Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News - Page 3 of 1494

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

Agilex 9 FGPA Direct RF-Series

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 – […]

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 […]

Mudi 7 (GL-E5800) 5G NR Wi-Fi 7 travel router supports up to 4.67 Gbps link rate

Mudi 7 5G WiFi 7 travel router

GL.iNet Mudi 7, codenamed GL-E5800, is a battery-powered 5G NR WiFi-7 travel router with 2.5GbE, up to 4.67 Gbps downlink cellular speed, up to 5.76 Gbps WiFi link rate, and 700 Mbps VPN transfer rate using OpenVPN-DCO (600 Mbps with WireGuard VPN). It’s the third model since the company introduced the Mudi portable 4G LTE WiFi router in 2019, and followed up with the Mudi V2 (GL-E750V2) 4G LTE router in 2024. The Mudi 7 is a serious upgrade with 2.5GbE, 5G cellular, and WiFi 7 connectivity, and a large 5380 mAh battery good for a full day. It also features two USB-C ports for power and tethering, a 2.8-inch touchscreen display, eight internal antennas, and two TS-9 connectors for external antennas. Mudi 7 specifications: SoC – Unnamed Qualcomm quad-core processor @ 2.2GHz (potentially IPQ9574 quad-core Cortex-A73) System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4X Storage – 8GB eMMC flash Display – 2.8-inch […]

Armbian Imager 2.0 release supports over 300 boards from 64 SBC vendors, custom user profiles

Rock 5B Plus Armbian Operating System Selection

The Armbian community has just released the Armbian Imager 2.0 GUI program to easily flash pre-built Armbian-built Ubuntu or Debian images for over 338 boards from 64 SBC vendors. The new version features a slick user interface rewritten from scratch and implements custom user profiles in the settings with username and password, SSH key, Wi-Fi network credentials and country code, timezone, locale, and shell. That means the board is ready to use after flashing.  In some ways it’s similar to the Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0, except it covers a much broader ecosystem of single board computers. To be honest, I had no idea Armbian had an imager so far. The last time I used an Armbian image, I downloaded it directly from their website and used USB Imager or another tool to flash it to a microSD card slot. So it’s a good opportunity to check out the Armbian Imager […]

AweSun Cloud KVM Q1 Review – An ultra-compact, low-cost KVM over IP solution tested with Windows 11 and Android clients

AweSun Q1 Pironman 5 Pro Max

AweSun has sent me a sample of their “Cloud KVM Q1” 4K KVM over IP solution for review. It’s a compact device with the minimum number of ports for a connected KVM: USB-C for keyboard and mouse emulation, HDMI input for video, and Ethernet for connectivity to the host. Like other such KVMs, it enables hardware-level remote access even in the BIOS, and the company advertised remote access to server, computer, and mobile phone targets, with the latter requiring an additional USB-C dock for HDMI input. I’ll start the review by going through the specifications, performing an unboxing and a teardown, and testing both mobile and desktop clients with targets like a Raspberry Pi 5 and an Android mobile phone. AweSun Cloud KVM Q1 specifications Here are the specifications from the company: Video Input HDMI port Resolution – Up to 2560 x 1600 with 15 FPS framerate Networking 100Mbps RJ45 […]

Docker for Microcontrollers? AkiraOS combines Zephyr RTOS with WebAssembly (WASM) applications

AkiraOS architecture

AkiraOS is a Zephyr-based embedded OS that runs sandboxed WebAssembly applications on microcontrollers and lets users deploy and update firmware OTA without reflashing. In other words, it’s similar to Docker containers, but for microcontrollers. The open-source embedded platform separates the OS from the application. That means the firmware stays stable, while apps are independent .wasm binaries deployable over-the-air without touching the OS, and portable so a single binary works on ESP32-S3, nRF5x, or STM32 MCU boards. AkiraOS highlights: User space Up to 8 wasm apps can be installed Up to two apps can run at the same time Footprint: 50KB to 200KB per app Akiraz runtime – Custom WASM runtime App Manager UI Framework with 32 widgets Shell/console 18 API modules WebAssembly Micro Runtime (WAMR) – Two options: Interpreter or Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compilation with 10 to 50x higher performance RTOS – Zephyr RTOS Scheduler Network stack HTTP for OTA updates […]

$54 ThinkNode G4 Wi-Fi HaLow gateway extends the range of Ethernet or 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 devices

ThinkNode G4 Wi-Fi HaLow gateway

Elecrow’s ThinkNode G4 is a Wi-Fi HaLow gateway with Ethernet and 2.4 GHz WiFi that allows you to connect compatible devices or extend the range of existing devices when used with two gateways or in an 802.11s Mesh configuration with multiple gateways. It’s based on a (legacy) Mediatek MT7628N MIPS processor paired with a Quectel FGH100M featuring Morse Micro MM6108 Wi-Fi HaLow SoC introduced in 2022 with a data rate of up to 32.5 Mbps and a range of up to one kilometer with line-of-sight. ThinkNode G4 specifications: Core module – HLK-7628N Module SoC – Mediatek MT7628N MIPS processor @ up to 580 MHz System Memory – 128MB DDR2 RAM Storage – 32 MB SPI flash Connectivity – 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 2×2 MIMO 802.11b/g/n up to 300 Mbps combined WiFi HaLow Module – Quectel FGH100M based on Morse Micro MM6108 chipset WiFi protocol – IEEE 802.11ah Frequency band – 850~950 […]

Erqos EQSP32CE – An industrial IoT ESP32-S3 PLC with Ethernet, RS232, RS485, CAN Bus, DIN Rail support

ESP32-S3 IoT PLC Ethernet

Erqos EQSP32CE is a DIN rail-mountable industrial IoT PLC based on an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth SoC and offering Ethernet, RS-485, RS-232, and CAN bus industrial communication interfaces. The IIoT logic controller also features several protected digital (16x) and analog (8x) inputs, eight current inputs, eight “special mode” analog inputs, and sixteen digital outputs with PWM support. A USB-C port is used for firmware flashing and monitoring, and the PLC takes a wide 7V – 26V DC input voltage and outputs 5V/1A for I/O expansion modules. Erqos EQSP32CE specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP32-S3 dual-core LX7 processor @ 240 MHz with 8MB Flash, 512kB RAM, wireless connectivity (so probably ESP32-S3FN8) Communication interfaces 10/100 Mbps Ethernet RJ45 port Wi-Fi + Bluetooth Low Energy (on ESP32-S3) with internal antenna RS232 (protected) and RS485 half-duplex (protected) with support for Modbus RTU, DMX512, and custom serial protocols CAN Bus (protected) USB – 1x USB-C power for […]