Framework modular laptop adds Intel Raptor Lake, AMD Ryzen motherboards, 16-inch laptop frame

Framework Modular Laptop Intel Raptor AMD Ryzen 7040 motherboard

When we first covered the Framework modular laptop in 2021 it came with a choice of 11th generation Intel Tiger Lake Core processors, up to 64GB RAM, up to 4TB SSD storage, a 13.5-inch display, a Full HD webcam, and a 55Wh battery. Modular electronic devices have been worked on by several companies over the years, but such endeavors usually result in failure due to costs and other difficulties. Remember Google’s Project Ara?  But Framework may have found something that works, as they’ve now launched 13th Generation Intel Raptor Lake motherboards, AMD Ryzen 7040-series motherboards, updated the 13.5-inch display with a Matte finish, and even unveiled the Framework Laptop 16 with a 16-inch display that should become available in Q3 2023. Intel Raptor Lake and AMD Ryzen 7040 motherboards The Framework modular laptop now supports additional Intel Raptor Lake and AMD Ryzen motherboards with the following processors and key options. […]

Pironman review – A Raspberry Pi 4 enclosure with M.2 SATA, safe power off, RGB LED strip, and more

Pironman review

SunFounder Pironman is a Raspberry Pi 4 enclosure inspired by Michael Klement’s DIY Raspberry Pi 4 mini server with an OLED display and ICE Tower cooling solution, as well as some improvements such as an aluminum alloy and acrylic enclosure, support for an M.2 SATA SSD, a power button for safe shutdown,  an IR receiver, and an RGB LED strip. The company sent me a Pironman kit without Raspberry Pi 4 for review. I’ll check the package content, go through the assembly, software installation, and testing of the unique features listed above. Pironman unboxing Some of the main specifications are listed on the side of the package. The enclosure comes fully disassembled with the Pironman board, metal and acrylic panels, RGB LED strip, OLED display, heatsink, fan, adapters, flat cables, screws, standoffs, and so on. The top of the Pironman board (JMS580-V1.8) comes with a JMicron JMS580 USB 3.2 Gen […]

KiCad 7.0.0 release – Custom fonts, text boxes, SpaceMouse, crash reporting, and much more

KiCad 7.0.0

KiCad 7.0.0 open-source EDA software has just been released with a range of new features from custom fonts to 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse integration to opt-in Sentry crash reporting, and many more. It took over three years between KiCad 5.0.0 and KiCad 6.0.0 announcements, but only a little over a year for the release of KiCad 7.0.0. Did KiCad developers acquire superhuman abilities or did AI get involved in the development somehow? Most probably not, and instead they change the release schedule to a yearly one, so we should get annual releases of the open-source EDA suite going forward, with KiCad 8.0.0 to be released in Q1 2024. Some notable changes to KiCad 7.0 include: Custom Fonts support is now available in the schematic, PCB, and worksheet editors to allow the use of any system font. Text box support was added in both the schematic and PCB editors. 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse support in […]

Open AI Lab EAIDK-610 devkit targets computer vision education with OpenCV

Open AI Lab EAIDK 610 development kit

Open AI Lab EAIDK-610 is an embedded AI development kit powered by a Rockchip RK3399 processor, recently added to Linux 6.1 and described as “popularly used by university students” in the kernel changelog. But I had never heard about it, and it turns out it’s because it’s popular with students in China, and most documentation is written in Chinese. The development board is equipped with 4GB LPDDR3, a 16GB eMMC flash, HDMI video output, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5, a few USB ports, a 40-pin GPIO header, and more. EAIDK-610 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 System Memory – 4GB LPDDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash and MicroSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 up to 4Kp60 MIPI DSI up to 1280×720 @ 60 fps 4-lane eDP 1.3 Audio – Speaker header, built-in microphone, 3.5mm audio jack, I2S header, digital audio via HDMI Camera I/F – 2x MIPI CSI up to […]

StarFive VisionFive 2 quad-core RISC-V SBC launched for $46 and up (Crowdfunding)

StarFive VisionFive 2

As expected, StarFive has officially unveiled the JH7110 quad-core RISC-V processor with 3D GPU and the VisionFive 2 SBC. I just did not expect the company to also launch a Kickstarter campaign for the board, and the version with 2GB RAM can be had for just about $46 for “early birds”. The VisionFive 2 ships with up to 8GB RAM, HDMI 2.0 and MIPI DSI display interfaces, dual Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0/2.0 ports, a QSPI flash for the bootloader, as well as support for eMMC flash module, M.2 NVMe SSD, and microSD card storage. VisionFive 2 specifications: SoC – StarFive JH7110 quad-core 64-bit RISC-V (SiFive U74 – RV64GC) processor @ up to 1.5 GHz with Imagination BXE-4-32 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 1.2, Vulkan 1.2 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 video decoder 1080p30 H.265 video encoder System Memory – 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4 Storage – MicroSD card slot, eMMC flash […]

Thin Mini-ITX networking board features six 2.5GbE ports, Celeron J6412 Elkhart Lake SoC

Thin Mini-ITX networking board with 6x 2.5GbE

Powered by an Intel Celeron J6412 quad-core Elkhart Lake processor, the Jetway MI05-0XK thin mini-ITX networking board is equipped with six 2.5GbE ports, up to 16GB RAM via a single SO-DIMM socket, as well as M.2 sockets for storage, WiFi and/or cellular connectivity, some serial ports, and an optional HDMI port for video output. Four variants are offered: the standard MI05-00K model without eMMC flash nor TPM, the MI05-02K with a TPM 2.0 chip, the MI05-03K with a 32GB eMMC flash, and finally the MI05-07K with both the TPM 2.0 security chip and 32GB eMMC flash. Jetway MI05-0XK specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron J6412 quad-core Elkhart Lake processor @ 2.0 GHz / 2.6GHz (Burst frequency) with 1.5MB cache, 16 EU Intel UHD Graphics; 10W TDP System Memory – Up to 16GB DDR4-3200 via SO-DIMM socket Storage 1x SATA III (6 Gb/s) port 1x M.2 M-key 2242 SATA/PCIe Gen.3 x2 interface […]

A RISC-V laptop or mini PC with Rockchip RK3588-class performance may be coming soon

RISC-V laptop

Mark Himelstein, Chief Technology Officer, RISC-V International, and Dr. Philipp Tomsich, Chief Technologist & Founder, VRULL GmbH hinted that we may see a RISC-V laptop in 2022 in a presentation entitled “From Technology to Product – Maturing the RISC-V Ecosystem” with one of the slides showing what could be a RISC-V laptop prototype and The Register suspected it might come from the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS) since it was planning to build 2,000 RISC-V laptops by the end of 2022. But there’s at least one more potential RISC-V laptop project coming our way with StarFive asking users to fill out a survey about a laptop, mini PC, or development board/SBC based on a RISC-V SoC with performance comparable to Rockchip RK3588 or MediaTek MT8192 octa-core Cortex-A76/Cortex-A55 processors. The hardware and software specifications of the device will depend on the answers to the survey. First, it’s […]

Arm SystemReady SR-certified Ampere Altra Developer Platform launched for $3,999

Ampere Altra Developer Platform

ADLINK has just announced the availability of the Arm SystemReady SR-certified Ampere Altra Developer Platform equipped with the company’s COM-HPC Ampere Altra module with 32 to 80 64-bit Arm Neoverse N1 cores, 32GB to 128GB RAM. An adaptation to the earlier AVA Developer Platform expected to sell for $5,450, the Ampere Altra Developer Platform got a price cut to $3,999 at launch for a system with a 32-core processor, and 32GB DDR4. The system targets software developers wanting to build cloud-to-edge applications using standardized Arm hardware. Ampere Altra Developer Platform specifications: SoM – COM-HPC Ampere Altra module with Ampere Altra 32 to 80-core 64-bit Arm Neoverse N1 processor up to 1.7/2.2/2.6 GHz (32/64/80 cores, TPD: 60W to 175W), 32 GB to 128GB DDR4 ECC memory Storage – 128 GB NVMe M.2 SSD Mainboard – COM-HPC Server Base carrier board Video – VGA port Audio – 3.5mm audio jack Networking 1x […]