Faytech FTA20 Allwinner A20 Industrial SBC Works with Touch Panels

Faytech is a company specializing in touch monitors and touch pc, but recently they started to develop embedded boards, and their latest FTA20 single board computer is powered by Allwinner A20 SoC, and offer various optional wireless options like Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, and GPS. The board also supports the company’s 9.7”, 10.1”, 15” and 21.5” capacitive displays. FTA20 Specifications (to be confirmed): SoC – Allwinner A20 dua lcore Cortex A7 processor @ 1GHz with Mali-400MP2 GPU @ 500MHz System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND Flash, 1x SD card slot, 1x SATA port (via headers) Video Output – 1x HDMI, 1x VGA, 18/24Bit LVDS Audio – Audio-Chip Integrated HI-FI 100dB Audio Codec, 2x3W amplifier; 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio Codec; 1x Line-In, 1x Line-Out Connectivity 1x 10/100/1000Mbit RJ45 Ports with connector for POE WiFi Optional Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS 1x SIM-card (to be used with mPCIe modem???) USB […]

FireWRT is an OpenWRT 802.11ac Board Powered by Mediatek MT7621A Processor

There are plenty of low cost 802.11n routers or boards supporting OpenWRT, even starting at $10 or less such as A5-V11 mini router, but if you’re looking for something a bit more powerful with 802.11ac connectivity, options are much more limited, especially if you need something at a lower cost. One option is Xiaomi MiWiFi router based on Mediatek MT7620A with 64MB RAM, and T-Firefly team is now working on FireWRT board based on the more powerful MT7621A processor coupled with 512 MB RAM, and 16 MB SPI flash. FireWRT specifications: Wi-Fi SoC – Mediatek MT7621A dual core MIPS 1004Kc processor @ 880MHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 (Beta version: 256 MB) Storage – 16 MB SPI flash memory, 2x SATA 3.0 ports, micro SD card slot Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n @ 2.4GHz up to 300Mbps 802.11 a/n/ac @ 5 GHz, up to 867Mbps (AC1200 class router) External High-Gain Antennas […]

Samsung Artik is a Family of Arduino Compatible Boards for IoT Applications

There was a time when development boards were only reserved to companies, then boards like Arduino or Beagleboard made these available and affordable to consumers, and with the introduction of the Raspberry Pi, the maker movement grew even more rapidly, and many low cost boards started to be designed and manufactured mostly my smallest companies. But now larger companies like Intel or Qualcomm have jumped on the makers’ bandwagon, and the latest entry is Samsung with their Artik platform currently comprised of three boards that are programmable with the Arduino IDE. Let’s go through specifications for the three boards: Artik 1 SoC – Dual Core MIPS32 processor @ 250MHz (microAptiv UP) and 80MHz (microAptiv UC) without GPU Memory – 1MB RAM on-chip Storage – 4MB SPI flash Display – Up to WVGA (800×480) Connectivity – Bluetooth Low Energy with chip antenna Security – Secure element Sensor – 9-axis motion sensor […]

Orange Pi Plus (Allwinner H3) Firmware Images and Linux SDK Released

Orange Pi Plus is a development board based on the new Allwinner H3 quad core Cortex A7 processor that supports 4K video output and decoding. The boards comes with 1GB RAM, 8GB eMMC, HDMI output, Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, SATA and more, and sells for $49 on Aliexpress. When I first covered the board in February, it was already listed on Aliexpress, but I could not find any firmware image, or source code, but this has now changed. There are now four firmware files: Lubuntu_1404_For_OrangePiplus_v0_8_0_.img.xz – Lubuntu 14.04 image Raspbian_For_OrangePiplus_v0_8_0.img.xz – Raspbian for Allwinner H3 orangepi-plus-debian-server-card-v0.9.img.xz – A Debian server image sun8iw7p1_android_orangepi-plus_uart0.rar – Android 4.4.2 image that needs to be flash with PhoenixCard in Windows (Linux tools are not working yet) Beside the firmware images, the company also releases a Linux SDK (h3-lichee-1.0.tar.gz) with Linux 3.4 kernel source code, u-boot, and relevant tools. I assume these should also work on Orange […]

CHIP is a $9 Linux Development Board Powered by Allwinner R8 (Crowdfunding)

It’s quite common to find MCU board for less than $10, but if you want to run Linux, you’ll need to spend a bit more, unlessit’s sponsored, and today, the cheapest you can get is probably the $20 Raspberry Pi Model A+, unless you go with some OpenWRT compatible routers. But there’s now a new board in development, called CHIP, with Allwinner R8 Cortex A8 processor, 512MB RAM, and 4GB NAND flash, as well as wireless connectivity, that will bring cost even lower, as you can pledge $9 on Kickstarter to fund its development. C.H.I.P specifications: SoC – Allwinner R8 Cortex A8 processor @ 1 GHz with Mali-400 GPU (Compatible with Allwinner A13) System Memory – 512 MB RAM Storage – 4GB NAND flash Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0 Video Output – 3.5mm jack for composite video and audio (HDMI and VGA available via adapters) USB – […]

Forlinx Embedded Introduces a Features-packed Freescale i.MX6 Industrial Board

Forlinx Embedded Technology has made several ARM9, ARM11, and Cortex A8 boards in the past, and they’ve now launched their first ARM Cortex-A9 board powered by Freescale i.MX6 Quad processor with 1GB RAM, 8GB eMMC Flash, HDMI, LCD, and LVDS interfaces, mPCIe connector for 3G module, SATA, GPS, CAN bus, RS485 port, and more. The board is composed of a baseboard and a 220-pin CPU module (soldered) with the following combined specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX6 Quad with 4x ARM Cortex A9 cores @ up to 1.2 GHz and Vivante GC2000 3D GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC, SATA connector, and SD card slot up to 32GB Video Output / Display I/F – HDMI  1.4, LCD interface (7″ capacitive touch available), and 2x 8-bit LVDS interface. 4-wire resistive touch. Audio – 1x stereo audio jack, 1x mono microphone jack, 2x speaker headers Camera I/F – 1x […]

Variscite DART-MX6 is a Tiny SoM with Freescale i.MX6 SoC, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

Variscite has unveiled what they claim to be the world’s smallest i.MX6 SoM with DART-MX6, a 50x20mm system-on-module featuring Freescale i.MX6 dual or quad processor, up to 1GB RAM, up to 32GB eMMC flash, as well as a wireless module for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. Other small i.MX6 modules include TechNexion PICO-iMX6, or SolidRun microSoM found in Hummingbird board, and DART-MX6 has indeed the smallest area among the three. DART-MX6 specifications: SoC- Freescale i.MX6 dual or quad core Cortex A9 processor up to 800 MHz with Vivante GC2000 3D GPU System Memory –  512 to 1024 MB LPDDR2 (PoP) Storage – 4 to 32GB eMMC flash, 4KB I2C EEPROM Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n + MIMO, Bluetooth 4.0  BLE (TI WL183xMOD WiLink) Audio Codec – Texas Instruments TLV320AIC3106 Interfaces and I/Os via 2x 80-pin and 1x 50-pin board to board connectors Camera Interfaces – 1x CSI, 2x CPI Display – […]

$10 Digistump Oak ESP8266EX Board is Arduino Compatible, Connects to the Cloud, and More (Crowdfunding)

A few years ago, I wondered why adding Wi-Fi to Arduino had to be rather expensive ($40+), and why there weren’t any low cost and small form factor Wi-Fi boards for embedded applications. But we’re now in 2015, embedded is “dead” giving rise to IoT, and I’m left wondering how it’s possible to make IoT Wi-Fi modules that cheap, and whether people will ever stop churning out cheap Wi-Fi boards, as I’m flooded with such news weekly… So when I saw yet another ESP8266 board on Kickstarter I was about to dismiss it, but since it was made by Digistump, that has an active community with their other products like DigiSpark Pro or DigiX, I decided to have a closer look. Digistump Oak hardware specifications: MCU – Espressif ESP8266EX 32-bit microprocessor @ 80MHz (overclockable up to 160MHz)  with 1MB ROM (~300KB available for user code), 64KB RAM, 512 bytes EEPROM […]

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