ADLINK Industrial-Pi (I-Pi) SMARC Development Kit Features Rockchip PX30 SoC

ADLink Industrial Pi-SMARC Devkit

ADLINK Technology has just announced the Industrial-Pi (I-Pi) SMARC Development Kit to help engineers quickly design prototypes for industrial applications using peripherals and sensors. The I-Pi SMARC development kit is comprised of a baseboard, LEC-PX30 SMARC-compliant Rockchip PX30 system-on-module, an acrylic case, a 12V/2A power supply, USB cable, and a 32GB MicroSD card. The company promotes the kit as “an industrial-ready substitute for Arduino and Raspberry Pi (RPi) platforms that are commonly used for prototyping but cannot typically be ‘dropped’ into an industrial solution as-is“. LEC-PX30 SMARC System-on-Module Specifications: SoC – Rockchip PX30 Quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 CPU with TrustZone technology, ARMv8 Cryptography Extensions, Mali-G31 GPU System Memory – 1GB or 2GB DDR3L at 1066/1333 MHz Storage – 8, 16, 32 or 64 GB eMMC flash Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet from SoC, 10/100M Ethernet via LAN9514 USB 2.0 Ethernet controller Video Decoding – H.264 up to 1080p60, H.265/HEVC up to 1080p60, […]

$99 RAK7246 LoRaWAN Developer Gateway Features Raspberry Pi Zero W SBC

Raspberry Pi Zero LoRaWAN Gateway

Outdoor LoRaWAN gateways meant to be deployed in the field usually cost several hundred dollars, so companies also offer cheaper gateways for indoor use that can be used by developers. RAKWireless offers this type of gateway with products such as Pilot Gateway Pro RAK7243 based on Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ board, or RAK7244 LoRaWAN Developer Gateway featuring the more recent Raspberry Pi 4 board and sold for $212 and up with price depending on options such as cellular connectivity. The company has now worked on providing much cheaper indoor/developer gateways with their RAK7246 and RAK7246G LoRAWAN developer gateways with the latter adding GPS. RAK7246 is available. RAK7246 key features and specifications: SBC – Raspberry Pi Zero W board with Broadcom BCM2835 ARM11 processor @ 1GHz, 512MB RAM Storage – 16GB MicroSD card Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 via Cypress CYW43438 module found on RPi Zero W board […]

How to Build & Run Linux on Kendryte K210 RISC-V NOMMU Processor

RISCV64 NOMMU Menuconfig

A few months ago, we wrote that Western Digital was working on Linux & BusyBox RISC-V NOMMU, and managed to boot a minimal Linux OS on Kendryte K210 powered Sipeed Maix Go board. RISC-V NOMMU support was scheduled for Linux 5.5, and now that the new kernel has been released, Damien Le Moal has pushed the code allowing to build Linux and a busybox based roofs for RISC-V 64-bit NOMMU platforms using buildroot. I could start the build following the instructions on Github, but it failed as a Linux 5.6 RC1 tarball was missing. But I noticed “Vowstart” picked up on Damien’s work, and wrote detailed instructions. So let’s try the build out using a machine running Ubuntu 18.04. We’ll have to make sure dependencies are installed first:

Then we can retrieve the source code and do some preparations (e.g. extract Linux 5.6 RC1 tarball):

The next step […]

Amlogic A113L Dual-Core Cortex-A35 Processor Targets Smart Audio and IoT Applications

Amlogic A113L Meson A1

Over two years ago, we reported about Amlogic A111, A112, A113 processors designed for audio applications such as smart speakers. A111 features four Cortex-A5 32-bit core, while A112 and A113D/A113X processors come with four Cortex-A53 cores instead. We have not heard much about those since then, but all those processors are still listed on Amlogic website, A112 is supposedly used in Xiaomi AI smart speaker, and Amlogic A113X1 Far-Field Dev Kit is still listed on Amazon’s list of devkits for Alexa voice service, but currently out of stock. Amlogic has been working on a more cost-efficient processor for smart audio and IoT applications with Amlogic A113L dual-core Cortex-A35 processor shown as Meson A1 in the Linux source code. It was just added in Linux 5.5. We don’t have much information about it, but it’s interesting as it’s the first Cortex-A35 processor from the company, and it targets the same smart […]

MikroTik wAP LoRa8/LoRa9 LoRa Gateway Kits Launched for $169

MikroTik wAP LoRa8 Kit

Last year, MikroTik announced they had worked on several LoRa products including R11e-LoRa8EU mini PCIe LoRaWAN Gateway/concentrator card, wAP LoRa8 kit (LoRa & WiFi gateway) with the mini PCIe card, as well as a 6.5 dBi Omni antenna kit to extend the range provided by the 2 dBi internal antenna. All three products are now available with R11e-LoRa8EU mini PCIe selling for $89, wAP LoRa8 kit going for $169, and the optional antenna kit adding $49. The company also introduced wAP LoRa9 kit with R11e-LoRa9 mini PCIe card geared towards markets (like the USA) using the 902-928 MHz frequency band and selling for the same price. MikroTik wAP LoRa8 kit (RBwAPR-2nD&R11e-LoRa8) specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Atheros QCA9531 MIPSBE (Big Endian) processor @ 650 MHz System Memory – 64 MB RAN Storage – 16 MB flash Connectivity Wired – 10/100M Fast Ethernet WLAN – 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 @ up […]

Versalogic Grizzly Embedded Server Board is Powered by a 16-Core Intel Atom C3958 Processor

Versalogic Grizzly with Heat Pipe

Launched in 2016, Intel Atom Denverton processors are usually found in motherboards for low power servers hosted in data centers as well as in network appliances. But Versalogic Grizzly embedded server board fitted with the 16-core Atom C3958 Denverton processor aims specifically at embedded systems with applications ranging from smart-grid, and smart-city applications, to transportation, security, and defense operations. Versalogic Grizzly (VL-ESU-5070) key features and specifications: Processor – Intel C3958 16-core Denverton server-class processor @ 2.0 GHz System Memory – 4x SO-DIMM sockets for up to 128 GB DDR4 of ECC memory Storage – 2x SATA 3 ports, bootable mSATA socket, bootable M.2 NVMe SSD socket Networking – 2x 10GbE SFP+ ports (copper or fiber), 4x Gigabit Ethernet ports Video output – None, but optional VGA/LVDS mini PCIe card available Audio – No on-board audio, but optional VL-ADR-01 audio interface available USB – 2x USB 3.0 host ports Serial – […]

Kontron Launches AMD Ryzen Embedded Mini-ITX Board for Graphics Applications

AMD Ryzen Embedded mini-ITX Board

We’ve seen several AMD Ryzen Embedded boards launched over the last couple of years, but the only one we covered here that happens to follow the mini-ITX form factor was iBASE MI988 motherboard powered by a choice of Ryzen Embedded V1000 processors. But there are others including Sapphire IPC-FP5V 10GbE embedded mini-ITX motherboard, and Kontron has just announced the D3713-V/R mITX motherboard with AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000/R1000 processor and aimed at “demanding graphics applications” such as kiosks, infotainment, digital signage, professional casino gaming systems, medical displays, as well as thin clients and industrial PCs. Kontron D3713-V/R mITX specifications: SoC (one or the other) AMD Ryzen Embedded V1202B dual-core/quad-thread Zen processor @ 2.3 GHz / 3.2 GHz (Boost frequency) with RADEON VEGA 3 graphics; 12W to 25W TDP AMD Ryzen Embedded V1605B quad-core/octa-thread Zen processor @ 2.0 GHz / 3.6 GHz (Boost frequency) with RADEON VEGA 8 graphics; 12W to 25W […]

Kontron Launches the Smallest i.MX 8M Mini Module with 30x30mm Form Factor

Kontron Smallest i.MX 8M Mini Module

Introduced in 2018, NXP i.MX 8M Mini is the first i.MX processor from the company manufactured with a 14nm process, and the low-power processor is found in several compact modules such as Variscite VAR-SOM-MX8M-MINI (38×28 mm), SolidRun i.MX 8M Mini SoM (47×30 mm), or Compulab UCM-iMX8M-Mini (38×28 mm). The smallest i.MX 8M Mini module we’ve covered so far is TechNexion XORE-IMX8M-Mini LGA system-on-module that takes just 30×30 mm of space. The TechNexion module is now joined by Kontron SoM SL i.MX8M Mini module with the same 30x30mm form factor, but a few more pins (267 vs 225). Kontron SoM SL i.MX8M Mini specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.6 GHz with one Arm Cortex-M4 real-time core @ 400 MHz, as well as 2D GPU and 3D GPU System Memory – 1GB LPDDR4 RAM (option up to 4GB) Storage – 8GB eMMC flash (option up […]