risc-v News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 29, 2026May 29, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Petros CH32H417M Alef – A Raspberry Pi Pico-sized RISC-V USB 3.0 camera board

XPU Labs’ Petros CH32H417M Alef is a Raspberry Pi Pico-sized board based on the WCH CH32H417M RISC-V USB 3.0 microcontroller and taking a 2MP OV2640 camera module through the MCU’s digital image interface (DVP). The board comes with 896KB SRAM and 960KB Flash from the WCH microcontroller, two 20-pin GPIO headers following the Raspberry Pi Pico’s pinout, a 6-pin SWD and UART6 header for debugging, and a Reset button. Petros CH32H417M Alef specifications: MCU – WCH CH32H417MEQ6 MCU QingKe RISC-V5F up to 400 MHz QinKe RISC-V3F up to 144 MHz GPU – Graphics Processing Hardware Accelerator GPHA Memory – 896KB SRAM Storage – 960KB Flash Camera I/F – 40-pin B2B connector with DVP @ 144MHz, SPI, I2C and ADC interfaces for 2MP Phos Ayin OV2640 camera module USB – 1x USB 3.0 Type-A port (5Gbps, tested up to 430 MB/s) for data, power, and firmware flashing Debugging – 6-pin SWD and […]

May 29, 2026 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

u-blox ALMA-B2 Bluetooth 6.0 and 802.15.4 module features Nordic nRF54LM20 Edge AI wireless MCU

ALMA B2 series (Open CPU) Stand alone Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) modules

u-blox has recently announced the ALMA-B2 standalone BLE 6.0 and 802.15.4 module family built around the Nordic Semi nRF54LM20 Cortex-M33 wireless microcontroller with a dedicated NPU for low-latency Edge AI applications. There are four specific product variants in the u-blox ALMA-B2 series: ALMA-B201, ALMA-B206, ALMA-B211, and ALMA-B216, all of which support Bluetooth 6.0 and Bluetooth Channel Sounding for distance measurement. They also support IEEE 802.15.4, including Thread, Zigbee, and Matter, as well as Nordic’s proprietary 2.4 GHz protocol and NFC. The company also mentions that the nRF54LM20B-based ALMA-B211 and ALMA-B216 variants include an Axon NPU that performs machine learning tasks up to 15 times faster and with greater energy efficiency than running the same tasks on the main processor alone. u-blox ALMA-B2 Series Specifications: Wireless SoC – Nordic Semiconductor nRF54LM20A (for ALMA-B201 and B206) or nRF54LM20B (for ALMA-B211 and B216) CPU Arm Cortex-M33 application processor clocked at up to 128 MHz RISC-V […]

May 27, 2026May 29, 2026 by Debashis Das - 4 Comments

MuseLab nanoCH32H417 – A $17 WCH CH32H417 RISC-V MCU development board with USB 3.0, Fast Ethernet

nanoCH32H417 Development Board with Displa

Designed by MuseLab, the nanoCH32H417 is a development board for the WCH CH32H417 dual-core RISC-V MCU, which we covered earlier this year for its USB 3.0 (5 Gbps), UHS, and Fast Ethernet support. At that time, only the official CH32H417 development board was available, but this board adds a third-party option. The board exposes various features of the MCU, including one USB 3.0 port, two USB Type-C ports, a 100Mbps Ethernet interface, and a MicroSD card slot. It also simplifies the prototyping workflow by integrating a WCHLink-E debugger directly onto the board, meaning you won’t need to wire up an external programmer to flash the MCU or view serial output. MuseLab nanoCH32H417 specifications: MCU – WCH CH32H417QEU6 MCU QingKe RISC-V5F up to 400 MHz QinKe RISC-V3F up to 144 MHz GPU – Graphics Processing Hardware Accelerator GPHA Memory – 896KB SRAM Storage – 960KB Flash Storage – MicroSD card slot Display […]

May 26, 2026May 26, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

WCH BLE Analyzer Pro USB Bluetooth LE sniffer gains Linux software with Wireshark (pcap) support

Last November, we wrote about the WCH BLE Analyzer Pro, an inexpensive (~$20) USB Bluetooth LE sniffer and analyzer, which looked useful and good value for reverse engineering and debugging. One downside is that the WCH BLE Analyzer software was only made for Windows 7 to 11, but Xecaz decided to look into it and reverse-engineered the USB protocol to write Linux software using libusb that outputs a standard pcap compatible with popular tools such as Wireshark, or as he puts it: “WinChipHead forgot to ship a Linux driver. We forgot to ask permission.” As a reminder, the BLE Analyzer Pro features three CH582F Bluetooth LE RISC-V microcontrollers and a CH334 USB hub, supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 4.0/4.2/5.0, and connects to the host through its USB-C port. The Linux “driver” for the BLE Analyzer Pro tool can be found on GitHub. Building and installing the software is quick and […]

May 23, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

SpacemiT K3 Pico-ITX Chassis Kit Review – Part 1: Unboxing, teardown, and first boot

SpacemiT K3 Pico-ITX configuration success

SpacemiT has sent me a K3 Pico-ITX Chassis Kit for review. It’s based on the K3 Pico-ITX motherboard with the SpacemiT K3 16-core RISC-V Edge AI processor housed in a compatible chassis. I’ll start the review with an unboxing, a teardown, and a first boot to the pre-installed Bianbu OS. In the second part of the review, I’ll perform feature testing and run several benchmarks (see early K3 benchmarks for reference) to evaluate the status of the software and performance of the system. SpacemiT K3 Pico-ITX Chassis Kit unboxing I received a kit in a retail package reading “RISC-V AI CPI K3 RVA23 Profile Chip” and a UGREEN USB-C dock with a few USB-A ports, HDMI output, and 100W USB PD support. The dock will make perfect sense once we connect the system for our first boot. I was initially expecting a Pico-ITX SBC, so I was a little surprised […]

May 20, 2026May 19, 2026 by Debashis Das - 3 Comments

Firefly CSC2-N48SPK3 – A 2880 TOPS RISC-V AI server with 48 SpacemiT K3 Nodes, 48 NVMe SSDs

After SpacemiT officially launched the K3 Pico-ITX SBC, and the K3 chip entered volume production, an Edge AI mini PC, and a laptop motherboard (for Framework 13) have been released. To add to the list, Firefly has recently launched the CSC2-N48SPK3, a massive 2U rack-mounted server based on multiple SpacemiT K3 SoCs designed to bring RISC-V computing power to enterprise racks. While consumer devices and modular laptops are great for developers, large-scale server-side AI workloads require more powerful hardware. The CSC2-N48SPK3 addresses this with up to 48 SpacemiT K3 RISC-V compute nodes, each with an octa-core X100 SoC delivering up to 60 TOPS (Sparse) AI performance, up to 32GB LPDDR5 RAM, 128 GB UFS storage, and an optional NVMe SSD. To manage all of these nodes, Firefly relies on a Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Arm processor as the central control node. Firefly CSC2-N48SPK3 specifications: Server Form Factor – 2U rack-mounted 48 Node high-density […]

May 18, 2026May 18, 2026 by Debashis Das - 3 Comments

$13 Qualcomm QCC74xM EVK offers Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and 802.15.4 connectivity (Bouffalo Lab BL618 inside)

Back in November 2024, we wrote about Qualcomm’s QCC730M and QCC74xM modules for low-power IoT devices, but at the time, there was no evaluation board EVK for those SoCs. Fast forward to today, and the official development boards for the QCC74x series have finally been released, complete with a surprisingly affordable price tag. The Qualcomm QCC74xM EVK is a tri-radio evaluation board with Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and IEEE 802.15.4 (Thread/Zigbee) with a price tag of just over $13. But what is interesting is that, while it carries the Qualcomm brand, documentation from the Zephyr Project clearly shows that the QCC74x series is actually based on and mostly equivalent to the Bouffalo Lab BL61x series, specifically the BL618. Qualcomm QCC74xM EVK specifications: Wireless Module – Qualcomm QCC74xM LGA Module (QCC743M, QCC744M, or QCC748M depending on the board variant) CPU – 32-bit RISC-V processor (RV32IMAFCP) @ up to 325 MHz with FPU […]

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Start9 RISC-V Router features SpacemiT K1 SoC, runs StartWRT OpenWrt fork (Crowdfunding)

Start9’s “RISC-V Router” is powered by a SpacemiT K1 octa-core RISC-V processor paired with 4GB RAM and 16GB eMMC flash, and offers dual GbE networking, as well as an AsiaRF AW7915-NP1 WiFi 6 4T4R module enabling up to 2401 Mbps combined data link. It’s not exactly a high-end router, but Start9 claims it is the “most open router on the market” thanks to its RISC-V processor, OpenSBI open-source boot stack, and StartWrt operating system, a fork of OpenWrt. Start9 router specifications: SoC – SpacemiT K1 CPU – 8-core X60 RISC-V processor with single-core performance equivalent to about 1.3x the performance of an Arm Cortex-A55 GPU – Imagination IMG BXE-2-32 with support for OpenCL 3.0, OpenGL ES3.2, Vulkan 1.2 VPU – H.265, H.264, VP9, VP8 4K encoding/encoding NPU – 2.0 TOPS AI accelerator System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage 16GB eMMC flash MicroSD card slot Networking 2x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports […]