SBC News

AAEON’s UP Bridge the Gap community has partnered with Intel to release two robotic development kits based on either UP Xtreme i11 or UP Squared 6000 single board computers in order to simplify robotics evaluation and development. Both robotic development kits come with a four-wheeled robot prototype that can move omnidirectionally, sense and map its environment, avoid obstacles, and detect people and objects. Since those capabilities are already implemented, users can save time and money working on further customization for specific use cases. Key features and specifications: SBC UP Squared 6000 SBC – Recommended for power efficiency and extended battery power SoC – Inte…

AAEON RTC-710AP is a 7-inch rugged tablet powered by an Intel Celeron N3350 or Pentium N4200 Apollo Lake processor with up to 8GB LPDDR4 memory, 128GB eMMC flash, WiFi, Bluetooth, and optional 4G LTE connectivity. as well as GNSS supports. The IP65-rated tablet also comes with five physical function keys, an NFC reader, a 2MP front-facing camera, an 8MP rear camera, and an I/O expansion module for a 2D barcode scanner, LAN, UART, and other options. It also features a master battery and a hot-swappable slave battery to ensure continuous operation. AAEON RTC-710AP specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Celeron N3350 dual-core processor @ 1.1GHz / 2.4GHz with Intel HD …

ACEMAGICIAN T8PLUS is an ultra-compact mini PC based on the latest Intel Processor N95 “Alder Lake N-Series” processor with three HDMI video outputs and dual gigabit Ethernet ports. The 8.9 x 8.9 x 4.3mm computer ships with 8GB LPDDR5 memory, a 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD, and is also equipped with three USB 3.0 ports, a WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 wireless module, and a 3.5mm audio jack, plus a Kensington lock slot. ACEMAGICIAN T8PLUS specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N95 quad-core Alder Lake-N processor @ up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 16EU Intel HD graphics @ 1.2 GHz; TDP: 15W System Memory – 8GB DDR4 @ 4800MHz Storage – 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD Video Output – 3x HDMI 2.0b …

Achronix Semiconductor has recently announced the general availability of the Speedster7t AC7t1500 FPGA designed for networking, storage, and compute (AI/ML) acceleration applications. The 7nm Speedster7t FPGA family offers PCIe Gen5 ports and GDRR6 and DDR5/DDR4 memory interfaces, delivers up to 400 Gbps on the Ethernet ports, and includes a 2D network on chip (2D NoC) that can handle 20 Tbps of total bandwidth. Achronix Speedster7t highlights: Two-dimensional network on chip (2D NoC) enabling high bandwidth data flow throughout and between the FPGA fabric and hard I/O and memory controllers and interfaces MLP (Machine Learning Processors) blocks with arrays of multiplie…

Acromag XMC-7A50-AP323 is an XMC (Switched Mezzanine Card) module based on a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA with 48 TTL I/O channels plus a 16-bit ADC for 20 differential or 40 single-ended analog inputs. Designed for commercial off-the-shelf (COSTS) applications, Acromag XMC modules are RoHS compliant, and suitable for automation applications, scientific development labs, as well as aerospace and military applications. Acromag XMC-7A50-AP323 module specifications: FPGA – AMD Xilinx Artix-7 (XC7A050) FPGA with 52,160 logic cells, 65,200 Flip flops, 2,700 kb block RAM, 120 DSP slices Storage – 32Mbit QSPI flash memory FPGA Digital I/O 48x I/O channels controlled in groups of eight ch…

ACTAMID M8S is a palm-sized 3.4-inch mini PC powered by an Intel Pentium N6005 Jasper Lake processor with up to 16GB LPDDR4 memory, 1TB M.2 2242 SSD. The M8S is bigger than the recently announced 2.7-inch PIX NII mini PC based on the same processor, but that’s for a good reason since it offers more ports with three HDMI outputs, dual Gigabit Ethernet, and three USB 3.0 ports. The mini PC also features WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity, a quiet fan, and a 7-color LED backlight for good effects… Win Element Technology Co., Ltd, the Hong Kong company owning the ACTAMID brand, says the mini PC ships preinstalled with an activated version of Windows 11, but also s…

Adafruit has designed a new variant of the Feather RP2040 board with the “Adafruit Feather RP2040 with RFM95 LoRa Radio” featuring a 900 MHz RFM95 “RadioFruit” module and following the “Adafruit Feather RP2040 with DVI Output Port” that we covered last week. The board ships with 8 MB of QSPI flash, supports USB-C or LiPo battery power, is offered in the familiar Feather form factor, and the built-in RFM95 module supports 433 MHz, 868MHz, and 915MHz frequencies, selectable by firmware, for global coverage. Adafruit Feather RP2040 with RFM95 LoRa Radio specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Arm Cortex M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz with 264 KB RAM Storage – 8MB …

Spotpear’s Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W to Raspberry Pi 3/4 adapters would not exist in a “normal” world of abundance that still existed a little less than 3 years ago. But I suppose extraordinary times require extraordinary adapters… If you have a spare Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W lying around but would rather like getting the ports from a Raspberry Pi 3 or Raspberry Pi 4, Spotpear has designed three adapters that can also be used as USB docks from a computer or mobile phone. The first adapter the “ZERO to 4B” will get you a Raspberry Pi 4-looking SBC with a Raspberry Pi RP3A0 system-in-package (Quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU + 512 MB RAM), and most of the same ports, except only three US…

Pascal Herczog’s Red Reactor is a battery power supply project that adds two 18650 batteries to Raspberry Pi 4, Raspberry Pi 3, or Raspberry Pi Zero board using the pogo pins for connection. The pogo pin method means the Red Reactor is attached underneath the board, as such does not prevent the user to add a HAT expansion board on top of the single board computer. There’s also a headerless version for custom setup or compatibility with boards such as Arduino, Banana Pi, Orange Pi, etc… where some soldering is required. Red Reactor’s key features and specifications: Battery holder for up to 2x flat-top 18650 LiPo batteries Battery voltage and current monitoring over I2C (I…

SB Components is running another crowdfunding campaign with the EnkPi ePaper display powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico W board and offered in four different sizes namely 2.9-inch, 4.2-inch 5.83-inch, and 7.5-inch. Each mainboard also comes with a USB Type-C port, a microSD card socket, an RTC with a backup battery holder, a buzzer, six user buttons, and a JST connector for expansion with GPIO, I2C, UART, and ADC signals. EnkPi specifications: MCU board – Raspberry Pi Pico W with Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller, 2MB QSPI flash, WiFi 4 module. Storage – MicroSD card socket Display connected over SPI to the Pico W board 2.9-inch tricolor ePaper display …

We wrote about the new Z-Wave Long Range (LR) standard aka “Z-Wave Plus LR” promising four times the range and 10-year battery life in September 2020 but hadn’t heard much about it since then, at least until now, as Zooz has launched the ZST39 LR USB Stick and ZAC93 LR GPIO module based on a Z-Wave 800 Series chip, with the GPIO module compatible with Home Assistant Yellow and Raspberry Pi SBCs. Zooz 800 Series Z-Wave Long Range GPIO Module ZAC93 LR ZAC93 LR specifications: Z-Wave Frequency – 908.42 MHz (US, CA, MX) / 921.4 MHz (AU, NZ) / 868.42 MHz (EU) Wireless Range – Up to 1 mile/1.6 km in open space with Long Range enabled (up to 300 meters in open space, up to 76 m…

I had no trouble with my first experience with NanoPi R6S while installing and running the FriendlyWrt/OpenWrt 22.03 image, but that was another story when testing Ubuntu or Debian as the mini PC would not boot at all after flashing the images with eFlasher apparently successfully, but suspiciously fast (under 2 seconds). I spent nearly four hours trying the different images and then the Rockchip Windows utility, but all my attempts failed, and FriendlyElec was not overly helpful. So I decided to connect a serial console to see what was going on. The NanoPi R6S comes with a 3-pin header for the serial console, but it’s not populated. So I soldering one, but not at the top…

ADLINK Ampere Altra Dev Kit is an “IoT prototyping kit” based on an ATX motherboard fitted with a COM-HPC-ALT Server Type Size E module powered by an Ampere Altra 32, 64, or 80-core Arm Neoverse N1 server processor, and supporting up to 768GB DDR4 memory. It’s basically the same hardware as found in the Ampere Altra Developer Platform (AADP), but without the tower and power supply, nor optional features like liquid cooling or 10GbE interfaces. Ampere Altra Dev Kit (AADK) specifications and content: Computer-on-Module – COM-HPC Server Type Size E Ampere Altra module with Ampere Altra 32 to 80-core 64-bit Arm Neoverse N1 processor up to 1.7/2.2/2.6 GHz (32/64/80 cores, TPD:…

We first wrote about Allwinner T507 when we covered a module and devkit from Forlinx, but now MYiR Tech has designed its own AEC-Q100 qualified system-on-module (MYC-YT507H) and the MYD-YT507H development board based Allwinner T507-H processor. MYC-YT507H – Allwinner T507-H SoM Specifications: SoC – Allwinner T507-H with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.5GHz, Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2/2.0/1.0, Vulkan1.1, OpenCL 2.0; 4K60 H.265/VP9/AVS2 video decoder, 4K H.264/MJPEG video encoder System Memory – 1 or 2GB LPDDR4 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, 32Kbit EEPROM (or is it 32KB/256Kbit – see block diagram below) 222x castellated holes with 1.0mm pitch …

Aetina AIE-CP1A-A1 is a compact, ASIC-based Edge AI system powered by the Blaize Pathfinder P1600 embedded system-on-module (SoM) equipped with dual-core Cortex-A53 processor, the Blaize Graph Streaming Processor (GSP) architecture delivering up to 16 TOPS, and 4GB RAM. The Aetina AI inference system also comes with 8GB eMMC flash, HDMI video output, Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.2 ports, and a serial interface, with the small-sized embedded computer targetting computer vision applications such as object detection, human motion detection, and automated inspection. Aetina AIE-CP1A-A1 specifications System-on-Module – Blaize PathFinder P1600 SoM SoC – Blaize 1600 dual ArmCort…

Aetina has recently announced several embedded systems based on NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX and Orin Nano which they showcased at CES 2023. We’ll specifically have a look at the AIE-KO21/31 and AIE-KN31/41 edge devices designed for mainstream and entry-level edge AI computing. NVIDIA introduced the NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX SO-DIMM modules in March 2022 and followed up with the lower-cost pin-compatible Jetson Orin Nano modules in September with mass production scheduled for Q4 2022 and Q1 2023 respectively. Last week, we covered the first NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX edge AI computer we had seen, namely Seeed Studio reComputer J4012, but it turns out Aetina also announced their own Jetso…

AI Thinker has just introduced a new family of wireless IoT modules with the Ai-WB2 equipped with Bouffalo Lab BL602 RISC-V microcontroller offering both 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE connectivity. There are ten different modules to choose from, probably to keep mechanical and electrical compatibility with ESP8266 and ESP32 modules, and the company expects customers to integrate those into Internet of Things (IoT) products, mobile devices, wearables, Smart Home appliances, and more. Ai-WB2 modules share the following specifications: Wireless MCU – Bouffalo Lab BL602 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller @ up to 192 MHz with 276KB SRAM, 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE co…

CNXSoft: This is another tutorial using SenseCAP K1100 sensor prototype kit translated from CNX Software Thai. This post shows how computer vision/AI vision can be combined with LoRaWAN using the Arduino-programmable Wio Terminal, a Grove camera module, and LoRa-E5 module connecting to a private LoRaWAN network using open-source tools such as Node-RED and InfluxDB. In the first part of SenseCAP K1100 review/tutorial we connected various sensors to the Wio Terminal board and transmitted the data wirelessly through the LoRa-E5 LoRaWAN module after setting the frequency band for Thailand (AS923). In the second part, we’ll connect the Grove Vision AI module part of the SenseC…

SMDT AIoTBOX-3568GK is an industrial control PC powered by a Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 AIoT processor and offering plenty of interfaces including six USB ports, four RS232 ports, and terminal blocks with RS485 and CAN bus interfaces. The embedded computer ships with 2GB RAM and 16GB eMMC flash by default, and also features HDMI and LVDS display interfaces, 3.5mm jacks for headphones and microphone, as well as network connectivity through a Gigabit Ethernet port, WiFi, and optional Bluetooth and/or 4G LTE. AIoTBOX-3568GK specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568A quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0GHz with Arm Mali-G52 2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2…

Air32F103 is yet another clone of the STM32F103 microcontroller that can be faster if needed with a clock of up to 216 MHz instead of 72 MHz for the original STMicro STM32 Arm Cortex-M3 microcontroller. The first SKU of the family is the Air32F103CBT6 whose peripherals and hardware design are compatible with equivalent STM32F103CBT6 parts and offered with 32KB RAM and 128KB flash. There’s also a Bluepill-like development board, but with a different pinout, made by LuatOS. Documentation for the board and microcontroller can be found in a Wiki including the MCU datasheet that indicates models with 256KB flash and 64MB SRAM (Air32F103CCT6) and 96MB SRAM (Air32F103RPT6). Sinc…

The ROMA RISC-V laptop was announced this summer with an unnamed RISC-V processor with GPU and NPU. We now know it will be the Alibaba T-Head TH1520 quad-core Xuantie C910 processor clocked at up to 2.5GHz with a 4 TOPS NPU, and support for 64-bit DDR at up 4266 MT. The TH1520 is born out of the Wujian 600 platform unveiled by Alibaba in August 2022, and is capable of running desktop-level applications such as Firefox browser and LibreOffice office suite on OpenAnolis open-source Linux-based operating system launched by Alibaba in 2020. So that means we now have a better idea of the specifications of the ROMA RISC-V developer laptop: SoC – Alibaba T-Head quad-core RISC-V …

Alif Semiconductor’s Ensemble is a family of processors and microcontrollers based on Arm Cortex-A32 and/or Cortex-M55 cores, one or two Ethos-U55 AI accelerators, and plenty of I/Os and peripherals. Four versions are available as follows: Alif E1 single-core MCU with one Cortex-M55 core @ 160 MHz, one Ethos U55 microNPU with 128 MAC/c Alif E3 dual-core MCU with one Cortex-M55 core @ 400 MHz, one Cortex-M55 core @ 160 MHz, one Ethos U55 with 256 MAC/c, one Ethos U55 with 128MAC/c Alif E5 triple-core fusion processor with one Cortex-A32 cores @ 800 MHz, one Cortex-M55 core @ 400 MHz, one Cortex-M55 core @ 160 MHz, one Ethos U55 with 256 MAC/c, one Ethos U55 with 128MAC/c A…

Allwinner H618 processor has started to show up in several TV boxes running Android 12, and capable of playing 6K/4K VP9 and H.265 videos with devices such as T95Z Plus and T95 Max, which may be confusing, as companies are reusing those model numbers over and over. Featuring a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, an Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU, and 6K video support, the Allwinner H618 looks exactly like the Allwinner H616 processor except it can run the more recent Android 12 operating system. There’s not much public information about Allwinner H618 at the time of writing, but let’s check T95Z Plus specifications to see if we can find any other new hidden features: SoC – Allwinner H6…

Allwinner is mostly known for its low-cost Arm processor running Android or Linux, but the Allwinner R128 is a wireless audio SoC with a C906 64-bit RISC-V application core, an Arm Cortex-M33 real-time time core, a HiFi 5 DSP, and built-in WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. The SoC also comes with 1MB SRAM, up to 16MB flash, up to 32MB PSRAM, display and camera interfaces, support for microphone arrays, and plenty of I/Os that should make it suitable for smart speakers and other voice-controlled home appliances with or without display. Allwinner R128 specifications: Application core – Xuantie C906 64-bit RISC-V core clocked at 600 MHz. DSP – Cadence HiFi 5 audio DSP clocked…

Allwinner T3 is a quad-core Cortex-A7 automotive-grade processor that supports a wide industrial temperature range of -40°C to +85°C. After comparing the specifications of Allwinner T3, I think it is the same as Allwinner A40i, as Allwinner has different business units and the T-series is for the automotive-grade market, while the A-series has historically been for the tablet market, but is now also used in the industrial-grade market. Tronlong SOM-TLT3 and SOM-TLT3-B are Allwinner T3 system-on-modules (SoM) of Allwinner T3. Both modules have basically the same specifications but the SOM-TLT3 comes with castellated holes for soldering to the carrier board, while the SOM-T…

Forlinx OKT507-C single board computer for automotive applications is powered by FETT507-C system-in-module equipped with Allwinner T507 industrial processor, 2GB RAM, and 8GB eMMC flash. Allwinner T507 offers the same features as Allwinner H616 for TV boxes with a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU, a Mali G31 MP2 GPU, and the same I/Os, but the processor is AEC-Q100 certified, supports -40°C to +85°C temperature range, and Allwinner promises over 10 years of longevity. OKT507-C single board computer specifications: FETT507-C System on Module SoC – Allwinner T507 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2/2.0/1.0, Vulkan1.1, OpenCL 2.0; …

Previously known for its tablet SoCs, Allwinner has been focusing on low-cost Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A53 processors for consumer devices in recent years, and the Allwinner TV303 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor is yet another one and appears to be the first of Allwinner TV-series processors designed for “smart screens”, notably smart Android projectors. I could not find any references for TV303 on the Allwinner website, but the company did publish a post on Weixin about a “Smart Android Projector” by Hotack based on the new processor and showcased at CES 2023. Allwinner TV303 preliminary specifications: CPU – 4x Arm Cortex-A53 GPU – Arm Mali-G31 VPU – 4K hardware video decodi…

Allwinner V3LP is a single-core Cortex-A7 processor for dual-camera systems with the exact same specifications as the Allwinner V3S processor introduced in 2016, except it should be more power efficient with a lower DDR operating voltage of 1.5V instead of 1.8V. Sochip explains that procuring the integrated DDR2 in the Allwinner V3s design is challenging, so Allwinner has replaced the memory in the pin-to-pin compatible Allwinner V3LP with more broadly available and lower power RAM. Allwinner V3LP specifications: CPU – ARM Cortex-A7 @ up to 1.2 GHz Memory – Integrated 64MB DDR2 DRAM @ 1.5 V Storage I/F – SD 2.0, eMMC 4.41, SPI NAND flash, SPI NOR flash Audio Codec – 92dB …

Allwinner V851S/V851SE is a single-core Arm Cortex-A7 SoC with a RISC-V core, an H.265/H.264 video encoder, and a 0.5 TOPS NPU designed for Smart IP cameras with support for features such as human detection and crossing alarms. Both processors ship with 64MB DDR2 memory, and feature USB, Ethernet, and SDIO interfaces, but the V851S is designed for systems with a display, while the V851SE targets traditional headless IP cameras. Both processors are pretty similar, but here are the key differences between Allwinner V851S: Networking – 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port with RMII interface GPIO – 6x ports (PA, PC, PD, PE, PF, PH) Display LCD Parallel RGB, Serial RGB, i8080, BT656 2-l…

Allwinner V853 SoC combines an Arm Cortex-A7 core with a Xuantie E907 RISC-V core, and a 1 TOPS NPU for cost-sensitive AI Vision applications such as smart door locks, smart access control, AI webcams, tachographs, and smart desk lamps. Manufactured with a 22nm process, the SoC comes with an ISP image processor and Allwinner Smart video engine capable of up to 5M @ 30fps H.265/H.264 encoding and 5M @ 25fps H.264 decoding, offers parallel CSI and MIPI CSI camera interfaces, and well as MIPI DSI and RGB display interfaces. Allwinner V853 specifications: CPU Arm Cortex-A7 CPU core @ 1 GHz with 32 KB I-cache, 32 KB D-cache, and 128 KB L2 cache Alibaba Xuantie E907 RISC-V core…

While we like open-source tools such as KiCAD, Altium has added a pretty cool feature to the Altium Designer program with a 3D layout tool, which as its name implies, allows the design of 3D PCBs… The new 3D layout tool relies on 3D-MID technology that combines electrical circuits with three-dimensional mechanical parts. I’m not sure who really needs this, but I have to admit the results look pretty neat. Altium explains the design process is quite similar to standard 2D PCBs, and designers would create a layout on the surface of a 3D substrate using the standard library components and with the connectivity driven by the schematic design in the same way as with a standard…

AMD Alveo MA35D media accelerator PCIe card is based on a 5nm ASIC capable of transcoding up to 32 Full HD (1080p60) AV1 streams in real-time and designed for low-latency, high-volume interactive streaming applications such as watch parties, live shopping, online auctions, and social streaming. AMD says the Alveo MA35D utilizes a purpose-built VPU to accelerate the entire video pipeline, and the ASIC can also handle up to 8x 4Kp60, or 4x 8Kp30 AV1 streams per card. H.264 and H.265 codecs are also supported, and the company claims its “next-generation AV1 transcoder engines” deliver up to a 52% reduction in bitrate at the same video quality against “an open source x264 ver…

AMD has just launched the Ryzen Embedded V3000 family of processors with four to eight Zen3 cores, a DDR5 memory interface, twenty PCIe Gen4 lanes, and two 10GbE interfaces that make it ideal for storage and networking applications, especially since there’s no GPU at all. The new embedded processors succeed the Ryzen Embedded V2000 Zen2 family introduced two years ago, and the Ryzen V1000 processors in 2018. For some reason, AMD decided to compare the new V3000 processors against the latter and claims up to 124% greater CPU performance, 50% improved memory transfer rate, twice the number of CPU cores, and improved I/O connectivity. There are five Ryzen Embedded V3000 SKUs…

When Rockchip first introduced the Rockchip RK3399 processor with a PCIe interface people initially hoped they could connect graphics card, but those hopes were quickly squashed due to a 32MB addressing limit. However, the PCIe implementation on the newer Rockchip RK3588 processor does not have such a limitation, and last November, Radxa teased a demo with an AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 PCIe graphics card connected to the Rock 5B SBC running the glxgears demo on the Radeon GPU. I couldn’t find any instructions to reproduce this setup, but this got Jasbir interested, and he tried to do a test of his own with the Radxa Rock 5B connected to an AMD Radeon R7 520 (XFX R7 250 low-pr…

AMD has just introduced the 15W Ryzen 5000 C-Series “Zen 3” processors for premium Chrome OS devices designed for work and collaboration. The processors can with up to eight cores and sixteen threads and are said to offer all-day battery life. AMD Ryzen 5000 C-Series processors for Chrome OS are expected to offer up to 67% faster responsiveness and up to 85% better graphics performance when comparing a Chromebook based on AMD Ryzen 7 5825C against an earlier model based on AMD Ryzen 7 3700C introduced in 2020 using respectively WebXPRT 3 and Motion Mark 1.2 benchmarks. Multitasking performance comparison using Geekbench 5 shows a 107% improvement that is probably mostly d…

We first spotted the AMD Ryzen Embedded 5000 processors in a micro-ATX motherboard last August, but AMD has now only announced the availability the of Ryzen Embedded 5000 Series “Zen 3” processors designed for “always on” networking firewalls, network-attached storage systems, and other security applications. AMD also mentions the Ryzen Embedded 5000 are “power-efficient processors”, but that does not mean low power, as those embedded processors are 65 to 105W parts, and offer a step-up in performance from the 10 to 54W AMD Ryzen Embedded V3000 processors also targetting networking and storage applications. As we found out last year, four SKUs are available with the Ryze…

Advantech has announced the AIMB-522 industrial Micro-ATX motherboard with AMD Ryzen Embedded 5000 Series Zen3 processors for AI image processing in automation and surveillance applications. I had never heard about “Ryzen Embedded 5000 Series” processors, but that motherboard comes with a choice of new SKUs such as the 12-core Ryzen 5950E, the 10-core Ryzen 5900E, the 8-core Ryzen 5800E, and the 6-core Ryzen 5600E, as well as existing Ryzen 5000 desktop processors. AIMB-522 Micro-ATX motherboard specifications: Processor (one or the other) Ryzen 5950E 12-core processor @ up to 3.4 GHz with 64MB L3 cache; TDP: 105W Ryzen 5900E 10-core processor @ up to 3.7 GHz with 64MB L3…

AAEON PICO-V2K4-SEMI mini PC, powered by an AMD Ryzen Embedded V2516 or V2718 processor, can drive up to three 4K displays, offers 2.5GbE and GbE networking, several USB 3.2 ports, as well as two optional COM ports supporting RS232, RS422, and RS485. The first mini PC from the company featuring AMD Ryzen V2000 Series processors also comes with up to 32GB RAM, a 64GB NVMe SSD, as well as M.2 and mPCIe sockets for expansion, and its compact form factor makes it suitable for edge computing, embedded gaming, and image processing applications. PICO-V2K4-SEMI specifications: AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 processor (one or the other) Ryzen V2718 octa-core/16-thread processor @ up to …

AMD has just unveiled the new power-efficient Ryzen Z1 “Zen4” Series processor family designed for handheld gaming consoles running Windows and equipped with AMD RDNA 3 architecture-based graphics. The new series features two processors at launch, namely the Ryzen Z1 hexa-core processor with 4 RDNA 3 Compute Units and the Ryzen Z1 Extreme octa-core processor with 12 RDNA 3 Computer Units for “ultimate high-performance for handheld gaming”. Highlights of Ryzen Z1 and Z1 extreme specifications: Both processors support LPDDR5/LPDDR5x memory, and USB4 interface, as well as the following AMD technologies: AMD Link – Mobile app to connect your phone, tablet, TV, or Windows-base…

AMD has added two new low-cost, low-power members to its UltraScale+ family with the Artix UltraScale+ AU7P FPGA and the Zynq UltraScale+ ZU3T MPSoC. Both devices are manufactured with the 16nm FinFET process and offer entry points to the transceiver-based UltraScale+ family with features such as high I/O-to-logic density, UltraRAM, DSP, and more. AMD Artix UltraScale+ AU7P FPGA The new AU7P FPGA is the smallest from the Artix UltraScale+ family with four 12.5Gbps transceivers, up to 82K system logic cells, 216 DSP slices, 4.9 Mbit RAM, and 248 I/Os. It is offered in a 10.5 x 8.5mm InFO package. The company says the chip provides up to 50% lower static power, 20% more I/O…

As expected, AMD has now launched the Ryzen Embedded R2000 series processors that build up on the earlier Ryzen Embedded R1000 family, but doubles the number of cores to up to four, gets improved Radeon graphics, and adds support for Windows 11 operating system. Performance and efficiency have also improved with the new Ryzen Embedded R2515 CPU exhibiting up to 81 percent higher CPU (Passmark v10) and graphics (3DMark) performance compared to Ryzen Embedded R1606G processor, as well as higher performance-per-watt efficiency thanks to the Zen+ core architecture. The company has four Ryzen Embedded R2000 processors in its portfolio at launch. Key features and specifications…

Amazon has just launched the “all new” Fire TV Cube streaming device with an Amlogic POP1-G octa-core Cortex-A73/A53 processor that we never heard of, but that appears to be almost the same as the Amlogic A311D2 processor that we reviewed in Khadas VIM4 SBC. The Amlogic POP1-G (aka Amlogic – AML Popcorn) also integrates an Arm Mali-G52 MP8 GPU clocked at 800 MHz, and the third generation Fire TV Cube features 2GB LPDDR4/x memory, 16GB storage, WiFi 6E and Fast Ethernet, as well as an HDMI port. Fire TV Cube 2022 specifications: SoC – Amlogic POP1-G (Amlogic AML Popcorn) octa-core processor with four Cortex A73 cores @ 2.2 GHz, four Cortex-A53 cores @ 2.0 GHz, Arm Mali-G52…

Amlogic S928X Cortex-A76/A55 will soon power some 8K TV boxes running Android TV from SDMC and others, and we now have detailed specifications as a “Quick Reference Manual” dropped in my inbox last night. While like most Amlogic processors, the S928X is designed for TV boxes, the penta-core SoC may end up in affordable yet powerful single board computers with features such as HDMI 2.1a, Gigabit Ethernet, PCIe 2.0 or USB 3.0. Amlogic S928X specifications: CPU sub-system 1x Arm Cortex-A76 core and 4x Arm Cortex-A55 cores in big.LITTLE configuration NEON and Crypto extensions Private L2 cache and unified system L3 cache Build-in RISC-V core for system control processing GPUs…

ANAVI Macro Pad 10, Knobs 3, and Knob 1 are open-source hardware input devices based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040-powered Xiao RP2040 mini module, and equipped with mechanical keys and/or rotary encoders Leon Anavi has some experience under his belt with the earlier Macro Pad 2 and Macro Pad 8 open-source keypads with mechanical keys running QMK open-source firmware on a Microchip 8-bit microcontroller. The new models switch the MCU to the Raspberry Pi RP2040 and to KMK open-source firmware written in CircuitPython. ANAVI Macro Pad 10 specifications: MCU module – Seeed Studio XIAO RP2040 with Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ up to 133 Mhz with 264K…

Andes Technology has unveiled the high-end AndesCore AX60 series out-of-order 64-bit RISC-V processors at the Linley Fall Processor Conference 2022 with the new cores designed for compute-intensive applications such as advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), artificial intelligence, augmented/virtual reality, datacenter accelerators, 5G infrastructure, high-speed networking, and enterprise storage. AndesCore AX65 is the first member of the family and supports RISC-V scalar cryptography extension and bit manipulation extension. It is a 4-way superscalar core with Out-of-Order (OoO) execution in a 13-stage pipeline and can fetch 4 to 8 instructions per cycle. The company…

Google released the first Android 13 Developer preview in February, and we know quite a lot about Android 13 including virtualization support, as well as security and privacy updates. But the company has now released Android 13 Beta for TV (aka Android 13 for Android TV) for Google ADT-3 developer kit and the Android Emulator for TV in Android Studio. The beta release allows app developers to test their apps and provide feedback on the latest release before it is released to customer devices. Google does not provide any changelog specific to Android 13 for Android TV, but you’ll find the OS image for ADT-3 and installation instructions on the release page. Mishaal Rahman …

Qualcomm Robotics RB3 (aka DragonBoard 845c) and Robotics RB5 boards can already support Android 13, just a few days after the source code was pushed to AOSP (Android Open Source Project). Once upon a time (i.e. a few years ago), it would have taken weeks, and more likely months, to port the latest version of Android (AOSP) to a specific single board computer. But thanks to initiatives such as Project Treble, Android reference boards such as DragonBoard 845c (RB3), HiKey 960, Khadas VIM3, and Qualcomm Robotics Board RB5 can now get the latest version of Android up and running in a matter of days. Android 13 was released on August 15, and Linaro wrote about RB3 and RB5 sup…

Android 13 has just been released rolling out to Google Pixel devices initially, and later to other devices from Samsung Galaxy, Asus, HMD (Nokia phones), iQOO, Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, Sony, Tecno, vivo, Xiaomi and more. Google also pushed Android 13 source code to AOSP (The Android Open Source Project). Most of the changes to the new version of the Android operating system were introduced with the first Android 13 developer preview – released in February 2022 – adding privacy, security, and productivity improvements, and even some hidden gems such as virtualization enabling Pixel 6 to run Linux and Windows 11, although the feature was mostly implemented f…

Google has just released the first developer preview of Android 14 with productivity improvements for developers, as well as enhancements to performance, privacy, security, and user customization. Android 14 aims to work better across devices and form factors with improved support for tablets and foldables and adds window size classes, sliding pane layout, Activity embedding, and box with constraints, etc… To help developers, the company also published “Get started with large screens” documentation and released a Cross-device SDK preview. The new version of the mobile operating systems also further streamlines background work to optimize system health and battery life and…

We’ve first covered Alibaba T-Head work on Android 10 for RISC-V in January 2021, and later that year they started selling the T-Head RVB-ICE dual-core RISC-V board with GPU for software development. The company has now provided an update for Android 12 RISC-V port, instructions to build Android RISC-V to run it in an emulator, as well as a 2022-2023 roadmap. Alibaba T-head is working on hardware platforms, which appears to be similar to T-Head RVB-ICE board, with the following minimal specifications: CPU – At least Dual-core XuanTie C910 (rv64imafdcv) processor GPU – Compatible with OpenGL ES and OpenCL VPU – HW Video/Picture codec Neural Network Accelerator System Memo…

Chips may suddenly disappear from the supply chain or get really expensive due to the recurring supply shortage, companies are now designing their PCBs to support multiple chips either selecting drop-in replacements or creating multiple footprints to cater to at least one alternative part. That means one PCB and multiple bill-of-materials are needed to be more resilient to any supply disruption. Radxa did that on the ROCK 3A board for the USB PD circuitry with the ability to use either Injoinic IP2315 or WCH CH224D IC. Those are not pin-to-pin compatible chips, and two circuitry were made for the board requiring two BoMs as it’s not just possible to only replace IP2315 by…

Antmicro has designed an open hardware AMD Xilinx Kintex-7 K410T FPGA development board in KiCad 6 mostly to synthesize custom RISC-V-based processing platforms and work on the OpenTitan Root of Trust project. Separately, the company has also launched an open hardware portal sharing some of the KiCad and Blender designs they’ve worked on over the years. Open-source hardware AMD Xilinx Kintex-7 K410T development board Key features and specifications: FPGA – AMD-Xilinx Kintex-7 K410T FPGA with 400K logic cells, 16 Gigabit transceivers operating at 12.5Gb/s. System Memory – 512MB of DDR3L memory, 8MB of SRAM memory Storage – 32MB (256Mbit) of (Q)SPI NOR flash, assembly opti…

The AquaPing is an open-source hardware, ultra-low power acoustic water leak detector sensor based on Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller and a microphone that can detect leaks without having to do any plumbing, instead capturing audio for water leak detection, and it even works for leaks behind walls. All signal processing and analysis occur on the MSP430 MCU, so no audio is streamed to the cloud and eavesdropping is impossible, plus the sensor only captures high frequencies out of the range of normal conversations, so eavesdropping is not feasible, plus those higher frequencies are also said to provide highest sensitivity and reliability. AquaPing specifications: M…

Arducam Mega is a 3MP or 5MP camera specifically designed for microcontrollers with an SPI interface, and the SDK currently supports Arduino UNO and Mega2560 boards, ESP32/ESP8266 boards, Raspberry Pi Pico and other boards based on RP2040 MCU, BBC Micro:bit V2, as well as STM32 and MSP430 platform. Both cameras share many of the same specifications including their size, but the 3MP model is a fixed-focus camera, while the 5MP variant supports autofocus. Potential applications include assets monitoring, wildfire monitoring, remote meter reading, TinyML applications, and so on. Arducam Mega specifications: Camera Type 3MP with fixed focus 5MP with auto-focus from 8cm to inf…

Arducam OCam, whose name stands for Object Camera, is an AI camera with 3 TOPS of AI performance and designed to work with OStream‘s PhysicO Edge AI media platform that adds context to MP4 video streams in real-time. The camera supports resolutions from QVGA to 2K, takes USB or PoE power, comes with a drag-and-drop AI pipeline for easy programming/configuration, and is also compatible with common AI tools such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Edge Impulse, and others. Arducam OCam specifications: Resolution – QVGA up to 2K Frame Rate – Up to 60 fps FoV – 80° Audio – Dual beamforming AI processing power – Up to 3 TOPS Power Supply 5V via USB PoE Power Consumption – Up to 5 Watts Di…

Arducam has launched of Time-of-Flight (ToF) camera module for Raspberry Pi that enables depth sensing by capturing 3D data (at 240×180 resolution) at a distance of up to 4 meters. Arducam has launched several cameras for Raspberry Pi boards over the years, more recently the Arducam Pi HawkEye 64MP camera, but the Arducam ToF camera is quite different, as while it still connects to the MIPI CSI connector of the SBC, it is used to measure distances and depth and display 3D data. Arducam ToF camera specifications: Compatibility – Any Raspberry Pi board with a MIPI CSI connector Effective number of pixels – 240×180 Frame Rate Up to 120 fps (sensor) Up to 30 fps (when process…

Arduino was already involved in LoRaWAN with its MKR WAN 1300 board, but now the company has started offering Arduino-branded Wisgate Edge Pro and Wisgate Edge Lite 2 LoRaWAN gateways for respectively outdoor and indoor environments as part of the Arduino Pro family. If the names of the gateways seem familiar, it’s because Arduino collaborated with Rakwireless, and is simply using their existing LoRaWAN gateways. As I understand it RAKwireless will provide the hardware and technical support, while Arduino will sell the gateways and other LoRaWAN hardware through its existing customer base, more acting as a distributor. Arduino WisGate Edge Lite 2 indoor gateway specificat…

Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi board brings the STM32H7 dual-core Cortex-M7/M4 microcontroller found in the Portenta H7 boards to the larger Arduino Mega/Due form factor with up to 76 GPIO pins. As its name implies, the board also comes with a WiFi 4 (and Bluetooth 5.1) module, as well as an audio jack, a USB Type-C port for programming, a USB 2.0 Type-A host port, and extra connectors for a display and a camera. Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi board specifications: Microcontroller – STMicro STM32H747XI Cortex-M7 @ 480 MHz + M4 @ 200 MHz MCU with 2MB dual-bank Flash memory, 1 MB RAM, Chrom-ART graphical hardware accelerator System Memory – 8MB SDRAM Storage – 16MB QSPI NOR flash Connectivity…

The first stable release of Arduino IDE 2.0 is now out. Based on the Eclipse Theia framework, the new IDE provides a more modern and user-friendly user interface, faster compilation time, and more features we’ll discuss in this post. Arduino initially introduced the Arduino IDE 2.0 beta in March 2021 with a live debugger with breakpoints support, a revamped user interface with features such as autocompletion of variables and functions. After 18 months of debugging with the help of members of the community such as Paul Stoffregen (the maker of the Teensy boards), the Arduino IDE 2.0 is not an experimental software anymore, and it’s the first version you’d see in the downlo…

Arduino boards have traditionally been programmed with C-like language in the Arduino IDE, but with the Arduino Lab for MicroPython, Arduino added MicroPython to several official Arduino boards. In the words of the Arduino Team, “not an official product yet, an experimental tool”, but I would not be surprised if it becomes an official IDE eventually as the company collaborated with Damien George, the creator of MicroPython, to port the official the virtual machine to a number of Arduino products, and Murilo Polese to develop the Arduino Lab for MicroPython cross-platform IDE for MicroPython. The IDE looks familiar… Oh yes, I see it now, it’s basically the Arduino IDE, b…

Arduino has launched the MKR IoT Carrier Rev2 board for Arduino MKR boards with a Bosch SensorTech BME688 4-in-1 pressure, humidity, temperature, and gas sensor replacing the HTS221 humidity sensor and LP22HB barometric pressure sensor, and the LSM6DSOX taking the place of the LSM6DS3, among other some other small changes. First sold as part of the Arduino Oplà IoT Kit, the Arduino MKR IoT Carrier eventually became available on its own in February 2021 offering a display, sensors, and I/Os for Arduino MKR boards with wireless connectivity. The company has now introduced a second revision for the Arduino MKR IoT Carrier with new sensors and repositioning of some of the com…

Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense Rev2 is a new revision of the Nano 33 BLE Sense machine learning board with basically the same functionality but some sensors have changed along with some other modifications “to improve the experience of the users”. The main changes are that STMicro LSM9DS1 9-axis IMU has been replaced by two IMUs from Bosch SensorTech, namely the BMI270 6-axis accelerometer and gyroscope, and the BMM150 3-axis magnetometer, a Renesas HS3003 temperature & humidity sensor has taken the place of an STMicro HTS221, and the microphone is now an MP34DT06JTR from STMicro instead of an MP34DT05. All of the replaced parts are from STMicro, so it’s quite possible the…

Nicla Voice is the latest board from the Arduino PRO family with support for always-on speech recognition thanks to the Syntiant NDP120 “Neural Decision Processor” with a neural network accelerator, a HiFi 3 audio DSP, and a Cortex-M0+ microcontroller core, and the board also includes a Nordic Semi nRF52832 MCU for Bluetooth LE connectivity. Arduino previously launched the Nicla Sense with Bosch SensorTech’s motion and environmental sensors, followed by the Nicla Vision for machine vision applications, and now the company is adding audio and voice support for TinyML and IoT applications with the Nicla Voice. Nicla Voice specifications: Microprocessor – Syntiant NDP120 Neu…

Arduino has recently announced the Opta micro PLC with industrial IoT capabilities adding yet another solution to the Arduino Pro family. Arduino used to focus on the hobbyist crowd, but with the launch of the Arduino Pro family in 2020 starting with the Portenta H7 board, the company switched its main focus to the more profitable enterprise market. Since then they’ve launched several other boards designed in-house, and last year started collaborating with the introduction of the Arduino WisGate Edge LoRaWAN gateways based on RAKwireless hardware. The Arduino Opta is another one of those collaborations as it was designed together with Finder, who calls their devices PLR (…

You’ve probably seen a few plant watering projects based on Arduino over the years, and now the company has decided to launch its own Arduino Plant Watering Kit based on the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect board and everything you need to get started to water your indoor plants. Arduino Plant Watering Kit content: Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect board (ABX00053) with Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU, ESP32 module for WiFi, and Bluetooth LE connectivity. Arduino Nano Screw Terminal Adapter (ASX00037) Open-ended USB cable with on/off switch 5V submersible pump 1-meter of plastic hose Grove moisture sensor Grove relay module with cable Grove LED button module with cable Grove cables 50 cm 10…

The newly released Arduino PLC IDE supports the five languages defined by the IEC 61131-3 standard: Ladder Diagram, Functional Block Diagram, Structured Text, Sequential Function Chart, and Instruction List. With Arduino focusing more and more on the industrial side with its Arduino Pro family, the company unveiled the Arduino Opta Micro PLC for industrial application last month and said it could be programmed with traditional PLC languages such as Ladder and FCB as well as the Arduino 2.0.0 IDE. The company now seems to have created an all-in-one integrated development environment for such hardware with the Arduino PLC IDE supporting PLC languages with Arduino Sketches. …

Adafruit Metro M7 is a development board based on a 500 MHz NXP i.MX RT1011 Arm Cortex-M7 crossover MCU that follows Arduino UNO form factor and integrates the ESP32-based “AirLift” WiFi module for wireless connectivity. The board also comes with 4MB QSPI storage, a few LEDs and buttons, a Qwiic connector for additional expansion beyond Arduino Shields, and an SWD connector for debugging. The board takes 6V to 12V DC input via a power barrel jack, but can also be powered through its USB Type-C port. Adafruit Metro M7 specifications: SoC – NXP iMX RT1011 crossover microcontroller with an Arm Cortex-M7 clocked at 500 MHz and 128KB SRAM/TCM Storage – 4MB of QSPI XIP Flash Wi…

Arduino have launched an upgrade to their 8-bit Arduino UNO R3 board with the Arduino UNO R4 featuring a 48 MHz Renesas RA4M1 Arm Cortex-M4F 32-bit microcontroller, and an optional ESP32-S3 module for WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. The new Arduino UNO R4 offered improved performance and greater resources since the MCU is clocked three times faster than the 8bit AVR MCU found in the UNO R3, the board gets sixteen times more RAM (32KB vs 2KB to 32kB) and eight times more flash memory (256KB vs 32kB). The USB Type-C device port has been upgraded to a more modern USB Type-C port and the UNO R4 can take up to 24V supply voltage. Arduino UNO R4 (preliminary) specificati…

ΔMIDI 001:model D is an Arduino-based MIDI controller inspired by the Minimoog Model D synthesizer first introduced in the early 1970’s, but not in production anymore. The MIDI controller is compatible with VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plugins designed for the Minimoog synthesizer, DAWs (Digital Audio Workstation), and as an open-source, can be directly modified or tweaked by its user. ΔMIDI 001:model D key features and specifications: MCU – Arduino-compatible ATMega microcontroller Controls 21x analog potentiometers 6x 6-stage knobs 15x toggle switches 2x lever switches 3x LED indicators 44x physical controls in total. Sync button for instant settings transfer. Map bu…

ICOP QEC-M-01 is an EtherCAT master system running FreeDOS based on DM&P Vortex86EX2 dual-core x86 processor. It is programmable with an industrial Arduino IDE – the 86Duino IDE – that supports an EtherCAT API for real-time field monitoring and big data collection. The system can be used for industrial automation applications that require precise timing and it can monitor the hardware’s voltage, current, and temperature to calculate/estimate carbon emissions for industrial manufacturing to assist in the tracking of a factory’s carbon footprint. ICOP QEC-M-01 specifications: SoC – DM&P Vortex86EX2 dual-core processor with the Master core clocked up to 600MHz and th…

Actinius Icarus SoM DK development board follows the Arduino Uno form factor and is equipped with the company’s Icacus SoM based on Nordic Semi nRF9160 system-in-package with LTE Cat-M, NB-IoT, and GPS connectivity. The development kit provides an eSIM on the module and an additional Nano SIM socket on the mainboard, Arduino headers for a wide range of I/Os and compatibility with Arduino Shields, a set of user LEDs, reset and user buttons, and a battery charging port. Icarus SoM DK specifications: Icarus SoM SiP – Nordic Semi nRF9160-SICA system-in-package with Arm Cortex-M33 MCU, 1024 KB flash, 256 KB SRAM, and LTE Cat-M1 (eMTC), Cat-NB1 (NB-IoT), and GPS connectivity S…

WisdPi ArduPico is an Arduino UNO-shaped baseboard designed for the Raspberry Pi Pico and compatible boards that enables makers to reuse most Arduino shields available on the market and also adds for few I/Os and features. ArduPico specifications: Compatible board – Raspberry Pi Pico, Pico H, Pico W, Pico WH, and other Pi Pico compatible board solderable using through holes or castellated holes Expansion Arduino UNO header compatible with a wide range of shields 5-pin and 6-pin headers for additional GPIOs and 3.3V, GND All Raspberry Pi Pico GPIOs are exposed Debugging – SWD header Misc – Pico RESET key, WS2812 RGB LED Power Supply – 7 to 15V DC via DC jack Dimensions – 6…

In another case of “Arm or RISC-V? Why not both“, ARIES Embedded has introduced “MSRZG2UL” and “MSRZFive” OSM compliant system-in-packages (SIPs) based on respectively Renesas RZ/G2UL Arm Cortex-A55/Cortex-M33 and RZ/Five AX45MP RISC-V microprocessors and designed for industrial controllers, IoT devices, and embedded systems with a basic GUI. Both solder-on modules come in the OSM Size S form factor (30x30mm), 512MB to 4GB of DDR4 RAM, a 4GB eMMC NAND flash, various interfaces including Gigabit Ethernet and CAN-FD, and are available in either commercial (-0°C to +70°C) or industrial (-40°C to +85°C) temperature ranges. “MSRZG2UL” and “MSRZFive” specifications: SoC MSRZG2U…

Arm has unveiled the new Immortalis family of flagship GPUs with support for hardware-based ray tracing starting with the Immortalis-G715 GPU, as well as two new premium Mali GPUs namely Arm Mali-G615 and Mali-G715. Software-based ray tracing was already implemented on Arm Mali G710 on SoC’s such as the MediaTek Dimensity 9000, but the hardware-based ray tracing in the Immortalis-G715 delivers over 300 percent performance improvements, and only uses 4% of the shader core area. This will be mostly used in games to generate realistic lighting and shadows as can be seen in the “before vs after” video demo below. While hardware-based ray tracing is only available on the Imm…

Compulab IOT-GATE-IMX8PLUS is a new Arm Linux IoT gateway powered by NXP i.MX 8M Plus SoC with up to 8GB RAM, 128GB storage, and plenty of connectivity options with dual Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 LE, and 4G LTE connector, as well as GNNS support and RS485/RS232 interfaces. The new IoT gateway builds upon theArm SystemReady IR certified IOT-GATE-IMX8 industrial gateway, but offers more RAM and storage, a 2.8 TOPS AI accelerator (in the NXP processor), improved connectivity, as well as a DVI-D port for video output. Compulab IOT-GATE-IMX8PLUS specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX8M Plus Quad or Quad-lite quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.8 GHz with Arm Cor…

Besides announcing the new Immortalis-G715, Mali-G715, and Mali-G615 GPUs, Arm has also introduced the second-generation of Armv9 cores with the Cortex-A715 and Cortex-X3 cores with respectively a 20% energy-efficiency improvement (and smaller 5% performance uplift) over the Cortex-A710 core and a 25% peak performance boost against the Cortex-X2 flagship core. The announcement also includes a “refresh” of the Cortex-A510 core announced last year with a 5% improvement in efficiency and the same level of performance. The Cortex-X3 will also be used in (Windows 11) laptop processors with the single-thread performance improved by up to 34% in that case. Armv9 mobile SoC (Tota…

The latest release of Armbian, version 22.05, is now out with hundreds of Linux kernel and user space-related bug fixes, a focus on stabilizing existing platforms, while still adding four new boards with Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS (RK3328), Radxa Zero (Amlogic S905Y2), Radxa Rock 3A (RK3568), and DevTerm A06 (RK3399). The community also added two new maintainers for ESPRESSObin and Radxa Rock Pi 4 (Model A) SBCs which should mean the images for those boards will be tested more regularly and potential issues fixed more quickly. You may want to read the more detailed changelog to see if any changes may impact the board(s) you are using. The new Armbian 22.05 release succeeds Arm…

Armbian 22.11 has just been released with three new SBCs, support for 64-bit RISC-V UEFI, a new ultra-minimal image optimized for software development, and various improvements. Armbian was born as a framework to build better OS images, usually Debian or Ubuntu, for Arm-based single board computers from Orange Pi, Hardkernel (ODROID), FriendlyElec, Banana Pi, and others, but now with the release of Armbian 22.11, support for the RISC-V architecture has started since the system can now generate 64-bit RISC-V UEFI images. Some other highlights of Armbian 22.11 include: Added support for Banana Pi BPI-M5 (Amlogic S905X3), ODROID-M1 (Rockchip RK3568), and Rock Pi 4C Plus (Roc…

Two of the most popular projects providing images for Arm and RISC-V single board computers have released new updates with Armbian 23.02 adding Linux 6.1-based Debian and Ubuntu images, and DietPi 8.14 adding experimental RISC-V support for the StarFive VisionFive 2 SBC and new Arm boards. Armbian 23.02 Quoll Linux 6.1 is the latest LTS kernel, so Armbian is now providing Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy and Debian 11 Bullseye images based on Linux 6.1.y for boards that support it, as well as the first development images based on Debian 12 Bookworm and Ubuntu 23.04 Lunar. I could not find any new boards added in the changelog, but the release brings several improvements and bug fixes t…

The Arylic A50+ is a stereo audio streamer with a built-in power amplifier and support for wireless networks such as WiFi and Bluetooth as well as wired connections such as Ethernet, Analog RCA Line In, optical S/PDIF input, Subwoofer Out, and USB host port. All you need to do is connect the Arylic A50+ amplifier to passive speakers, and you can then easily stream music from streaming services such as Spotify, Tidal, or Qobuz in high-definition audio with the company’s 4STREAM app or another compatible app. Multiple A50+ wireless amplifiers can also be connected through your house to enable multiple rooms and/or zones support. Arylic A50+ unboxing Arylic A50+ wireless a…

Aspinity AB2 AML100 is an Arduino Shield based on the company’s AML100 analog machine learning processor that reduces power consumption by 95 percent compared to equivalent digital ML processors, and the shield works with Renesas Quick-Connect IoT platform or other development platforms with Arduino Uno Rev3 headers. The AML100 analog machine learning processor is said to consume just 15µA for sensor interfacing, signal processing, and decision-making and operates completely within the analog domain offloading most of the work from the microcontroller side that can stay its lowest power state until an event/anomaly is detected. Aspinity AB2 AML100 Arduino Shield specifica…

ASRock Industrial has released the iEPF-9010S and iEP-9010E high-end, rugged Edge AIoT platforms powered by 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake S processors, equipped with up to 128GB RAM, 4G LTE, 5G, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, and real-time TSN/TCC networking. The I/O rich embedded computers are designed for highly demanding workloads and mission-critical industrial applications such as factory automation, machine automation, robotic control, AI-enabled AOI (automated optical inspection), autonomous vehicles, smart cities, and more. The ASRock iEPF-9010S Expandable AIoT Edge platforms come with the following specifications: SoC – Intel 12th Gen Core, Pentium or Celeron …

ASRock Industrial has introduced the NUC Core 300 BOX series of mini PCs and the NUC Core 300 motherboards built around Intel Core Series 3 Wildcat Lake-U processors. The lineup includes the NUC BOX-320, with the Intel Core 5 320 SoC, and the NUC BOX-304, which uses the Core 3 304 SoC. The company also offers the NUC-320 and NUC-304 as standalone motherboards for custom systems. The systems support up to 64GB DDR5-6400 with In-Band ECC, dual M.2 PCIe Gen4 storage, dual 2.5GbE, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, triple-display output, USB 3.2 connectivity, and 12–24V DC input. These features make them suitable for industrial PCs, edge computing systems, and other embedded applicatio…

ASRock Industrial has just launched the 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 Series mini PCs powered by AMD Ryzen 7000U-Series laptop APUs offering up to eight Zen3+ cores clocked at up to 4.75GHz. The mini PC supports up to 64GB dual-channel DDR5 4800MHz memory and SATA 3.0 plus M.2 NVMe storage, offers four display outputs with one 8K capable HDMI 2.1 port and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, five USB ports including two USB4 ports, as well as 2.5GbE and Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity. Two models are currently available, 4X4 BOX-7735U/D5 and 4X4 BOX-7535U/D5, with the following specifications: SoC (one or the other) 4X4 BOX-7535U/D5 – AMD Ryzen 5 7535U hexa-core/1…

ASRock Industrial NUC 1300 BOX and NUCS 1300 BOX series mini PCs are equipped with Intel 13th generation Raptor Lake-P mobile processors up to the Core i7-1360P 12-core hybrid processor with four Performance cores and eight Efficiency cores. Yesterday, we wrote about the ADLINK Express-RLP COM Express module based on Raptor Lake-P embedded or industrial processors, but ASRock decided to use Raptor Lake-P mobile processors in their industrial “fanned embedded box PCs” coupled with up to 64GB DDR5 memory, and featuring high-speed interfaces such as USB4, 2.5GbE, and more. NUCS 1300 BOX Series Two NUCS 1300 Box models are available with either an Intel Core i7-1360P or i5-13…

ASUS IoT has added two new members to the Tinker board family with the Tinker V and Tinker Board 3 single board computers powered by respectively Renesas RZ/Five single-core RISC-V SoC and Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor. ASUS Tinker V RISC-V SBC Tinker V specifications: SoC – Renesas RZ/Five single core AndesCore AX45MP RISC-V processor clocked at 1.0 GHz System Memory – 1GB DDR4 Storage – MicroSD card slot, optional 16GB eMMC flash, optional SPI flash Networking – 2x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports USB – 1x Micro USB port, 1x Micro USB (OTG) port Serial – 2x CAN Bus via 6-pin terminal block 2x COM RS232 via 5-pin terminal block Expansion – 20-pin GPIO hea…

ASUSTOR FLASHSTOR 6 and FLASHSTOR 12 are network access storage (NAS) devices powered by a quad-core Intel Celeron N5095 Jasper Lake processor and designed for respectively 4K audio and video content consumption for the former and 4K video editing for the latter. Both models come with 4 GB of DDR4-2933, two USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 ports, and HDMI 2.0b video output, but the FLASHSTOR 6 supports up to 6 M.2 NVMe SSDs and 2.5GbE networking, while the FLASHSTOR 12 can take up to 12 M.2 NVMe SSDs and handles 10GbE networking. ASUSTOR FLASHSTOR specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0 GHz / 2.9 GHz (Turbo) System Memory – 4GB SO-DIMM DDR4, expa…

The “Auspicious Machine” may look like a Blackberry phone, but it’s actually a handheld Linux PC with a built-in QWERTY keyboard and a 3.5-inch display that can be powered by a range of system-on-modules (SoM). The computer, whose name can also be translated as the “Auspicious Phone”, can be used as a Linux terminal with GPIO control, and for gaming with Linux distributions such as Batotera or RetroBat with the D-Pad and ABXY buttons found on the device. Auspicious Machine specifications: Supported SoMs Bigtreetech CB1 with Allwinner H616 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor and 1GB DDR4 Raspberry Pi CM4 with Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A73 processor, up to 8GB LPDDR4, …

Pimoroni Automation 2040 W is an industrial/automation controller based on the Raspberry Pi Pico W board that supports I/Os from 6V up to 40V and offers 2.4GHz WiFi 4 connectivity. The board offers plenty of interfaces including the ADC inputs, four digital inputs, three digital outputs, and three relays whose signals are all available through screw terminals, as well as two Qwiic/STEMMA QT connectors for further expansion. Automation 2040 W specifications: Controller – Raspberry Pi Pico W with Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz with 264KB SRAM, 2MB flash, 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 module I/Os 3x 12-bit ADC inputs up to 40V 4x digital inputs up …

Avaota F2 is the first SBC based on an Allwinner V861 dual-core 64-bit RISC-V SoC with 128MB on-chip DDR3 memory, support for 4K cameras, H.265 video codec, and a 1 TOPS AI accelerator. It’s an update to the earlier Avaota F1 camera board based on an Allwinner V821 SoC. The new open-source hardware F2 SBC offers several benefits, including support for both Full HD and 4K camera sensors, motor control for the PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) feature, and improved audio support through speaker (one) and microphone (two) connectors. However, the F1 also included WiFi, which the Avaota F2 lacks. Avaota F2 specifications: SoC – Allwinner V861M2-XXX CPU Dual-Core RISC-V XuanTie C907 (RV64GC…

AXERA AX620A is a high-performance, low-power AI SoC with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 processor and a 14.4TOPs @ INT4 or 3.6TOPs @ INT8’s NPU that is slightly inferior to the Amlogic A311D, and mainly used for AI vision applications. With high computing power and built-in image processing capabilities, the AX620A can support a wide range of AI workloads. It also offers low power consumption with low standby power and fast wake-up, so the chip can be integrated into battery-powered products. AXERA AX620A specifications: CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.0 GHz with 32KB L1 I-cache + 32KB L1 D-cache per core, 256KB L2 cache, FPU and NEON NPU – 4 TOPS @ INT4, 3.6 TOPS @ INT8 wi…

Axiomtek AIE900-XNX is a fanless Edge AI computing system powered by NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX system-on-module designed for autonomous mobile robots (AMR), automated guided vehicles (AGV), and other computer vision applications. The system delivers up to 21 TOPS thanks to the 6-core NVIDIA Carmel ARM v8.2 (64-bit) processor, NVDLA accelerators, and 384-core NVIDIA Volta architecture GPU found in the Jetson Xavier NX module. The AIE900-XNX Edge AI computer also comes with a 5G module for high-speed cellular connectivity and supports SerDes, PoE, and MIPI CSI cameras for video processing. Axiomtek AIE900-XNX specifications: NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX system-on-module with CPU –…

Axiomtek iNA200 is a DIN-rail mountable cybersecurity gateway powered by a choice of Elkhart Lake Atom x6000E-series processor and designed for operational technology (OT) network security. The fanless gateway comes with up to 32GB RAM, supports SATA storage, offers 2.5GbE & Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45/SFP) networking, and as it is designed for industrial settings, can take input from two 9V to 36V power sources and operate in the -40°C to 70°C temperature range. Axiomtek iNA200 specifications: SoC – Intel Atom x6212RE/x6414RE dua-core or quad-core Elkhart Lake processor with 16 EU Intel UHD Graphics; TDP: x6212RE: 6W, x6414RE: 9W System Memory – Up to 32GB DDR4-3200 SO-DI…

rbaron’s b-parasite is an open-source hardware Bluetooth LE plant watering sensor that can measure soil moisture and ambient temperature/humidity/light and works with ESPHome, Home Assistant, or any macOS or Linux platforms including the Raspberry Pi boards. It is based nRF52840 multi-protocol wireless microcontroller, so stanvn decided to add Zigbee support to the b-parasite through the “Zigbee Plant Sensor” firmware based on the Nordic Semi nRF5 SDK for nRF52 series of SoCs and working with Zigbee2MQTT. Let’s have a look at b-parasite hardware specifications first: Wireless MCU – Nordic Semi nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4F multi-protocol wireless microcontroller with Bluetooth …

Pimoroni Badger 2040 is a Raspberry Pi RP2040 board equipped with a 2.9-inch black and white E-Ink display with 296 x 128 resolution and programmable with C/C++, MicroPython, or CircuitPython. The board is not just an ePaper badge, as it also comes with five buttons, and expansion capability through a Qwiic/STEMMA QT connector plus some pads with UART, I2C, interrupt, and power signals. Badger RP2040 specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Arm Cortex M0+ running at up to 133Mhz with 264kB of SRAM Storage – 2MB QSPI flash Display – 2.9-inch B&W E Ink display with 296 x 128 pixels resolution, ultrawide viewing angles, ultra-low power consumption; Dot pitch –…

Pimoroni Badger 2040 W wireless programmable e-Paper badge comes with a 2.9-inch black & white E-Ink display and a Raspberry Pi Pico W board for WiFi (and Bluetooth) connectivity. It is an update to the Pimoroni Badger 2040 with the exact same display, but instead of using a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, Pimoroni fitted a Raspberry Pi Pico W on the back of the board, probably to avoid going through FCC and CE certifications. Badger 2040 W specifications: MCU board – Raspberry Pi Pico W board with: Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Arm Cortex M0+ running at up to 133Mhz with 264kB of SRAM Storage – 2MB QSPI flash Wireless – 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth Classic+…

The Balthazar Personal Computing Device (BPCD) is an open-source hardware 13.3-inch laptop with a RISC-V, Arm, or FPGA module and designed to be upgradable, expandable, and sustainable. The developers say the laptop is based on a few concepts inspired by the EOMA68 project. The EOMA68 is a CPU module based on the PCMCIA form factor, and an Allwinner A20 EOMA68 module was showcased in a prototype of the Rhombus Tech 15.6-inch Libre Laptop but I don’t think the project was ever manufactured. Balthazar laptop features: SoM with RISC-V, FPGA, or Arm Cortex-A7x processor plus memory and flash Storage – SATA SSD, eSATA connector, microSD card socket Display – 13.3-inch non-glar…

3D printing can be time-consuming and challenging, and even today, it’s still not as easy as using a photocopier, but the team at Bambu Lab has taken it upon itself to make a better, easier-to-use 3D printer with the X1 color 3D printer combining LIDAR and AI technology to level the bed, calibrate the prints, and detect anomalies. The Bambu Lab X1 3D printer supports up to 16 colors, is making removing support easier with snap-away material or dissolvable filament, can handle PC and PA-CF filaments beyond the traditional PLA and PETG filaments, manage up to 500 mm/s prints, and provides better prints with features such as active vibration compensation. Oh, and you don’t n…

Banana BPI-Bit-S2 is a board for the education market that’s compatible with the BBC Micro:bit V2, but offers WiFi connectivity instead of Bluetooth LE through an Espressif Systems ESP32-S2 wireless microcontroller. The BPI-Bit-S2 succeeds the earlier Banana Pi BPI-Bit with ESP32 WiFi & BLE microcontroller that was a closer match to the original BBC Micro:bit than the new ESP32-S2 board for which I see little benefit, except for the slightly lower price tag. Banana BPI-Bit-S2 specifications: Wireless MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32-S2FN4R2 single core LX7 microcontroller with 320 kB SRAM, 2MB PSRAM, 4MB flash, 2.4 GHz WiFi connectivity LEDs – 25x RGB LED matrix USB – 1x…

Banana Pi BPI-P2 Pro is Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Cortex-A35 SBC for headless applications with a PoE-capable Ethernet port, WiFi 5, a USB port, an audio jack, and two GPIO headers for expansion. You may think the Banana Pi guys have gone crazy by calling such entry-level level SBC “Pro”, but that’s because the company previously released the BPI-P2 Zero and BPI-P2 Maker single board computers based on Allwinner H2+ quad-core Cortex-A7 processor, so the BPI-P2 Pro is indeed an improvement albeit with some caveats. Banana Pi BPI-P2 Pro specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz with built-in VAD (Voice Activity Detector) System…