September 24, 2008

Colibri Windows CE Image 3.2 Released

You can download the latest Windows CE Image version 3.2 from the download section of the Toradex website.

Colibri Image ChangeLog:
=============================

3.2 Release Date: 23 July 2008
Mating Bootloader 3.2

Fixed Serial Port FIFO handling (corrupted serial output when sending bigger data amounts) (was broken since 3.1)

Changed some Touch default parameters, especially pressure threshold which was leading to sample problems on some touch screens.

Fixed USB Device ActiveSync connection not working if able already plugged in while booting on windows ce 6.0

Fixed crash in Display driver when using DISP_GPIO=-1 (none)

Reverted display driver initialization to Black as it was on 3.0 (was initializing with white on 3.1)

Added Output Enable Polarity setting in Display Driver

Fixed problem with loading of second instance of ASIX Ethernet Driver (when using pxa320 on Protea Board)

Fixed RELEASE_SYSINTR IOCTL (was always returing FALSE even if successful)

Added Suspend Support to PXA320 & PXA300

Fixed/Improved Suspend on PXA270:

IRDA is not Active on Suspend anymore

Reduced AC97 Codec Current Consumption on Analog Supply during suspend to ~4uA (was ~10mA)

Added New WakeupSources Pin concept: You can specify the wakeup pin based on the SODIMM pin number instead of gpio number (on PXA3xx this is now the only supported way).

Added Support to Wakeup on Time event (also fixed RTC interrrupt)

Added Support to Wakeup on Touch event

Wakeup Sources and Sleep Pin States can now be changed without rebooting (IOCTL)

Added option to disable the Automatic entry in DeepSleep on Voltage Fault detection. (This was causing troubles in some cases where current consumption was high).
[HKLM\System\PM]
“NoSleepOnPowerFail”=1
(default is 0)

Added Support for USB KITL Debugging (RNDIS)

On PXA320: Improved FlashMedia Driver Initalization performance. There was very big boot delay if many Flash sectors were used (up to 3 Minutes!!) Not the Maximum Delay will be 22 Seconds.

Touch Driver: Option to enable Reference Supply Filtering

Fixed a BUG in NAND FlashMediaDriver when handling BadBlocks (data corruption was possible)

When using BTUART as DebugSerial Port the BTUART Windows CE driver is now automatically disabled.

Improved Idle patch for 806Mhz
There are also 2 possible patches:
1. Change freq. to 104, idle, then back to 806 (requires full freq change)
2. Change freq. to 403, idle, then back to 806 (faster as it can be done with turbo freq change)
By default we use method one. If you want to use method 2 you can set IdlePatch=2 in the PM registry settings. NOTE: 403 is not a Marvell validated frequency, so it’s not sure it will work 100%.

Fixed DM9000 ethernet hang problem when using BTUART (set DTR)

September 16, 2008

Colibri XScale PXA270 video tutorials

Toradex is providing a series of video tutorials to better support customers during their product development with Colibri XScale PXA270 and Colibri PXA320 computer modules.

The streaming videos show how to:

  • Replace the Colibri PXA270 module by a Colibri PXA320 module and the doubling of performance when playing a high resolution DivX video with TCPMP media player;
  • Unpackand setup the Colibri Evaluation Board as well as mastering its available interfaces, such as CAN, I2C, SPI, SD, MMC, IRDA, CF, RS232, GPIOs, Ethernet, USB host/client;
  • Setup the freely available embedded Visual C++ Software Development Environment on a desktop PC and establish an ActiveSync connection, create and run your first “Hello World” Application on Colibri;
  • Control the Colibri hardware remotely via a Desktop PC, using ActiveSync;
  • Create a Flash File system on Colibri’s on-board Flash memory;
  • Automatically run programs or copy files to the RAM file system upon Colibri Boot or upon inserting a removable storage device, such as USB Stick, SD card or Compact Flash;
  • Edit the registry to deactivate certain system driversand make the changes persistent;
  • Change Display settings, CPU frequency and Flash layout on the fly.

Visit the Toradex Video Tutorials Webpage to view the videos.

September 13, 2008

Windows CE 6.0 driver for Oak USB Sensors

A new Windows CE 6.0 HID driver for the Oak USB sensors is now available for download here. Oak USB sensors come with a free data acqusition tool for Windows and interfaces for National Instruments Labview as well as for the Microsoft Robotics Studio. Oak Sensors are used in many areas, such as vending machines, industrial process control, building automation, robotics, biomechanics, environmental monitoring, and lab automation. Oak USB sensors include axelerometer, humidity sensor, pressure sensor, temperature sensor, proximity sensor, inclinometer, input/output device, current sensor, A/D converter, and even a USB controlled relay. Thanks to the HID protocol, Oak USB sensors work with Windows, Linux and Windows CE.
Visit the Toradex Website to find out more about Toradex’ attractive pricing scheme and the wide range available sensor types as well as computer modules.

September 11, 2008

Embedded Intel Atom Z510 Micro Com Express Board

Woodpecker Z510 is an embedded Micro COM Express ™ computer module based on the Intel® Atom™ Z510 processor and the Intel® System Controller Hub US15W. The processor runs at 1.1GHz and is designed for high performance computing at low power consumption.
Woodpecker Z510 offers a PCIexpress x1 lanes, and up to 6 High Speed USB ports for fast signal connectivity. One USB port can be configured as USB client. The module features a dual independent graphic output with VGA and LVDS port, or alternatively, an SDVO and LVDS output.
Woodpecker supports a wide range of mass storage device interfaces. A master and slave PATA interface supports up to two IDE devices. Additionally, two SATA interfaces are available. A microSD card slot is provided on the module for convenient memory extension. A 30 pin FFC connector provides two additional SDIO channels for SD cards, MMC cards, WLAN adaptors, Bluetooth adaptors, modems, IrDA adapters, RFID readers or GPS modules.
Start of volume production expected in October 2008.
Visit www.toradex.com for more information.