Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

February 5, 2026February 5, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Review of XIAO ePaper DIY Kit EE02 13.3-inch color E-Ink display with SenseCraft HMI and Arduino

Seeed Studio has sent us a sample of the XIAO ePaper DIY Kit EE02 for review. The kit is comprised of an ESP32-S3 board driving a 13.3-inch Spectra 6 color E-Ink display with 1600 x 1200 resolution. It supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 (LE) wireless connectivity, and features a USB Type-C port for power and programming, a battery connector with an on/off power switch, a built-in charging circuit, a Reset button, and three user buttons. In this review, we will test the XIAO ePaper DIY Kit EE02 with the SenseCraft HMI platform and the Arduino IDE. But first, let’s go through an unboxing. XIAO ePaper DIY KIT EE02 unboxing We received the XIAO ePaper DIY Kit EE02 in a cardboard box with foam to protect the display. The package includes the 13.-inch ePaper display, the XIAO ePaper Display EE02 board, an external antenna, and a set of two 60-pin adapters […]

February 5, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

Raspberry Pi 4 dual RAM variant introduced to mitigate RAM price increases and supply challenges

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Raspberry Pi has decided to introduce a dual RAM variant of the Raspberry Pi 4 to allow DRAM supply chain flexibility along with manufacturing process improvement using intrusive reflow soldering. As you may remember, Raspberry Pi first increased the price of most Raspberry Pi 4/5 boards last December while launching the Raspberry Pi 5 1GB RAM to offer a $45 option. At the end of last month, we noted broad market price adjustments due to not only RAM prices, but also storage devices, SoCs, and other components. A few days ago, Raspberry Pi had to further increase the price of the Raspberry Pi 4/5 for the 2GB to 16GB RAM models as follows: 1GB – unchanged 2GB – +$10 4GB – +$15 8GB – +$30 16GB – +$60 It’s not out of the realm of possibility that we may end up in a situation where […]

February 5, 2026February 6, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Cubie A7S – A compact Allwinner A733 SBC with USB-C DisplayPort, GbE, WiFi 6, PCIe Gen3 FFC connector, GPIO headers

Radxa has launched its third Allwinner A733 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SBC with the compact Cubie A7S featuring up to 16GB LPDDR5 memory, up to 256GB eMMC flash and a microSD card slot for storage, a Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port, and a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless module. Other features include two USB-C ports, including one supporting DisplayPort Alt mode for video output, a USB 2.0 Type-A port, a 16-pin PCIe Gen3 x1 FFC connector, 30-pin and 15-pin GPIO headers, and a 4-lane MIPI CSI camera connector. At 51 x 51 mm, it offers a middle ground between the credit card-sized Cubie A7A and the Pi Zero-sized Cubie A7Z. Cubie A7S specifications: SoC – Allwinner A733 CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.00 GHz Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.8 GHz Single-core RISC-V E902 real-time core @ up to 200 MHz GPU – Imagination Technologies BXM-4-64 MC1 GPU with […]

February 5, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Texas Instruments to acquire Silicon Labs

Texas Instruments will acquire Silicon Labs for $231.00 per share, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $7.5 billion. The transaction is expected to complete in the first half of 2027, subject to receipt of regulatory approvals and other conditions. Silicon Labs wireless chips are fairly popular in Smart Home applications with Zigbee, Thread, and Matter connectivity, as well as low-power Bluetooth LE wearables and industrial Sub-GHz or 2.4 GHz IoT applications. I can still remember when Silicon Labs purchased Energy Micro in 2013, taking over the EFM32 Gecko MCU family, and about 13 years later, the company is changing hands again. Texas Instruments explains the rationale behind the solution as follows: The acquisition will create a global leader in embedded wireless connectivity solutions by combining Silicon Labs’ strong portfolio and expertise in mixed signal solutions with Texas Instruments’ leading analog and embedded processing portfolio and internally owned technology and […]

February 4, 2026February 4, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

AMD Kintex UltraScale+ Gen 2 mid-range FPGA family to be available until at least 2045

AMD Kintex UltraScale+ Gen 2 is a mid-range FPGA family designed for the broadcast, test, industrial, and medical markets, which provides an update to the Spartan UltraScale+ FPGA family introduced in 2024, and promises availability until at least 2045. Key features include high-speed transceivers and PCIe Gen4 for support of 4K AV-over-IP, multi-stream capture, and frame-accurate transport, increased memory bandwidth for semiconductor test and inspection systems, and advanced imaging and real-time control for machine vision, industrial automation, medical imaging, and robotic systems. AMD Kintec UltraScale+ Gen2 key features AMD says the Kintex UltraScale+ Gen 2 devices deliver up to 5x increase in memory bandwidth when comparing the AMD Kintex UltraScale+ Gen 2 XC2KU040P and XC2KU050P FPGAs to the previous generation Kintex UltraScale+ FPGA, and up to 2x higher channel density per PCIe interface compared to the Altera Agilex A5EC065A FPGA. The company further states that compared to “competing platforms”, the family delivers […]

February 4, 2026February 5, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Qualcomm IPQ5424 embedded router board supports 22 Gbps tri-band Wi-Fi 7 and dual 10GbE networking

Wallys Communications’ DR5424 is a new embedded router board powered by a Qualcomm IPQ5424 quad-core Cortex-A55 SoC (aka Dragonwing NPro A7 Platform) and offering tri-band Wi-Fi 7 connectivity up to around 22 Gbps, along with two 10 GbE RJ45 ports and four 2.5GbE RJ45 ports for wired networking. Based on Qualcomm AP.MI01.2 reference design, the board also features 4GB or 8GB DDR4 memory, 256MB NAND flash, and 32MB NOR flash, as well as a USB 3.0 port, a USB 2.0 port, and JTAG and serial debug ports. Target applications include Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) access points, Internet of Things (IoT) gateways, and HD streaming and gaming. Qualcomm AP.MI01.2 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm IPQ5424 (Qualcomm Dragonwing NPro A7 Platform / NPA7) CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 “Marina” processor @ up to 1.5 GHz (Wallys) or 1.8 GHz (Qualcomm and Compex) Accelerator – Integrated accelerator designed for AI models specific to Wi-Fi and […]

February 4, 2026February 4, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

reComputer Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit GMSL Bundle features 8x GMSL2 camera interfaces, 10GbE networking

Seeed Studio’s reComputer Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit GMSL bundle is an NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin 32GB/64GB equipped with eight GMSL2 camera interfaces through two FAKRA connectors. It’s based on the company’s reComputer Mini J501 carrier board – a smaller version of the reServer Industrial J501 – with 10GbE and GbE RJ45 ports, HDMI 2.1 video output, two USB 3.2 ports, two USB 2.0 Type-C Debug/Recovery ports, and fitted with a 128 M.2 NVMe SSD and an M.2 WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 module, besides the daughterboard with the GMSL2 camera interfaces. reComputer Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit GMSL Bundle specifications: Supported system-on-modules (one or the other) NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin 32GB with CPU – 8-core Arm Cortex-A78AE v8.2 64-bit processor @ 2.2 GHz with 2MB L2 + 4MB L3 cache GPU and AI NVIDIA Ampere architecture with 1792 NVIDIA CUDA cores and 56 Tensor Cores @ 930 MHz DL Accelerator – 2x […]

February 3, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

End-of-life notice for Samsung/Nexell S5P4418 processor

Samsung/Nexell S5P4418 SoC is being phased out, according to a somewhat recent post by EmbSoM/Graperain stating that the SoC was discontinued by the original manufacturer. Most people will likely not care about an old quad-core Cortex-A9 SoC being discontinued, but the S5P4418 was found in several interesting hardware platforms we’ve covered here, mostly from FriendlyELEC, previously FriendlyArm. This includes the FriendlyELEC Core4418, NanoPi2 and Fire2A SBCs, Samsung Artik 530 modules, and several others. Graperain provides more details about the end-of-life notice, notably the key dates for their products: Last Time Buy (LTB) – 2026-03-31 Last Shipment Date – 2026-09-30 This impacts the company’s S5P4418 system-on-module and the S5P4418 single board computer. The Samsung Artik family has been discontinued for several years, and if I look at the FriendlyELEC store, they only sell the Fire2A and Smart4418 CPU board without an end-of-life notice, but they should probably be subject to a similar […]