Firefly Team Mailbag – Rockchip Development Boards and Accessories

ROC-RK3328-CC

T-Chip Intelligent Technology Co. is a hardware and software technology services company, and a few years ago they setup the “Firefly Team” to provide development boards running Android and/or Linux distributions to the maker community. If I remember correctly the company started with Firefly-RK3288 development board powered, as its name implies, by Rockchip RK3288 processor. Since then they’ve launched several other Rockchip development boards and modules, which I’ve covered on this blog. The company decided to send me some of their recent boards and accessories, so let’s have a look at what I received in my “mailbag”. I’ve also taken a few photos for those who did not watch the video or prefer close up photos. ROC-RK3328-CC “Renegade” Development Board The first board is ROC-RK3328-CC “Renegade” board which was first launched via a crowdfunding campaign by Libre Computer.  Both companies have been collaborating on some boards, and Libre Computer makes […]

Microchip Unveils SAM L10 & SAM L11 Arm Cortex-M23 MCU Families with Arm TrustZone for Armv8-M

SAM L10 Xplained Pro

Microchip has recently announced new SAM L10 and SAM L11 Arm Cortex-M23 MCU families, with the SAM L11 family featuring Arm TrustZone for Armv8-M that provides hardware isolation between certified libraries, IP and application code. SAM L10 & SAM L11 MCU Families Key features: Arm Cortex M23 Core @ 32 MHz Up to 64 KB Flash and 16 KB SRAM picoPower Technology less than 25 μA/MHz in active mode less than 100 nA in sleep mode Fast wakeup time: 1.5 μS Flexible power saving features Enhanced Peripheral Touch Controller (PTC) with improved water tolerance, noise immunity and responsiveness Security (for SAM L11 only) Chip-level tamper resistance Arm TrustZone technology Secure boot Secure bootloader Crypto accelerators Secure key storage Op amp ADC and DAC Package – VQFN32, TQFP32, WLCSP32, VQFN24, SSOP24 Microchip SAM L10 MCU achieved a ULPMark score of 405, or over 200 percent better performance compared to the nearest […]

SECO Q7-C25 / Q7-C26 QSeven SoMs Feature NXP i.MX 8M / i.MX 8Quad Processor

We’ve previously covered SECO’s SM-C12 SMARC 2.0 i.MX 8M system-on-module, but the company has just unveiled two new module families which are compliant with Qseven – another SoM standard – and powered by NXP i.MX 8M dual/quad core Cortex A53 processor and NXP i.MX 8Quad Cortex A53 or A72/A53 SoC with respectively Q7-C25 and Q7-C26 systems-on-module. SECO Qseven i.MX 8/8M System-on-Module Q7-C25 / Q7-C26 specifications: SoC Q7-C25 (one or the other) NXP i.MX 8M Quad 4x Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.5GHz, 1x Cortex-M4 F real-time core, Vivante GC7000Lite GPU, VPU NXP i.MX 8M Dual 2x Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.5GHz, 1x Cortex-M4 F real-time core, Vivante GC7000Lite GPU, VPU NXP i.MX 8M QuadLite 4x Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.5GHz, , 1x Cortex-M4 F real-time core, Vivante GC7000Lite GPU no VPU Q7-C26 (one or the other) NXP i.MX 8QuadMax 2x Cortex-A72 cores + 4x Cortex-A53 cores + 2x Cortex-M4F cores, 2x Vivante […]

ODROID-N1 Canceled due to RAM Supply Issues, ODROID-N2 Coming Later this Year

ODROID N1 Cancelled

Rockchip RK3399 powered by ODROID-N1 board was unveiled earlier this year with two SATA interfaces, up to 4GB RAM, HDMI 2.0 4K UHD output, Gigabit Ethernet,  and more. The plan was to launch the board in May or June for around $100. Sadly, the board has been canceled for reasons we’ll explain below, but the silver lining is that a more powerful ODROID-N2 should become available by the end of the year. The reason for the cancellation is all explained in a forum post in ODROID forums: After announcing the N1 board in February, we started to prepare all the components for the mass production. But Samsung and Hynix suddenly informed us 1GB DDR3 chip was End-of-Life phase and we couldn’t place any order. It meant we could not make 4GB model since there must be four DRAM chips mounted on the board. We could make a 2GB model only […]

SIM7020E 4G NB-IoT Mini Development Board Sells for Just $14

Cheap-NB-IoT-Board

We now have plenty to choose from when it comes to NB-IoT development boards or shields, but so far pricing has not been very attractive, and the cheapest NB-IoT solution I found so far was probably Dragino NB-IoT Bee, a XBee compatible board going for $23. But this morning, I saw an even cheaper NB-IoT board with SIM7020E 4G NB-IOT Mini development board selling for $14.30 on Electrodragon. Not quite the price of 2G solutions, but we’re getting there. Board specifications: NB-IoT Module – SIMCom SIM7020E module working globally with B1/B3/B5/B8/B20/B28 bands supported Nano SIM card holder and u.FL connector for NB-IoT Expansion – 9-pin unpopulated 2.54mm pitch header with 2x UART (3.3V / 5V), ADC, Boot, 3.3V, 5V and GND USB – 1x micro USB port that can be recognized by PC, but as Electrodragon puts it: “not sure how to use it”. Misc – Net LED, power key […]

Semtech SX1261/SX1262 LoRa Development Kit Now Available for $305

SX1261 Evaluation Board

Semtech announced SX1261, SX1262 and SX1268 LoRa chips in January as updates to their current LoRa solutions with a lower footprint, better efficiency, and even longer range. Mass production and development kits were expected in March 2018, and today I found out Semtech SX1261/SX1262 development kit is sold on Mouser for $305. The SX126xDVK1CAS kit comes with the following items: 2x SX126xMB1xAS RF modules including an  ST Nucleo Mbed board and a touchscreen 2x Mini-USB / USB connection cables 2x 868/915MHz antennas 2x Mini-USB cables 2x touchscreen styluses Read-Me Note The SX1261/SX1262 LoRa Transceivers offer continuous frequency coverage from 150MHz to 960MHz. You’ll find information to get started in the user guide. Basically, the two boards will show a menu on the touchscreen with radio test modes, settings and utilities (e.g. firmware update) as well as two demos: DEMO Ping Pong performs a bidirectional range test between the two radio […]

Three Add-on Boards for UP Board and UP Squared – UP-AUDIO HAT, UP-CAMERA HAT, UP-POE HAT

AAEON has announced three add-on boards for their Intel based UP board (Cherry Trail) and UP Squared board (Apollo Lake): UP-AUDIO HAT –  Features external ports for a microphone and speakers/headphones UP-CAMERA HAT – Comes with two FPC/FFC connectors for 2M security camera UP-POE HAT – Adds WAN and LAN Gigabit Ethernet ports and PoE support UP-AUDIO HAT AAEON’s UP-Audio HAT currently only works with UP board, and features the following: Audio Codec – Realtek ALC5672 3.5mm Audio Jacks – 1x Line out, 1x MIC Headers – 2x speaker Built-in Components – 2x digital microphones, 1x buzzer Connects to board via 40-pin GPIO female header Dimensions – 85 mm x 56 mm The board is supported in Windows 10, Android 6, and Ubuntu 16.04. UP-CAMERA HAT The camera board works with UP Board, UP Squared and UP Core boards. UP-CAMERA HAT specifications & features: 2x MIPI CSI-2/ DSI DPHY Re-timer […]

Xilinx Zynq-7020 based PYNQ-Z1 Arm + FPGA Board is Meant to be Programmed with Python

PYNQ Z1

Xilinx Zynq-7000 series is a family of SoC based on Arm Cortex A9 processor coupled with FPGA fabric, and since the introduction in 2012, we’ve seen may board based on the entry-level Zynq-7010 or Zynq-7020 SoCs. Digilent PYNQ-Z1 is another Xilinx Zynq board from the company, but it does not differentiate itself by its hardware features, and instead the software part is the most interesting. The board is designed to be used with PYNQ, a new open-source framework that enables embedded programmers to exploit the capabilities of Xilinx Zynq SoCs without having to design programmable logic circuits, relying instead on Python programming. Digilent PYNQ-Z1 hardware specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq-7020 (XC7Z020-1CLG400C) dual core Arm Cortex-A9 processor with FPGA with 1.3 M reconfigurable gates System Memory – 512MB DDR3 Storage – Micro SD card slot, 16MB QSPI Flash with factory programmed globally unique identifier (48-bit EUI-48/64 compatible). Video – HDMI In […]