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Posts Tagged ‘ARM’

Neuros OSD2 : Open Internet Television Platform

January 30th, 2010

Neuros Technology offers Open Internet Television Platform with simple aim to bring internet to TV. Neuros OSD1 was first in this series of product, which was upgraded to OSD2 with better functionality.

Neuros OSD2 is based on Texas Instruments Davinci Series of SoC TMS320DM6446 having ARM 9 processor core. It has capability to be used as capture AV content as well as playback content from USB storage device or network. OSD2 developer guide contains good list of available resources.

Pro:

- One can efficiently use Neuros OSD2 for Personal Video Recorder or Network Media Player.

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Posted in ARM 9, Davinci Series, Product

Tags: ARM ARM 9 Davinci Neuros PVR Texas Instruments

Odroid : Entertainment Device

January 10th, 2010

Odroid is developer focused entertainment / gaming device. It comes with schematics & includes itś support in Linux & Android.

Odroid contains Samsung S5PC100 SoC, which contains ARM Cortex-A8 833MHz processor. This gives healthy competition to Beagleboard, which contains ARM Cortex-A8 of 600 MHz.

Quick Pros:

- ARM Cortex-A8 833MHz processor. 512 MB RAM, Touch screen & HDMI output, WiFi, Bluetooth gives big advantage over Beagleboard in terms of hardware capability.

- Odroid is more useful as complete device rather than as reference platform. Thus, It is easy to developer software over it & use it.

Quick Cons:

- Odroid is released much latter than Beagleboard, thus odroid community is less active compare to Beagleboard.

- Odroid has little option to interface external piece of hardware such as any sensor.

- Priced at 349 USD, Quite premier & out of reach for many.

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Posted in ARM Cortext-A8, Product, Samsung, System On a Chip

Tags: ARM odroid Samsung

Beagleboard

January 1st, 2010

Beagleboard is one of the most successful project in terms of community support & activity. It uses OMAP3530 soc, which belongs to OMAP35# series from TI. Many recently launched smart phones (such as Droid, N900, Palm Pre ) use similar kind of soc.

Besides having strong hardware, Beagleboard project also comes with all required data-sheets, schematics, layout & it is supported well by various Linux distribution, making it ideal plateform for embedded researchers & hackers. Lot of other hardware boards are available which are modified version of beagleboard.

Although, first impression of Beagle board hardware suggest that it is targeted to Mobile / Multimedia or entertainment device, It is practically very useful for many kind of application.

Quick Pros:

- ARM Cortex – A8 Core

- Standard interfaces such as USB, DVI-D, Serial console for debug, SD card slot

- USB Host & Gadget mode support, making it ideal for usb device driver development / testing and validation

- Supported by various linux distribution, in particular Angstrom includes various debugging tools, making beagleboard as strong reference platform of ARM Cortex-A8 for Application testing & debugging.

- Although (as of now) Open GLES driver is available in binary only format, it is fairly usable.

I would also suggest beagleboard to any one who is beginner in embedded Linux or college student for their academic project as platform.