CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Tiliqua – An hackable Lattice ECP5 FPGA-based audio multitool for Eurorack (Crowdfunding)

Tiliqua is a Lattice ECP5 FPGA multitool board designed for audio and visual synthesis and compatible with the Eurorack modular synthesizer format. The board features four audio input jacks and four audio output jacks, all of which can be used as touch-sensitive inputs when not connected. Other interfaces include a USB 2.0 Host/Device port, MIDI support, two PMOD expansion connectors, and a display interface to connect the Tiliqua screen for visual effects. All those features make it suitable for audio-rate modulation, low-latency effects, video synthesis, high-speed USB audio, or emulating retro hardware. Tiliqua specifications: FPGA – Lattice ECP5 (LFE5U-25F-6BG256) FPGA supported by the open-source FPGA flow System Memory – 32MB PSRAM (tested up to 200MHz DDR / 400MB/s) Storage 16MB SPI flash for the FPGA 16MB SPI flash for the Raspberry Pi RP2040 2Kbit I2C EEPROM: for storing calibration constants Video Output – Digital video GPDI (General Purpose Differential Interface) […]

May 5, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

KSTR-IMX93 single board computer pairs NXP i.MX 93 SoC with Nordic Semi nRF5340, nRF9151, and nRF7002 wireless chips

Conclusive Engineering KSTR-IMX93 is a single board computer (SBC) powered by an NXP i.MX 93 Cortex-A55/M33 AI SoC and equipped with three Nordic Semi wireless solutions, namely nRF5340 SoC, nRF9151 SiP, and nRF7002 WiFi 6 coprocessor. This allows the board to offer a wide range of wireless and wired connectivity options with Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.4 LE, Zigbee, Thread, NB-IoT, LTE Cat-M1, and GNSS. In some way, the KSTR-IMX93 is the equivalent of combining a Nordic Thingy:91 X Cellular IoT development platform with an Arm Linux SBC. KSTR-IMX93 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 93 CPU Single or dual-core Arm Cortex-A55 up to 1.7 GHz Arm Cortex-M33 up to 250 MHz GPU – PXP 2D GPU with blending/composition, resize, color space conversion NPU – Arm Ethos-U65 NPU @ 1 GHz up to 0.5 TOPS Memory – 640 KB OCRAM w/ ECC Security – EdgeLock Secure Enclave System Memory […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

May 5, 2025May 5, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

OneChipBook-12 is a Cyclone EP1C12Q FPGA development platform with a built-in display and mechanical keyboard

It may look like a netbook from 10 years ago, but the OneChipBook-12 from “8086YES!” is instead an Altera Cyclone EP1C12Q FPGA development platform with a VGA display (LCD form iPad 2), a PS/2 QWERTY mechanical keyboard, a battery, and a few ports. While the OneChipBook-12 is sold as a blank FPGA development platform “with no predefined functionalities”, the hardware is similar to One Chip MSX (1chipMSX), Zemmix Neo, and uMSX systems, which are modern MSX2+ clones, and that’s the main reason people are purchasing the device. OneChipBook-12 specifications: FPGA Altera Cyclone EP1C12Q240 (from the obsolete Cyclone I family) 12,060 LEs 239,616 bits RAM System Memory – 32MB SDRAM Storage – SD card slot (FAT16 file system supported) Display – 1024×768 VGA display Video Output – VGA, S-Video, and CVBS Output interface Audio – Stereo speakers, audio output jack (8), volume control knob (9) USB – USB Type-A port […]

May 5, 2025May 5, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Banana Pi BPI-CM6 is an octa-core RISC-V system-on-module compatible with Raspberry Pi CM5 carrier boards

Banana Pi BPI-CM6 is a SpacemIT K1 octa-core RISC-V system-on-module that follows the design of the Raspberry Pi CM5, and offers up to 16GB LPDDR4 RAM, up to 128GB eMMC flash, a gigabit Ethernet controller, and a WiFi 6 + Bluetooth 5.2 module. While it remains (mostly) compatible with the Raspberry Pi CM5, the BPI-CM6 exposes some additional I/Os from the K1 SoC through an additional 100-pin B2B connector. The company also offers a credit card-sized carrier board for the RISC-V SoM with HDMI, dual GbE, two M.2 PCIe x2 sockets, a few USB ports, and more. Banana Pi BPI-CM6 specifications: SoC – SpacemIT K1 CPU – 8-core X60 RISC-V processor @ 1.6 GHz GPU – Imagination IMG BXE-2-32 @ 819 MHz with support for OpenGL ES3.2, Vulkan 1.3, OpenCL 3.0; 20 GFLOPS VPU – H.265 and H.264 1080p60 decoding/encoding NPU – None, but the RISC-V cores can deliver up […]

May 4, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

EDATEC launches 7-inch, 10.1-inch and 15.6-inch Industrial HMI displays powered by Raspberry Pi CM5

EDATEC ED-HMI3120 industrial Human Machine Interface HMI displays

EDATEC ED-HMI3120 series is a family of Raspberry Pi CM5-powered industrial Human-Machine Interface (HMI) displays available in 7-inch (ED-HMI3120-070C), 10.1-inch (ED-HMI3120-101C), and 15.6-inch (ED-HMI3120-156C) variants. Like the Chipsee 7-inch/10.1-inch Raspberry Pi CM5 industrial panel PCs, the EDATEC HMI displays are designed for factory automation, process control, and IoT applications. All models offer Gigabit Ethernet, 100Mbps Ethernet, isolated RS485/RS232 ports, and wireless options like WiFi and 4G LTE. EDATEC ED-HMI3120 specifications SoM – Raspberry Pi CM5 with Broadcom BCM2712 quad-core Cortex-A76 SoC, 2GB, 4GB or 8GB RAM, and 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB eMMC flash Storage MicroSD card slot M.2 B-Key socket for 2230/2242 NVMe SSD 4KB EEPROM Display HMI3120-070C – 7-inch TFT display with 1024×600 resolution, 16.7M colors, 400 cd/m² luminance, 80°/80° H/V viewing angles, and 10-point capacitive touch HMI3120-101C – 10.1-inch TFT display with 1280×800 resolution, 16.7M colors, 250 cd/m² luminance, 80°/80° H/V viewing angles, and 10-point capacitive touch HMI3120-156C […]

May 3, 2025May 3, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Walnut Pi 2B is an Allwinner T527 octa-core SBC with Raspberry Pi 5 form factor and interfaces

Walnut Pi 2B is a single board computer (SBC) powered by an Allwinner T527 octa-core Cortex-A55 SoC with a built-in 2 TOPS AI accelerator that closely follows the Raspberry Pi 5 design for compatibility with most HAT+ expansion boards and accessories. The Walnut Pi 2B SBC ships with 1GB to 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, an optional 32GB eMMC flash, and features a microSD card slot, gigabit Ethernet, four USB ports, a WiFI and Bluetooth module, MIPI DSI/CSI connectors, and the same PCIe FFC connector as found on the Raspberry Pi 5, and a 40-pin GPIO. One of the most obvious differences is that it only comes with one micro HDMI port instead of two on the Pi 5. Let’s check out the specifications to find other changes. Walnut Pi 2B specifications: SoC – Allwinner T527 CPU Octa-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor with four cores @ 1.80 GHz and four cores @ 1.42GHz […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

May 2, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SO-ARM101 open-source dual robotic arm kit works with Hugging Face’s LeRobot

SO-ARM101 robotic arm with hugging face support

SO-ARM101 “Arm Servo Motor Kit” is an open-source dual robotic arm kit that works with Hugging Face’s LeRobot robotics framework and is designed to interface with NVIDIA Jetson AI modules and computers. It is an update to the SO-ARM100 DIY open-source robotic arm kit introduced last year with LeRobot framework support. The new SO-ARM101 is still comprised of leader and follower arms but features improved wiring to prevent disconnection issues previously seen at joint 3, motors with optimized gear ratios, and a few functionality where the leader arm can now follow the follower arm in real-time, which will be used for reinforcement learning (RL) where a human can intervene and correct the robot’s actions. SO-ARM101 specifications: Degrees of Freedom (DOF) – 6 per Arm Motor control Total servo – 12x STS3215 bus servos (6x for each Arm) Leader Arm 1x (7.4V) 1:345 gear ratio motor for No.2 joints 2x (7.4V) […]

May 2, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Felix86 is an x86-64 emulator for RISC-V hardware

Felix86 x86-64 emulator for RISC-V hardware

Some programs and most games are designed for x86 hardware, and we’ve already seen projects like box86 x86 emulator for 32-bit Arm targets and Box64 x86-64 emulator for 64-bit Arm hardware to run games on Arm hardware. The Felix86 x86-64 emulator is similar to Box64, except it targets specifically RISC-V hardware. The project is very new, but it can already run some Linux games like World of Goo 2, SuperTuxKart, and Quake OpenArena, while the Wine emulator can currently handle simple Windows games like Solitaire. You’ll find the full compatibility list on the project’s website. Felix86 features: Just-in-Time (JIT) recompiler Uses the RISC-V Vector Extension for SSE instructions Utilizes the B extension, if available, for bit manipulation instructions like bsr Supports a variety of optional extensions, such as XThead custom extensions You’ll find the source code on GitHub. Testing has mostly been done on a Banana Pi BPI-F3 SBC powered […]