development board News - Page 69 of 261 - CNX Software

July 11, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 41 Comments

NanoPi NEO3 Headless SBC Launched for $20 and up

Last month, we found out FriendlyELEC was working on NanoPi NEO3, a tiny SBC powered by Rockchip RK3328 processor and made for headless applications and networked storage thanks to Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 ports, as well as a 26-pin GPIO header. At the time, the board was still been finalized, but the company has now started to take orders for $20 and up depending on options which include a cute white enclosure.. Here’s a quick reminder of NanoPi NEO3 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor with Mali-450MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB or 2GB DDR4 Storage – MicroSD Slot for system boot and storage Video Output – N/A Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet with unique MAC via RTL8211E PHY USB – 1x USB3.0 Type-A port, 2x USB2.0 on 2.54mm 8-pin header Expansion – 26-pin header with I2C, UART, SPI, I2S, GPIO Debugging – 3-pin header for […]

July 10, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

RFCat N32 Long Range nRF52832 Bluetooth Board Delivers 30x the Transmission Power with an Amplifier

Bluetooth 5.0 has two main new features: high speed (2Mbps) and long-range. But as we’ve seen in our nRF52840 vs nRF52832 vs nRF52810 comparison is that only nRF52840 supports Bluetooth 5.x long range. Bluetooth 5 long range is achieved with two new lower bit rates of 500 kbps and 125 kbps. So what do you do if you’d like a longer range and keep using the higher bit rates? You add a power amplifier and LNA to your board, and that’s exactly what Nikolaj (RFCat) did with RFCat N32 board based on Nordic Semi nRF52832 wireless SoC. RFCat N32 board specifications: Wireless module – Meshtek-H52 Smart Mesh Module with integrated PCB antenna based on Nordic Semi nRF52832 Arm Cortex-M4F Bluetooth 5-ready SoC (See datasheet) Skyworks RFX2401C PA &LNA with 18.9dBm TX gain and 11dBm RX gain USB – 1x USB-C port for power, programming and debugging via CP2102N USB to […]

July 8, 2020July 8, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Maia ESP32-S2 Development Board Features Micro USB OTG Port, Prototyping Area

One of the advantages of the new ESP32-S2 processor is that it offers a USB OTG interface. So far few boards took advantage of the extra interface, and one of the rare ones is Cucumber ESP32-S2 board with a USB-C OTG port. There’s another option with a slightly unusual form factor thanks to Stetel Things’ Maia ESP32-S2 development board with the typical USB-C port for power and debugging, plus a micro USB OTG port, and a small prototyping area. Maia ESP32-S2 development board specifications: SoC – Espressif System ESP32-S2 single-core LX7 processor at up to 240 MHz with an ultra-low-power (ULP) RISC-V CPU, 320KB RAM Storage – 4MB flash Connectivity – 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 with on-board PCB antenna USB 1x Micro USB OTG port for data and power 1x USB-C port for programming (virtual UART) and power Expansion 24-pin I/O header “Playground” prototyping area with 4x 18 through holes including […]

July 6, 2020July 6, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Feather-Sized Evo M51 Board Combines Atmel SAMD51 MCU with Intel MAX 10 FPGA

Arduino unveiled its first FPGA board around two years ago with MKR Vidor 4000 combining an Intel Cyclone FPGA with Microchip SAMD21 Cortex-M0+ MCU in a form factor similar to Arduino Zero. But in case you are looking for an even smaller Arduino compatible FPGA board, Alorium Technology’s Evo M51 might be exactly what you are after. The Adafruit Feather-sized board is equipped with an Atmel SAMD51 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller coupled with an Intel MAX 10 FPGA. Evo M51 specifications: MCU – Microchip (Atmel) SAMD51 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller clocked at 120 MHz with 512KB flash, 192 KB SRAM FPGA – Intel MAX 10 (10M25) FPGA with 25K LEs, 675Kbit block memory Storage – 2MB external flash USB – 1x micro USB port for power and programming I/O Digital 55x Total Digital I/O – 21x through-hole/castellated vias, 34x additional castellated-only 6x digital pins shared with analog pins 3.3V Inputs, 3.3V Outputs […]

July 5, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Upcoming SAVVY-V Open Source RISC-V Cluster Board Supports 10GbE via Microsemi PolarFire 64-bit RISC-V SoC

SAVVY-V Open Source-PolarFire RISC-V SOC FPGA Board

RISC-V based PolarFire SoC FPGA by Microsemi may be coming up in the third quarter of this year, but Ali Uzel has been sharing a few details about SAVVY-V advanced open-source RISC-V cluster board made by FOSOH-V (Flexible Open SOurce Hardware for RISC-V) community of developers. It’s powered by Microsemi Polarfire RISC-V SoC MPFS250T with four 64-bit RISC-V cores, a smaller RV64IMAC monitor core, and FPGA fabric that allows 10GbE via SFP+ cages, and exposes six USB Type-C ports. The solution is called a cluster board since up to six SAVVY-V boards can be stacked via a PC/104+ connector and interfaced via the USB-C ports. SAVVY-V cluster board preliminary features and specifications: SoC – Microsemi Polarfire RISC-V SoC MPFS250T with a quad-core 64-bit RV64IMAFDC (RV64GC) processor @ up to 667 MHz, a RV64IMAC monitor core, and FPGA fabric with 250K logic elements; 3.0 CoreMarks/MHz, 2.0 DMIPs/MHz; Also compatible with MPFS160T, […]

June 29, 2020June 29, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

Tiny NanoPi NEO3 SBC Targets Networked Storage with GbE and USB 3.0

Once upon a time, FriendlyELEC launched a Raspberry Pi Zero competitor for headless applications with Allwinner H3 powered NanoPi NEO, which was then followed with NanoPi NEO2 equipped with a more powerful Allwinner H5 processor and Gigabit Ethernet, and less than two years ago, NanoPi NEO4 was launched with Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, 1GB RAM, and HDMI output. “Wait! What happened to NanoPi NEO3?!” you may ask. It probably got lost in the woods, but FriendlyELEC found it under a rock, and are about to launch NanoPi NEO3 SBC based on Rockchip RK3328 and offering a USB 3.0 port and Gigabit Ethernet network connectivity. NanoPi NEO3 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor with Mali-450MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB or 2GB DDR4 Storage – MicroSD Slot for system boot and storage Video Output – N/A Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet with unique MAC via RTL8211E PHY USB […]

June 28, 2020June 28, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

J721E DRA829/TDA4VM/AM752x – Texas Instruments Cortex-A72 based Monster SoC’s

J721E DRA829 TDA4VM AM752x Block Diagran

Texas Instruments unveiled their first 64-bit processor in 2018 with TI AM654 “Keystone III” quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 + dual lockstep Cortex-R5F processor designed for general embedded and industrial applications. The company is now working on a more powerful processor with J721E SoC with Cortex-A72 cores belonging to the K3 Multicore SoC architecture platform appearing in TI Linux git repository. Ti J721E is a monster of an SoC, not necessarily in terms of CPU processing power, but it has an amazing amount of features and peripherals. I’m not going to list all specifications of this monster SoC, and we’ll do with J721E highlights instead: CPU Dual Cortex-A72 up to 2.0 GHz in a single cluster Up to three clusters of lockstep capable dual Cortex-R5F MCUs @ 1.0 GHz AI Accelerator / DSP Deep-learning Matrix Multiply Accelerator (MMA) @ up to 1.0 GHz (8 TOPS for 8-bit inference) C7x floating-point Vector DSP […]

June 24, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Sipeed TANG Hex is a Low-Cost Xilinx Zynq-7020 Arm FPGA Board

Last year, Sipeed launched a $5 FPGA board called Sipeed Tang and based on an entry-level Gowin GW1N-1-LV FPGA. But I had not noticed the company had also worked on a more powerful, yet still low-cost Xilinx Zynq-7020 board in a business card form factor not too dissimilar from the Raspberry Pi model B form factor. Meet Sipeed TANG Hex. So far a low-cost Zynq-7010 or Zynq-7020 board met you had to spend $99 to $199 with products such as MyIR Z-Turn and Digilent PYNQ-Z1. But Sipeed Tang HEX can be purchased for as little as $73 shipping on Aliexpress, or 439 RMB ($62) on Taobao for people based in mainland China. It might be tempting to get a low-cost board to get started, but is it worth it? Read on to find out. Sipeed TANG Hex specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq-7020 (XC7Z020-1CLG484) dual-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor and FPGA with […]