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

April 7, 2020February 22, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

CircuitBrains Deluxe is a Tiny, CircuitPython-compatible Module (Crowdfunding)

There are plenty of boards with Adafruit’s CircuitPython support, but Microchip SAMD51 powered CircuitBrains Deluxe is a little different since it’s a module with castellated holes that make it easy to solder to your own baseboard or integrate into a space-constrained product. CircuitBrains Deluxe specifications: MCU – Microchip/Atmel ATSAMD51J19 32-bit ARM Cortex M4 microcontroller @ 120 MHz with 192 KB SRAM, 512 KB Flash Storage – 8 MB Quad SPI Flash I/Os via 48x through holes and castellated holes around the module GPIO (13 Analog, 2 of which are DAC capable, and 19 Digital) SPI, I²C, UART SWD programming/debug interface USB D- & D+ Power Supply Voltage – 5V Output – Onboard 3.3 V 600 mA Linear Regulator (LDO) connected to 3V3 pin Dimensions – 29 x 29 x 3.5 mm The module comes preloaded with CircuitPython, a fork of MicroPython maintain by Adafruit. You can just connect the board […]

April 7, 2020July 20, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Beware of Defective, Wrongly Manufactured IR Thermometers

There is a lot of demand for medical supplies and equipment due to COVID-19. IR Thermometers are used to check the temperature of people before entering a building for instance and are also in short supply. So factories are frantically mass-producing everything they can from face masks to IR thermometers, and it looks like some may forgo quality control. The latter are very hard to find in Thailand, but one person managed to purchase an IR thermometer online and decided to open it… [Update April 16th 2020: The Facebook video has been taken down, but still available on Youtube] This Heaco MDI908 medical thermometer’s infrared board is not connected to the mainboard, so it “works” even without the IR sensor… This takes “non-contact infrared thermometer” to a whole new level 🙂 I can see Kaidee (Thailand’s eBay) had some listed a few days, but the pages have since then been […]

April 7, 2020April 8, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

4K Digital Signage Player Drives up to 4x 4K Displays with AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 SoC

AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 Digital Signage

We’ve covered plenty of AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 SBC‘s, as well as some mini PC‘s, but the processor’s multimedia capabilities make it an ideal candidate for advanced digital signage players capable of driving multiple 4K displays. Axiomtek leveraged those capabilities in DSP600-211 4K digital signage player that offers four HDMI ports driving up to four 4K displays, as well as dual Gigabit Ethernet. Axiomtek DSP600-211 4K digital signage specifications: SoC (one or the other) AMD Ryzen Embedded V1605B quad-core/octa-thread processor @ 2.0GHz / 3.6 GHz (Boost) with AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics; 12-25W TDP AMD Ryzen Embedded V1807B quad-core/octa-thread processor @ 3.35GHz / 3.8 GHz with AMD Radeon Vega 11 Graphics; 35-54W TDP System Memory – 2x DDR4-2400 SO-DIMM up to 16GB Storage – 1x M.2 Key M 2280 (SATA) and 1x M.2 Key M 2280 (NVMe) Video Output – 4x HDMI 2.0 ports up to 4K @ 60 Hz […]

April 6, 2020April 6, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

MIOTY Silicon Vendor Agnostic, Scalable LPWAN Standard to Take on LoRaWAN, NB-IoT

[April 6th update: The article was updated to reflect Fraunhofer invented the technology] There are plenty of LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Networks) standards designed for low power, low bitrate and long-range connectivity with the most popular currently being NB-IoT and LoRaWAN. But Texas Instruments has joined other smaller companies (Fraunhofer, Ragsol, STACKFORCE, WIKA…) to form the MIOTY alliance in order to develop and promote a new LPWAN standard operating in the sub-GHz range called MIOTY. Texas Instruments explains MIOTY was born due to a lack of scalability and robustness (interferences issues) of current LPWAN solutions. But just like other similar low power WAN standards, it aims to support long-range while achieving long battery life, but MIOTY is also supposed to help IoT developers mitigate performance degradation in high-node-count networks. MIOTY works in the same license-free bands (868 MHz, 915 MHz …) as LoRa radios with no costs involved to […]

April 6, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ESP32-Vaquita-DSPG Board and SDK Support Alexa Integration and AWS IoT Core Cloud Service

Espressif Systems has just announced another ESP32 board, namely ESP32-Vaquita-DSPG development kit together with an SDK that supports AVS (Alexa Voice Service) integration with AWS IoT cloud connectivity. ESP32-Vaquita-DSPG specifications: Wireless Module – ESP32-WROVER-E with ESP32-D0WD-V3 WiFi + Bluetooth SoC , 64 Mbit SPI flash and 64 Mbit PSRAM Audio DSP – DSPG DBMD5P Audio SoC with far-field voice recognition using the company’s HDClear algorithms. Power Amplifier for external speakers up to 8W Codec – ES8311 I2S audio codec Speaker connector 3.5mm audio jack 2-mic array on MIC board Debugging – USB-UART port Misc- Mainboard – Power LED, boot & reset buttons MIC board – 5x RGB LEDs, 2x function buttons Power Supply 5V input via USB Power Port 5V-to-3.3V regulator. ESP32-Vaquita-DSPG board needs an external 4-ohm speaker or a pair of headphones for audio output, two USB cables for power and debugging, and a computer running Windows, Linux, or […]

April 6, 2020April 6, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Rosetta@Home Now Supports 64-bit Arm SBC’s and Servers in the Fight against COVID-19

Folding@Home and Rosetta@Home projects aim to perform biomedical research using the computing power of volunteers. Basically, you just need to install a program on your computer, and it will use idle computing power to perform complex calculations without slowing down your computer as long as you are not short in RAM. The projects are now working on COVID-19 to understand how SARS-CoV-2 protein is structured which could help find a cure. The programs have been available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS on 32-bit and 64-bit x86 targets for years, but very recently Rosetta@Home has been made available for 64-bit ARM targets so people can also run BOINC program on Arm Linux SBCs such as Raspberry Pi 4, NVIDIA Jetson Nano, or Rock64, or even powerful Arm servers to help with Rosetta@Home project’s COVID-19 research. As explained in an article on miniNodes, you’ll need a board with at least 2GB […]

April 5, 2020May 8, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

How to Build KiCad on Ubuntu 18.04 / 20.04 and Import Altium PCB Files

KiCad open-source EDA (Electronics Design Automation) suite software is now very popular, and many new projects are designed with the utility. AFAIK, some companies like Olimex switched all their new designs to KiCAD. But since many schematics and PCB layouts have been designed with other tools like EAGLE, Orcad Allegro, or Altium PCB design tools, it would be nice to be able to import those designs into KiCad. Converters have been around for a long time but when I tried to convert Beagleboard-xM OrCAD schematics to import them in KiCAD back in 2012, the results were really awful and unusable. But I recently saw a tweet saying it’s now possible to import Altium files into KiCAD. Finally, importing #altium boards into #kicad is only one click away (in the developer version). This allows to view and edit #opensource #hardware which was designed with #proprietary software, and thus, in fact, not […]

April 4, 2020May 16, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Widora TINY200 Allwinner F1C200s ARM9 Development Board Supports DVP Camera, Up to 512MB SD NAND Flash

Widora TINY200 is a tiny ARM9 development board equipped with Allwinner F1C200s with a DVP camera interface compatible with OV2640 / 5640 sensor, an audio amplifier, and various storage options from a 16MB SPI flash to a 512MB SD NAND flash. I first heard about the processor when I wrote about Microchip SAM9X60 ARM9 SoC last month, and some people noted there were other fairly new ARM9 SoCs around such as Allwinner F1C200s that also includes 64MB RAM so you can run Linux without having to connect external memory chips. Widora TINY200 V2 specifications: SoC – Allwinner F1C200s ARM926EJS processor @ 400-600 MHz (Overclockable to 900 MHz) with 64MB DDR1 RAM Storage – 16MB SPI NOR flash or 128MB NAND flash and MicroSD card slot or 512MB SD NAND flash. Display I/F – 40-pin RGB FPC cable for resistive touch screens; additional 6-pin FPC cable for capacitive touch support Camera […]