Learning, Robots, Automobile, Smart City. The NPU provides frequently used artificial intelligence function APIs, model management APIs and basic operator computing APIs, so developers can focus on developing new AI applications instead of focusing on performance tuning. The HiKey970’s dedicated AI processor has a rich set of imaging and I/Os that enables developers to build highly integrated flexible products for AI-based intelligent cameras in smart cities.
Features include:
UEFI + ARM Trusted Firmware
Kernel 4.9
CAN driver
CSI/CSI-2 driver
WiFi enable
Video Codec enable
PCIe enable for storage and LTE connect
4 lanes CSI + 2 lanes CSI
CAN V2.0B up to 1Mbps
Video Dec up to H.265 3840×2160@60fps
6GB 1866MHz, 4 Channel LPDDR4x
GPS, GLONASS, and BeiDou
OS Choices
Ubuntu
Debian
Android Master
Stacks
Huawei HiAI
Android NN
OpenGL ES
OpenCL
Planet Computers CTO Davide Guidi, filmed at the Gemini PDA headquarters in London, they shipped to first 1000 backers of 4200 from their successful Indiegogo. Here presenting 5 Linux distros, unlocked bootloader, open source on their website (with more source code to come shortly to that page) hardware acceleration of any Linux distro is under development using Libhybris and planning to try to integrate Halium to optimize the performance in all Linux distributions, to use the Android GPU, sound, video, modem and other binaries to each their fullest hopefully within each Linux distro. Gemini PDA hopes that by unlocking their bootloader, by providing the bootloader open source, providing their Linux distro images open source, letting users do whatever they want and multi-booth any OS that they would like, hopefully there will be a vibrant community to bring great all Linux performance on this MediaTek X27 deca-core Powered large and awesome mechanical keyboard phone. After having soon shipped to their remaining Indiegogo backers, Planet Computers hopes to be able to expand much further selling their phone through distributors and telcos around the world.
Geniatech shows their Tablet Dock for use with 96Boards compatible/sized development boards, where the board can just be swapped into the Tablet Dock to power it, including with touch support. To be distributed by Arrow at an affordable price.
Geniatech also provides a range of 96Board sized open source Qualcomm 410, 820 based development boards which you can see some of them featured in this video filmed at Embedded World 2017:
