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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on $50 Forgix board pairs Raspberry Pi RP2354 MCU with Trion T8 FPGA in Teensy form factor

$50 Forgix board pairs Raspberry Pi RP2354 MCU with Trion T8 FPGA in Teensy form factor

Forgix RP2354 T8 board

Adiuvo Engineering’s Forgix is a development board pairing a Raspberry Pi RP2354 microcontroller with 2MB flash and an Efinix Trion T8 FPGA in the Teensy 4.0 form factor. The board also features a 16 Mbit PSRAM chip, a USB-C port, a push-button, an RGB LED, and through and castellated holes routed to either the RP2354 MCU or Trion T8 FPGA for SPI, I2C, UART, ADC, USB 1.1, and custom interfaces.   Forgix board specifications: SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2354B  CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot Dual-core 32-bit RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz (3-stage in-order pipeline; RV32IMAC with Zba, Zbb, Zbs, Zbkb, Zcb, Zcmp, and Zicsr extensions) Up to two cores can be used at a time, either 2x Arm, 2x RISC-V, or 1x Arm + 1x RISC-V Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM Storage – 2MB of stacked (in-package) flash memory FPGA – Efinix Trion T8F49 connected to […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Lua-programmable ELM11-Feather board puts Gowin GW1NR FPGA into Feather form factor (Crowdfunding)

Lua-programmable ELM11-Feather board puts Gowin GW1NR FPGA into Feather form factor (Crowdfunding)

ELM11-Feather FPGA board

BrisbaneSilicon ELM11-Feather is a “microcontroller” board based on a Gowin GW1NR FPGA that is natively programmable in Lua, C, SystemVerilog, and VHDL. Compatible with the Adafruit Feather form factor, the board features GPIO headers, a built-in debugger, a USB-C port for power and programming, and a 2-pin header for a LiPo battery. The company calls it a microcontroller board because the FPGA runs a PicoRV32 MCU softcore at up to 75 MHz with 1MB RAM and 8MB flash, programmable with Lua, and the user can also customize hardware layers with RTL code using the remaining FPGA fabric. ELM11-Feather specifications: FPGA – Gowin GW1NR-LV9 FPGA from the GW1NR-9 family 8K LUTs 8,640 logical units (LUTs) 6,480 flip-flop 17,280 bits shadow SRAM (SSRAM) 486 Kbit block SRAM (BSRAM) 64 Mbit (8MB) PSRAM 608 Kbit user flash 2x PLL Up to 276x user I/O USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Open Book Touch – A DRM-free, WiFi-connected 4.26-inch open-source hardware e-reader (Crowdfunding)

Open Book Touch – A DRM-free, WiFi-connected 4.26-inch open-source hardware e-reader (Crowdfunding)

Open Book Touch

Oddly Specific Objects has launched a crowdfunding campaign for the Open Book Touch, an ESP32-S3-based e-reader with a 4.26-inch e-paper display with 480 x 800 resolution and a capacitive touch screen. The open-source hardware device comes with 16 MB flash, 8MB PSRAM, a frontlight with warm and cool LEDs, a microSD card for storage, and an 800 mAh user-replaceable LiPo battery with everything housed in a 3D printed enclosure. Open Book Touch specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3 dual-core MCU with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE connectivity Memory – 8 MB octal SPI PSRAM Storage 16 MB quad SPI flash MicroSD card slot Display 4.26-inch, 480 × 800 e-paper; 1-bit and 2-bit grayscale with dithering Capacitive touchscreen based on FT6336 low-power controller Frontlight – five warm + five cool LEDs, independently dimmable USB – USB Type-C for power/charging and programming Misc – 3D-printed plastic enclosure; snap-fit, with 3D-printable CAD for custom shells; […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on ESP32-C5 devkit offers 2.8-inch capacitive touch display, dual-band Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5 LE, LiPo battery support

ESP32-C5 devkit offers 2.8-inch capacitive touch display, dual-band Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5 LE, LiPo battery support

ESP32-C5-Touch-LCD-2.8

Last week, I wrote about the ESP32-C5-LCD-1.47 as one of the first ESP32-C5 devkits with a built-in display enabling dual-band WiFi 6 connectivity for IoT and HMI projects. However, one reader lamented the lack of touch-capable screens, at which point kwchow pointed to the ESP32-C5-Touch-LCD-2.8 model offering just that by pairing an ESP32-C5 with a 2.8-inch IPS  display with capacitive touch and 320×480 resolution. The new board also features a microSD card slot, a USB-C port for power and programming, a built-in microphone and a speaker connector, a few sensors, and various I/Os connectors for expansion. Let’s have a closer look. ESP32-C5-Touch-LCD-2.8 specifications: Wireless module – Espressif Systems ESP32-C5-WROOM-1-N32R8 SoC – ESP32-C5HR8 CPU Single-core 32-bit RISC-V processor @ up to 240 MHz Low-power RISC-V core @ 40 MHz acting as the main processor for power-sensitive applications Memory – 384 KB SRAM on-chip, 8MB PSRAM Storage – 320 KB ROM Wireless […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on PaperBoy Game Boy Emulator works at 60 FPS on ESP32-S3 E Ink devkit

PaperBoy Game Boy Emulator works at 60 FPS on ESP32-S3 E Ink devkit

PaperBoy E Ink ESP32-S3 Gameboy emulator

60 FPS gaming on an E Ink display? That doesn’t seem right… But that’s exactly what Wenting Zhang’s PaperBoy Game Boy emulator project does, using the M5Stack PaperS3 devkit, pairing an ESP32-S3 wireless microcontroller with a 4.7-inch E Ink display with 960 x 540 resolution. One of the tricks here is that the bottom part of the ePaper touchscreen display is used for control buttons and doesn’t need to be refreshed, while the active part only requires 160 x 144 resolution, scaled three times to represent various shades of grey. Contrary to most small Eink devkits, the PaperS3 features a screen with a raw row/column driver interface, which enabled him to drive the display while bypassing the normal waveform method, and deliver a higher refresh rate up to 60 FPS. Wenting didn’t reinvent the wheel for the Game Boy emulation part, and after testing three different emulators, he went with […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Banana Pi BPI-VP10 – A low-cost servo control board based on Fortior FU7512L dual-core RISC-V MCU

Banana Pi BPI-VP10 – A low-cost servo control board based on Fortior FU7512L dual-core RISC-V MCU

Banana Pi BPI-VP10 with metal case and servo

Banana Pi BPI-VP10 is a low-cost servo control board based on the Fortior FU7512L RISC-V MCU and the FD6288Q pre-driver chip, designed for industrial control applications that rely on 100W/200W servos. The servo motor control board supports multiple control modes, including pulse/direction, analog, and RS485, and is compatible with absolute encoders (Tamagawa/BiSS-C protocols), incremental encoders, and Hall encoders. The BPI-VP10 board, also called BPI-BJ2403N, aims to provide an easy-to-source platform for developers to experiment with the FU7512L microcontroller and design projects or products around it. Banana Pi BPI-VP10 (FU7512L-SVDriver) specifications: Microcontroller – Fortior Technology FU7512L CPU 32-bit RISC-V core @ 48 MHz ME2 motor engine core @ 48 MHz with FOC module and CORDIC module Memory – 12kB SRAM, 4kB PRAM for program execution Storage – 64kB Flash with ECC and CRC, self-programming, and code protection Encoder Support – Absolute encoders (Tamagawa/BiSS-C protocols), incremental encoders, and Hall encoders. Pulse Input –  […]

Posted on by Debashis Das - No Comments on Makerfabs MaTouch ESP32-P4 10.1-inch HMI display features 4G LTE and Ethernet connectivity, a 2MP camera

Makerfabs MaTouch ESP32-P4 10.1-inch HMI display features 4G LTE and Ethernet connectivity, a 2MP camera

MaTouch ESP32 P4 TFTTouch 10.1 inch MIPI with 4G LTE SIM7670G

Makerfabs MaTouch ESP32-P4 TFTTouch 10.1 MIPI with 4G LTE is an ESP32-P4 + ESP32-C6-based display development platform for HMI edge AI, and connected embedded applications. The development board features a 10.1-inch IPS LCD, very similar to those of Seeed Studio’s reTerminal D1001, Waveshare ESP32-P4-WIFI6-Touch-LCD, and CrowPanel Advanced 7-inch displays. However, what makes it unique compared to other devices is that it also features a SIM7670G 4G LTE modem with a SIM card slot, an RJ45 Ethernet jack, and a 2MP camera. The HMI display also comes with microphone and speaker connectors, a microSD card slot, various USB interfaces, lithium battery support, and two 2.54 mm pitch GPIO expansion headers exposing UART, I2C, SPI, and other peripheral interfaces. All these features make it suitable for HMI, edge AI, and connected embedded applications. Makerfabs MaTouch ESP32-P4 10.1-inch 4G LTE specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-P4NRW32 CPU Dual-core 32-bit RISC-V HP (High-performance) CPU @ up to 400 […]

Posted on by Debashis Das - 4 Comments on UTFS is a lightweight, zero-allocation file system for embedded devices

UTFS is a lightweight, zero-allocation file system for embedded devices

μTFS lightweight, zero allocation file system

CLI Systems has introduced UTFS (μTFS), a simple, lightweight embedded storage system designed for small MCUs. Unlike traditional file systems like FAT32 or EXT4, or even lighter options like LittleFS and SPIFFS used on boards like the ESP32, UTFS is much simpler. It does not use dynamic memory and avoids complex features like wear leveling, making it easier to use on low-resource devices. Designed for flat, byte-addressable memory like raw EEPROM, CPU flash pages, or external SPI/I²C flash, UTFS allows bare-metal firmware to store named data blobs (“files”) back-to-back. Each file is appended with a fixed 24-byte header containing metadata like identifiers, sizes, and application-defined signatures. UTFS specifications and features Footprint – Fixed 24-byte header per file; zero heap usage (no malloc) Format – TAR-inspired sequential layout; forward-compatible so files can be added later without breaking existing memory layouts Storage Agnostic – Requires porting only two functions to interface with […]

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