CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

June 11, 2026June 11, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Bare-metal MSX2+ Emulator for ESP32-S3 offers custom LCD_CAM VGA implementation & Z80 optimizations

Ivan Svarkovsky’s S3-MSX-PC open-source project implements a bare-metal MSX2+ emulator running on an ESP32-S3 microcontroller and outputting 64-color VGA via a simple R-2R resistor ladder. It’s a fork of the Retro-Go emulator for ODROID-GO and other ESP32 devices, but with various optimizations. It was tested on an off-the-shelf ESP32-S3 board with one core handling the game logic and the other video and audio output. VGA is implemented through a clever resistor network that converts digital data into an analog signal that any old monitor understands, while audio relies on Sigma-Delta modulation with a multi-stage PDM filter. The USB host port on the board allows for the connection of a keyboard. S3-MSX-PC firmware highlights: Emulation Core – fMSX 6.0 — Full MSX1 / MSX2 / MSX2+ support Video Output VGA 640×480@60Hz, 16-bit parallel RGB via LCD_CAM Color Depth – 64 colors (2 bits per channel: R, G, B) Audio – PDM Stereo […]

June 11, 2026 by Debashis Das - 3 Comments

piBrick PocketCM5 – An open-source handheld Linux computer kit for Raspberry Pi CM5

Designed by Indonesian maker Ahmad Amarullah (amarullz), the piBrick PocketCM5 is an open-source hardware handheld Linux computer kit built around the Raspberry Pi CM5; it’s basically a smartphone-sized Linux machine with a physical keyboard and touchscreen. It is for developers, makers, and system administrators, for tasks such as general experimentation, embedded development, and remote access. We have seen other handheld terminals and pocket computers based on Raspberry Pi SBCs and Compute Modules over the years, such as the PocketTerm35, DevTerm, Carbon’s CyberT, Pi Slate, and many others. However, the piBrick PocketCM5 is based on the latest Raspberry Pi CM5 and features a 3.92-inch AMOLED touchscreen display, a physical BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard, and various expansion options. piBrick PocketCM5 specifications: Compatibility – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5 and CM5 Lite) Auxiliary MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 for keyboard/trackpad input, rotary encoders and buttons, USB HID (keyboard/mouse) emulation, and accelerometer data processing Storage […]

PZSDR P047 RF-ADC and RF-DAC high-end SDR board is based on AMD Zynq UltraScale+ ZU47DR RFSoC (Crowdfunding)

PZSDR P047 RF-ADC and RF-DAC software-defined radio (SDR) board is based on AMD Zynq UltraScale+ ZU47DR RFSoC with a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, a dual-core Cortex-R5F real-time CPU, FPGA fabric, eight RF ADCs, and eight RF DACs. The board features 6GB of DDR4 memory (4GB for PS, 2GB for PL), 8 GB eMMC flash, and 512 Mbit QSPI flash, plus microSD card and M.2 NVMe sockets for storage, a mini DP video output, a Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port, two 100 Gbps QSFP28 cages, a USB 3.0 port, plus JTAG and serial debug interfaces, and a 32-pin IO header. It makes use of all RF channels of the RFSoC with 8 receiver and 8 transmitter connectors, plus various clock inputs. The company says the PZSDR P047 is ideal for advanced MIMO wireless applications such as cellular and shortwave communication. PZSDR P047 RF-ADC and RF-DAC specifications: SoC FPGA – AMD Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ […]

June 10, 2026 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

Synaptics Astra SRW1500 Cortex-M52 Edge AI MCU features Ethos-U55 NPU, Wi-Fi 6/7, Bluetooth 6.0, 802.15.4 connectivity

Synaptics has introduced the Astra SRW1500 Series of AI-native Edge AI MCUs designed for smart IoT edge devices. The family features an Arm Cortex-M52 core, an optional Arm Ethos-U55 Neural Processing Unit (NPU), and tri-band Wi-Fi 7 or Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 6.0 LE, and 802.15.4 connectivity, in a single package. It targets low-latency on-device AI workloads such as voice-trigger detection, sound-event classification, and AI-enhanced Wi-Fi sensing. The series currently comes in four variants offering different wireless and USB options. Since sensing, AI processing, and wireless connectivity are integrated into a single chip, this approach helps reduce system costs, simplify PCB design, and lower power consumption in devices such as smart home hubs, building automation systems, and home appliances. Synaptics SRW1500 Series specifications: CPU Arm Cortex-M52 application core up to 200 MHz with Arm Helium (MVE) vector extensions for DSP and ML Arm Cortex-R4 WiFi core with 960 KB SRAM and 1408 […]

June 10, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

NanoPi M6V2 RK3588S SBC gains support for dual analog microphone input

FriendlyELEC’s NanoPi M6V2 is an update to the NanoPi M6 Rockchip RK3588S SBC, whose main change is a 4-pin connector for dual analog microphone input. The RAM is also now fixed to 8GB (no more 4GB, 16GB, or 32GB options), some buttons have changed, and the company has stopped offering an enclosure with a built-in 3.5-inch display. The rest of the specifications remain the same, with LPDDR5 memory, support for microSD, eMMC flash, or NVMe storage, HDMI 2.1 and MIPI DSI display interfaces, MIPI CSI camera inputs, Gigabit Ethernet and optional M.2 WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity, a few USB ports, and a 30-pin GPIO header. NanoPi M6V2 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU compatible with OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 APIs VPU – […]

June 10, 2026June 10, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

OpenCV 5 release – New DNN engine with enhanced ONNX and LLM/VLM support, Intel, Arm, and RISC-V hardware optimizations

OpenCV 5 open-source computer vision library has recently been released with a brand-new DNN (Deep Neural Network) engine that provides better ONNX coverage and enables LLM/VLM support. The fifth version of the popular CV library also adds support for Intel, Arm, Qualcomm, and RISC-V hardware acceleration, improved 3D vision, and various new core features such as new data types, real N-dimensional and scalar support, and performance improvements. OpenCV 5’s DNN Engine OpenCV 4.x supports about 22% of ONNX operators, and the new DNN engine in OpenCV 5 brings coverage to over 80%. That means models with dynamic shapes that used to fail on OpenCV 4.x, should now work, as the 5.x engine was rebuilt around a typed operation graph with proper shape inference, constant folding, and operator fusion. The table below shows the main difference between OpenCV 4.x and OpenCV 5 Since it’s quite a big change, to make sure […]

June 9, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Altera Agilex 9 Direct RF-Series AGRW039 SoC FPGA targets high-performance RF systems

Altera’s wideband Agilex 9 Direct RF-Series AGRW039 SoC FPGA is designed for high-performance Radio Frequency (RF) systems in aerospace, defense, and advanced communications systems. It is the fourth device in Altera’s Agilex 9 Direct RF-Series, and compared to the previous generation AGRW027, the new AGRW039 delivers about 45% more logic resources, 45% more DSP resources, and 43% more block RAM. It also integrates a 64Gsps wideband RF, a hard quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, and supports DDR5 and LPDDR5 memory. Agilex 9 Direct RF AGRW039 SoC FPGA key features and specifications: Hardware CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.41 GHz FPGA fabric 3.9M logic elements (LEs) 1.3M adaptive logic modules (ALMs) 18,960 M20K memory Blocks 370 Mb M20K memory Size 65,280 MLAB memory count 40 Mb MLAB memory size 24,600 18×19 multipliers 12,300 DSP/AI blocks Single Precision – 18.4 TFLOPS Memory I/F – DDR5, LPDDR5, DDR4 Peripherals PS – […]

June 9, 2026June 9, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

GEEKOM A7 2026 Edition (AMD Ryzen 5 7545U) mini PC review – Part 1: specifications, unboxing, teardown, and first boot

GEEKOM A7 Mini PC AMD Ryzen 5 7545U review

GEEKOM sent us a review sample of the A7 2026 Edition mini PC powered by a 4.9 GHz AMD Ryzen 5 7545U hexa-core/12-thread processor, paired with 16GB DDR5 SO-DIMM memory and a 500 GB NVMe SSD. It comes with two HDMI 2.0 ports and two USB4 with DisplayPort Alt mode to enable four-monitor setups, 2.5GbE, WiFi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, an SD card reader, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a few USB-A ports. As its name implies, it’s a variant of the GEEKOM A7 (Ryzen 9 7940HS) mini PC we reviewed in 2024 with Windows 11 Pro and Ubuntu 22.04/24.04, and we’ll keep that in mind to compare the more affordable 2026 Edition to its older sibling in our three-part review. In this article, we will cover the full specifications, unbox the device, go through a teardown to check the hardware design, and boot it to the pre-installed Windows […]