development board News - Page 43 of 260 - CNX Software

November 30, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

HLK-W801 board features Alibaba Xuantie XT804 based MCU with WiFi 4, Bluetooth LE 4.2

Earlier this month, we wrote about the 240 MHz WinnerMicro W806 Alibaba Xuantie XT804 C-Sky microcontroller with 1MB flash, 288KB SRAM found in the $2 HLK-W806 development board. But the company has a nearly identical WinnerMicro W801 microcontroller that bumps the internal flash to 2MB, and more importantly adds a 2.4 GHz radio with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE 4.2 connectivity, and HiLink also released the HLK-W801 board that’s nearly identical to HLK-W806, except for some extra LEDs, a USB-C port instead of a Micro USB port, and a longer form factor to make space for the PCB antenna. HLK-W801 board specifications: MCU – WinnerMicro W801 32-bit Alibaba XT804 microcontroller @ 240 MHz with 2MB Flash, 288KB RAM, FPU, DSP, crypto engine, 2.4 GHz radio Connectivity 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 up to 150 Mbps supporting station, soft AP and station+soft AP modes, WPA2 security Bluetooth 4.2 Expansion – 2x 24-pin headers […]

November 25, 2021November 25, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Arduino UNO Mini Limited Edition launched to celebrate 10 million Arduino UNO milestone

Ten million Arduino UNO boards have been shipped since its launch in 2010, and the Arduino team has designed the Arduino UNO Mini Limited Edition to celebrate the impressive milestone. The Arduino UNO Mini has basically all the same features as the original Arduino UNO but uses a quarter of the area, and features a USB Type-C port for programming the board with the Arduino IDE. Arduino UNO Mini Limited Edition specifications: Microcontroller – Microchip ATmega328P 8-bit AVR microcontroller @ 16 MHz with 2KB SRAM, 32KB flash, 1 KB EEPROM USB – 1x USB Type-C port Expansion via female headers and castellated holes 14x digital I/O pins (GPIO, I2C, SPI, UART) 6x PWM I/O pins 6x analog input pins Misc – Button, Some LEDs Input Voltage – 6-20V via VIN/GND pins or 5V via USB-C port Operating Voltage – 5V Dimensions – 34.2 x 26.7 x 8mm Weight – […]

November 24, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Arrow launches PSA Certified PSoC 64 IoT Security Workshop Development Kit

In 2019, we wrote that Cypress PSoC 64 microcontrollers for Secure IoT applications was one of the first microcontrollers compliant with Arm’s Platform Security Architecture (PSA) designed to secure the Internet of Things. Arrow has now launched the PSoC 64 IoT Security Workshop Development Kit, its first PSA Certified platform, which happens to be based on Cypress PSoC 64, and developed in collaboration with Infineon who purchased Cypress Semiconductor last year. Designed to help developers quickly create PSA Certified solutions, the development kit includes the Infineon PSoC 64 Secure AWS IoT Pioneer Kit, Arrow PSoC 6 IoT Sensor Shield, Shield2Go kits, and AWS cloud enablement with certified functional APIs and integrated dashboard for monitoring and visualization. There are three levels for PSA certification: level 1 for device manufacturers involves the evaluation of an IoT device to assess whether it adheres to security best practice, level 2 with a laboratory evaluation […]

November 8, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

WinnerMicro W806 240 MHz MCU finds it way into a $2 development board

I’ve just been notified about an inexpensive board (HLK-W806) based on WinnerMicro W806 32-bit XT804 (XuanTie E804) microcontroller clocked at up to 240 MHz and equipped with 1MB flash and 288KB RAM. XuanTie is the microcontroller family from Alibaba’s subsidiary T-Head Semiconductor, notably XuanTie RISC-V cores, but I’ve just learned not all XuanTie cores are based on the RISC-V architecture, and as we’ll see below, Xuantie E804 core appears to be based on the C-Sky architecture. It may still be interesting, as it’s in the STM32 board price range (pre-2020), but with a much higher frequency, so let’s have a look. HLK-W806 development board specifications: MCU – WinnerMicro W806 32-bit XT804 microcontroller @ 240 MHz with 1MB Flash, 288KB RAM, FPU, DSP, crtypto engine Expansion – 2x 24-pin headers with (based on MCU specs) 1x SDIO host with support for SDIO 2.0, SDHC, MMC 4.2 1x SDIO device up to […]

November 5, 2021November 7, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 148 Comments

Giveaway Week – Bluetrum AB32VG1 RISC-V board

The next prize for our once-in-a-year giveaway week is Bluetrum AB32VG1 RISC-V development board based on Bluetrum AB5301A MCU. The board is designed for Bluetooth audio applications as well as general-purpose applications and comes with Arduino headers for expansion. A USB Type-C cable is also included for power and programming. I tested the RISC-V board with RT-Thread open-source operating systems, and let’s say it was quite challenging because development tools need to be improved, but RT-Thread developers are committed to providing a better experience to developers. What’s important is that in the end, after some efforts, I managed to blink an LED and play some music through a pair of speakers connected to the 3.5mm audio jack, and the USB port for power. At the time of review, there was no Bluetooth sample, and a quick look at the documentation shows it may not be available just yet. If you’d […]

November 3, 2021November 3, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Conexio Stratus – An nRF9160 board with solar energy harvesting capability (Crowdfunding)

Conexio Stratus board is equipped with Nordic Semi nRF9160 System in Package (SiP) with LTE-M (eMTC) & NB-IoT cellular IoT connectivity as well as GPS support through a pair of u.FL connectors for antennas, together with 500MB of mobile data valid for ten years. Designed for battery operation, the devkit comes with built-in battery charging, monitoring, and energy-harvesting circuitry, plus an accelerometer and a temperature and humidity sensor that makes it ideal for prototyping cellular IoT systems such as asset-tracking applications, environmental monitoring, and smart-meter monitoring, among others. Conexio Stratus board Conexio Stratus specifications: SiP – Nordic Semi nRF9160 system-in-package with Arm Cortex M33 MCU, 1 MB Flash, 256 kB RAM, cellular IoT modem, and GPS. Cellular Connectivity 3GPP LTE release 13 Category M1 and NB1 compliant 3GPP release 14 NB2 compliant RF Transceiver for global coverage supporting bands: Cat-M1: B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B8, B12, B13, B14, […]

November 3, 2021November 5, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 155 Comments

Giveaway Week – Maker Pi Pico board

If you have not played with Raspberry Pi Pico board, here’s an opportunity, as the third prize of our giveaway week is the Maker Pi Pico board fitted with the Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU board, and providing easy access to I/Os with headers and Grove connector, plus a buzzer, an audio jack, and a MicroSD card socket for people needing storage. I reviewed the Maker Pi Pico board with CircuitPython, and it was more convenient than the bare Raspberry Pi Pico thanks to the reset button and an LED is assigned for each I/O. You could also add an ESP-01 module for WiFi connectivity since there’s an 8-pin header for that purpose. The CNXSoft signature on the back of the board clearly brings infinite value to the board. It’s just like an NFT, except it’s real ;). If you don’t think so, you could always use some alcohol to wipe […]

October 30, 2021December 23, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

Build an open source-hardware Allwinner D1s RISC-V Linux SBC for under $10

We covered Allwinner D1s RISC-V processor with 64MB built-in RAM a few days ago, and we’ve just found out about Xassette-Asterisk, an open-source hardware board based on the processor that runs Linux (OpenWrt) and is said to cost less than $10 to make. This is significantly cheaper than the Allwinner D1 based Nezha RISC-V Linux SBC currently sold for a little over $100, a rather poor value. The cheaper board will not quite have the same applications with just 64 MB RAM and no HDMI, but it could be great for projects requiring a camera and/or a display, audio interfaces, plus some I/Os. Xassette-Asterisk specifications: SoC – Allwinner D1s single-core 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 1.008 GHz with 64MB DDR2 Storage – MicroSD card slot, 32 MBit SPI flash (W25Q32 – U2 on the board) Display I/F – 40-pin LCD connector, 6-pin touch panel interface, backlight power Camera I/F – 24-pin […]