Portenta X8 is the first Arm Linux Arduino board

Arduino Portenta X8

In simpler times, Raspberry Pi was making Arm Linux SBC’s, and Arduino MCU boards, but after Raspberry Pi got into the MCU business last year, it’s now time for Arduino to introduce its first Arm Linux board with the Arduino Portenta X8. The new board since comes with the same STM32H7 Cortex-M7/M4 microcontroller found in the Portenta H7 boards, but add a more powerful, Linux-capable NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor with four Cortex-A53 cores and a Cortex-M4 core, coupled with 2GB RAM and a 16GB eMMC flash. Arduino Portenta X8 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini Arm Cortex-A53 quad-core up to 1.8 GHz,1x Cortex-M4 real-time core up to 400MHz. Microcontroller – STMicro STM32H747AII6 Cortex-M7 @ 480 MHz + M4 @ 240 MHz MCU  with 2MB dual-bank Flash memory, 1 MB RAM, Chrom-ART graphical hardware accelerator System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet interface […]

Arduino Braccio++ robotic arm is designed for high-school and university students

Arduino Braccio++ robotic arm

Arduino Education has just launched the Braccio++ robotic arm for advanced students in high school or at university in order to let them experiment with a 6 DOF, industrial, assembly line-inspired robot. The new robotic arm provides an upgrade to the Tinkerkit Braccio robot and has been designed to assist in teaching real-world manufacturing techniques,topics such as physics and robotics, and concepts like motions, forces, torque, gear ratio, stability, and weight of payload.   The Arduino Braccio++ is comprised of the Braccio carrier board equipped with an Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect that controls six Arduino RS485 Smart Servo Motors with specifically four SR418D servo motors for the arm joints, and two SR312 servo motors for the claw. Four lessons and two projects are included in the kit, and it’s made for up to three students. Arduino says the new robotic arm is made of recycled and eco-friendly materials with the […]

Higole F7G Plus Review – An affordable rugged tablet tested with Ubuntu 20.04 & Windows 11

Higole F7G Plus rugged tablet review

Ruggedized industrial-use PCs are typically expensive so it is refreshing to see Higole F7G Plus, an Intel Gemini Lake Refresh tablet, being offered at an affordable price. Higole kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at functionality and performance running on Ubuntu and also its Windows performance. Hardware Overview The Higole F7G Plus is a 10.1 inch IPS touch screen rugged industrial fanless tablet that uses Intel’s 14 nm Gemini Lake Refresh N4120 processor which is a quad-core 4-thread 1.10 GHz Celeron processor boosting to 2.60 GHz with Intel’s UHD Graphics. Designwise, meeting the MIL-STD-810G standard which is the de facto ‘ruggedized’ standard for consumer products and covers whether the device can work in a broad range of environmental conditions including surviving dropping, is evidenced by the thick protective shell around the tablet. To ensure its IP67 Certification for waterproofing each of the ports are covered by detachable rubber […]

ASRock introduces fanless iBOX 1200 Series Alder Lake-U mini PCs

ASRock iBOX 1200 Alder Lake mini PC

ASRock Industrial has unveiled the iBox 1200 series family of fanless mini PCs powered by the latest 12th generation 15W Intel Alder Lake U-series processors, equipped with up to 64GB RAM, and supporting up to four independent displays. The fanless embedded BOX PCs also provide plenty of interfaces with 2.5GbE Gigabit Ethernet, six USB 3.2 ports, two USB 2.0 interfaces, SATA and NVMe storage, M.2 wireless expansion, and more. ASRock iBOX 1200 mini PC specifications: SoC iBOX-1215UE – Intel Core i3-1215UE hexa-core Alder Lake processor with two P-cores @ 1.2 / 4.4 GHz , four E-cores @ 0.9 / 3.3 GHz, 64 EU Intel HD graphics iBOX-1245UE – Intel Core i5-1245UE deca-core Alder Lake processor with two P-cores @ 1.5 / 4.4 GHz , eight E-cores @ 1.1 / 3.3 GHz, 80EU Intel Iris Xe Graphics iBOX-1265UE – Intel Core i7-1265UE hexa-core Alder Lake processor with two P-cores @ 1.7 […]

OK3568-C SBC provides dual GbE, WiFi 5, 4G/5G connectivity, multiple display interfaces

OK3568-C single board computer

Taking a break from the recent RK3588 news, let’s check out a board based on Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor with the Forlinx OK3568-C single board computer equipped with up to 8GB RAM and 64 GB storage. The board is comprised of the company’s FET3568-C system-on-module and OK3568-C carrier board offering multiple display interfaces, plenty of connectivity options with dual Gigabit Ethernet, WiFI 5, Bluetooth 5.0, as well as optional 4G or 5G cellular connectivity, and PCIe slots. OK3568-C specifications: FET3568-C SoM SoC – Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with Mali-G52-2EE GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0, 3.2, Vulkan 1.0,1.1, OpenCL 2.0, 1 TOPS NPU, 4K H.264, H.265, VP9 VPU System Memory – 2GB (default), 4GB, or /8GB DDR4 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash 4x 80-pin board-to-board connectors with I/Os and power signals Supply Voltage – DC5V Dimensions –  70 x 45mm Temperature range […]

CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box – A Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 box for industrial IoT applications

CM4-IO-PoE-4G-Box

While the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 is basically unobtanium, companies keep introducing products based on the Arm system-on-module, and Waveshare CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box is a complete system designed for industrial IoT applications with CAN Bus, RS232 and RS485 interfaces, Ethernet with PoE support, plus optional support for 2G to 5G cellular connectivity. The CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box is based on the “Compute Module 4 PoE 4G” carrier board which itself appears to be an update to the company’s earlier “Compute Module PoE 4G” carrier board for the Raspberry Pi CM3 module. CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box / Compute Module 4 PoE 4GB board specifications: Support SoM – All variants of Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Storage – MicroSD card socket used for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Lite (without eMMC) Display 2x HDMI ports up to 4Kp30 (I suppose even 4Kp60) 2x 15-pin MIPI DSI connectors + openings in the enclosure for flat cables Camera – 2x internal […]

OnLogic announces Factor 201 Raspberry Pi CM4 industrial PC, Factor 202 controller coming soon

Onlogic Factor 201

OnLogic has announced the launch of the Factor 201, a compact fanless industrial PC based on Raspberry Pi CM4 (Compute Module 4) for Edge IoT applications, and is working on the Factor 202 industrial controller with onboard digital and analog I/Os (DIO & AIO), as well as a capacitive touchscreen. OnLogic Factor 201 Specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi CM4 with Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Arm Cortex-A72 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz, up to 8GB LPDDR4 RAM, up to 32GB eMMC flash Additional storage – Optional M.2 SATA SSD (See Expansion section) Video Output – HDMI port up to 4Kp60 Networking 2x Gigabit Ethernet LAN (Optional PoE PD Input) via Realtek RTL8153 controller Optional WiFi/Bluetooth module on Raspberry Pi CM4 module + 3x antenna holes Optional 4G LTE wireless module via M.2 socket USB – 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x USB-C management port Serial – […]

$249 Rockchip RK3588 8K mini PC comes with up to 16GB RAM

Mekotronics R58X RK3588 mini PC

Mekotronics R58X is an embedded mini PC powered by Rockchip RK3588 Cortex-A76/A55 processor with 16GB RAM, dual Gigabit Ethernet, 8K capable HDMI and DisplayPort video output ports, HDMI input, M.2 NVMe storage, and more. This is yet another announcement of Rockchip RK3588 hardware following ROCK5 Pico-ITX SBC, Firefly ITX-3588J mini-ITX motherboard,  and Mixtile Blade 3 server board among others. Melotronix R58X may have different use cases, as it is suitable as an IoT gateway, an industrial PC, an edge computing platform, a video analytics server, digital signage, a vehicle control unit, and other embedded applications. Mekotronics R58X mini PC/SBC specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with four Cortex-A76 cores @ 2.4 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz, an Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU, a 6TOPS NPU, 8K 10-bit decoder, 8K encoder System Memory – Up to 16GB LPDDR4x Storage eMMC 5.1 flash 2x SATA 3.0 connectors + SATA power […]

EDATEC Raspberry Pi 5 fanless case