Embedded Technology
of RAM and over 50GB of storage are stated but this is more likely to be 250GB+ for the full Yocto build environment. Developers also face a steep learning curve, especially when integrating CUDA and managing proprietary drivers.
In one industrial vision project, our team encountered a hardware issue despite following NVIDIA’s design guidance. A camera module refused to initialise properly. After a detailed hardware analysis, we discovered a mismatch between the board’s actual implementation and its documented specifications. Our team performed precision component-level modifications to resolve the issue and avoid a delay of several months. Without that level of hardware understanding, the project would have stalled. Jetson is well suited to complex AI applications, but it demands not only software expertise, but also deep system- level engineering. These platforms can be expensive and consume more power than other industrial devices. Because power and performance are closely linked, this is rarely a concern for the types of systems these CPUs are designed for. However, they are not well suited to low-power or battery- operated devices.
Qualcomm is well known in the smartphone and tablet world for its high-performance, low-power CPUs, which power devices such as Samsung’s S24 fl agship smartphone. These processors can feature up to eight ARM cores, some running at different speeds to optimise power consumption. Built with strong multimedia support – including up to 8K video encoding and decoding – they are designed for demanding yet energy-effi cient applications.
Qualcomm has branched from this very vertical market of phones and tablets into more industrial devices. To do this, there are a range of SOM (system on module) devices which are available to designers which allow easier access to these complex chips. Documentation and support are typically behind manufacturers like NXP; typically, they have serviced a small number of large OEMs, designing high volume products. This makes working with Qualcomm quite different from the more general-purpose software offerings that TI or NXP have to offer. Longevity for high-performance devices is driven by the phone and tablet market. The embedded offerings tend to have longer lifetimes to encourage the use of these devices in embedded designs. Be careful when designing these systems to
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how a development team functions and can support the product. Having direct support or via distribution can be the difference to getting a product to market on time or supporting a diffi cult feature.
NVIDIA Jetson’s JetPack is powerful but requires specifi c expertise in AI and CUDA and is expensive and power consuming for general purpose devices. Raspberry Pi’s environment is easier to learn and well-documented but lacks some industrial features. NXP has a wide selection of multi- purpose chips for many industrial applications but these do not have the very high-end features like NVIDIA. Others have strong performance but limited support, making them very suitable in some circumstances but there is no one chip or even one vendor that fi ts all solutions.
ensure you can source the components for the full duration of your product’s lifetime.
prototyping but has industrial limitations
Raspberry Pi (using the Broadcom chip) is the most widely adopted single- board computer globally, known for its accessibility, affordability, and vast community support. It’s particularly attractive to developers building initial prototypes or educational tools, thanks to its straightforward build process and off- the-shelf binaries that run out of the box. Many manufacturers start development on Raspberry Pi for rapid concept validation. Its simplicity makes it easy to get a system running quickly. However, its limitations become apparent in production. The platform can lack robust security features (or at least the proper documentation of how to use them), GPU performance is average for the ARM market, and relies on proprietary firmware blobs for bootloader and other areas of the system. These factors can complicate industrial use cases that require greater reliability or transparency. Documentation, while abundant, is scattered across forums, wikis, and unofficial guides, leading to inconsistency, and datasheets on the CPU itself are closed making features that are not mainstream difficult to support.
Raspberry Pi remains a smart choice for prototyping or low-risk applications, but companies should be prepared to migrate to a more industrial-grade platform when moving to production.
TI (Texas Instruments) and Renesas, like NXP, have strong automotive backgrounds. TI also excels in (DSP) signal processing and a long history of supporting industrial customers as well as Tier 1 automotive customers. Renesas have also moved into the more general embedded space, meaning that support and documentation is more limited than TI or NXP but they have a strong chip offering for those who have an application which closely aligns to the chips’ original design purposes.
Rockchip is a Chinese chip offering, commonly used in tablets and smartphones in the far east. They offer competitive and powerful chips which from its tablet heritage gives you a powerful processing unit, strong multimedia capability, low power and at a very low cost. The main drawbacks are the lack of quality documentation and a BSP that is focused for a limited use case rather than a general purpose industrial BSP. Like all chips described in this article they have built-in security features such as secure boot, encryption and more. Accessing these can be more problematic due to the lack of (English) documentation, support or tools. Some chips have known work arounds for security features as well which is less than ideal in a security-focused environment that many embedded devices fi nd themselves in.
The choice of CPU can dramatically affect
References: (1)
Beyond development, your platform choice affects cost, time-to-market, and long- term viability. Some devices involve higher up-front investment to setup, understand and start using features. Some have quick startup features but then struggle to turn into polished reliable industrial solutions. Yocto Linux has a high barrier to entry, particularly in terms of developer knowledge and infrastructure. But for businesses in regulated sectors or requiring multi-year support, it provides a future- proof, scalable foundation.
Choosing the right embedded Linux platform is a strategic decision that balances technical, operational, and commercial needs. At ByteSnap, we often recommend a staged approach: looking at the type of market the product is going into, the customer’s technical knowledge and capability through to the technical details of the product specifi cation and what is technically possible.
In the end, your choice will depend on more than just technical benchmarks. It must refl ect your team’s capabilities, your industry’s compliance demands, and your product’s long-term goals. A careful evaluation today can prevent costly refactoring or compliance issues tomorrow. For more information on the choice of project platform selection, please visit:
https://www.bytesnap.com/news-blog/ nvidia-jetson-v-raspberry-pi-v-digi-cc93/
https://electroiq.com/stats/embedded-systems-statistics/ Components in Electronics October 2025 43
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