CuBox Developer Platform Announcement
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Android TV and Media Application Development Platform. Only for €99
Ultra Small Form Factor with Ultra Low Power Envelope Enables Innovative, New Applications
Yokneam, Israel (December 11th, 2011) Solid-Run announced the availability of CuBox - a miniature, sub 3-watt open source Android TV and media center development platform, with unprecedented power/performance ratio and feature/size characteristics. The platform incorporates large amounts of desktop class I/Os backed with a high-performance ARM processor and large DDR memory. Its strong processing power and hardware acceleration features make it capable of meeting different application needs, for example Android-TV, HD Media Player, Thin-Client, Digital Signage platforms, Network-Attached-Storage; all in a sub 3-watt typical total system power consumption.
Figure 1: A CuBox system and a 1 Euro coin standing on its side next to it
CuBox is an almost 2" cube, hence the name (Cube-Box), its features include:
- Marvell Armada 510 based 800MHz ARM processor
- ARMv7 Instruction set, including VFP3 floating point unit and wmmx SIMD unit.
- 1GByte DDR-3
- HDMI 1080p output backed by hardware video decoding engine capable of up-to 1080p decoding of all major multimedia codecs.
- OpenGL|ES 2.0 GPU
- Peripherals:
- 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet
- 2 x USB 2.0 (host)
- eSata 2, 3Gbps
- Infra-red receiver
- Optical audio SPDIF transmitter
- microSD for operating system
- microUSB (device) for debug and recovery
The platform is provided with completely open source SDK:
- Android 2.2
- Linux kernel 2.6
- Demo software for demonstrating capability of the platform:
- XBMC
- Ubuntu and Debian
The user can re-flash all pieces of software using the simple debug console provided via micro-USB connector (no need for JTAG).
Support is provided via Wiki and forums available on the company's web site.
"Solid-Run's CuBox is a full computer in a sub 3 Watt power envelope. It's a flexible, advanced platform optimized for running Android TV Applicatiosn and for Media Centric open source Application Development" said Rabeeh Khoury, CTO of Solid-Run. "Solid -Run's value add is our commitment to providing rich development ecosystem and providing critical resources such as comprehensive software development kits, debug and recovery mechanisms and online community forums."
“We are proud to be the first provider of such unique product, both in its form factor and its power/performance ratio. We are planning to ship to our first customers before the end of this year” added Kossay Omary, CEO of Solid-Run. “This is probably the only Android TV box that is shipped in such a small form factor and the only development platform in the market that is packaged in an elegant plastic box and not provided as a barebones system or in a bulky enclosure. Developers can tailor the platform to their needs and place it in their living room without fear of being damaged”
Mr. Omary went on saying: “Our products are made in Israel and we make special attention to manufacturing with the highest quality standards that we can achieve. Limited number of platforms will be available at first and those can be pre-ordered at the company’s web-site at http://www.solid-run.com so make sure to order yours today”.
In order to provide its customers early access, Solid-Run is shipping engineering sample platforms at the first stage. The platforms are covered by a 3 month limited warranty.
Figure 2: CuBox Functional Block Diagram
The platform ships with a universal 5V power supply and 2GByte micro-SD, and is user upgradeable to 64GByte and beyond. Customers will have access to the CuBox platform including all its supporting infrastructure and resources for €99.