CuBox and CuBox-i are series of small and fanless

nettop A nettop (or miniature PC, Mini PC or Smart Micro PC) is a small-sized, inexpensive, low-power, legacy-free desktop computer designed for basic tasks such as web browsing, accessing web-based applications, document processing, and audio/video ...

-class computers manufactured by the Israeli company

SolidRun SolidRun is an Israeli company producing Embedded systems components, mainly mini computers, Single-board computers and computer-on-module devices. It is specially known for the CuBox family of mini-computers, and for producing motherboards a ...

Ltd. They are all cube-shaped and sized at approximately 2 × 2 × 2 inches (5 cm) and weigh 91 grams (0.2 lb, or 3.2 oz). CuBox was first announced in December 2011 and began shipping in January 2012, initially being marketed as a cheap open-source developer platform for

embedded systems An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as ...

.Android-ready ARM mini-HTPC costs $130, uses just three Watts
The first-generation CuBox was according to SolidRun the first commercially available desktop computer based on the Marvell Armada 500-series SoC (System-on-Chip) and at the time was said to be the world's smallest desktop computer. In November 2013, SolidRun released the Cubox-i1, i2, i2eX, and i4Pro, containing i.MX6 processors.

Overview

CuBox is a low-power computer based on ARM-architecture CPU, using the Marvell Armada 510 (88AP510) SoC with an ARM v6/v7-compliant superscalar processor core,

Vivante Vivante Corporation is a fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with an R&D center in Shanghai, China. The company was founded in 2004 as GiQuila and focused on the portable gaming market. The company's first prod ...

GC600

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

3.0 and

OpenGL ES OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accel ...

2.0 capable 2D/3D

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

, Marvell vMeta HD Video Decoder hardware engine, and

TrustZone ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configure ...

security extensions, Cryptographic Engines and Security Accelerator (CESA) co-processor. Despite being about 2-inch-square in size, the platform can stream and decode

1080p 1080p (1920×1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the screen vert ...

content, use desktop-class interfaces such as

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

under Linux, while requiring less than 3 watts and less than 1 watt in standby. SolidRun currently officially only supports

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...

2.6.x or later and Android 2.2.x and later. It comes with Ubuntu Desktop 10.04 and Android 2.2 dual-boot pre-installed.

Newer models

In November 2013, SolidRun released a family of CuBox-i computers named CuBox-i1, i2, i2eX, and i4Pro, containing a range of different i.MX6 processors by

Freescale Semiconductor Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embed ...

. They have also released a series of caseless i.MX6 models called the Hummingboard.

CuBoxTV

Announced in December 2014, CuBoxTV is a mid-range and simplified version of the CuBox-i computer. It is designed to exclusively operate

KODI KODI (1400 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a news/talk format. Licensed to Cody, Wyoming, United States, the station is currently owned by the Big Horn Radio Network, a division of Legend Communications of Wyoming, LLC, and features programm ...

(formerly known as XBMC) on an OpenELEC

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

. CuBoxTV weighs approximately 9.9 oz (281 grams), and is around 2X2 Inches wide and 1.8 inches high, shaped like a cube with rounded sides. It features an i.MX6

Quad core A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate Central processing unit, processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes Instruction set, program instructions. The instructio ...

processor at a 1GHz speed, 1GB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

memory, 8GB base storage memory and a GC2000

quad shader

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

. It houses a couple of

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

2.0 ports, a

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, ...

port,

microSD Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...

port and an

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

port.

References

External links

*
CuBoxTV product page
{{Linux mini computers Computer-related introductions in 2011 Linux-based devices Computers and the environment Nettop Embedded Linux Single-board computers Educational hardware ARM-based home computers

Overview

Newer models

CuBoxTV

See also

References

External links