BIGTREETECH recently announced the release of the BIGTREETECH Pi 2 SBC and BIGTREETECH CB2 SoM, both powered by the Rockchip RK3566 SoC. These new modules are direct upgrades from the BIGTREETECH Pi v1.2 and BIGTREETECH CB1, which we covered and reviewed in our previous posts. Specially designed for 3D printers, these new modules have a similar form factor to that of a Raspberry Pi and the RPI CM4 module, and come with a set of upgraded features including support for GbE Ethernet, dual-band WiFi, up to 32GB of LPDDR4 RAM, eMMC storage, HDMI, USB, and more. BIGTREETECH Pi 2 Specifications SoC – Rockchip RK3566 CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali G52-2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0 NPU – 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator VPU – 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoding, 1080p100f H.265/H.264 video encoding System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 (Customizable – 1GB/2GB/4GB/8GB) […]
Louder Raspberry Pi is an open-source home media center that is powered by Raspberry Pi Zero and a TI TAS5805M DAC
Louder Raspberry Pi is an open-source home media center based on a combination of the Raspberry Pi Zero W or Zero 2 W and the Texas Instruments TAS5805M DAC. It is an audio entertainment platform created by Andriy Malyshenko of Sonocotta, a Polish electronics hobbyist and maker. Louder Raspberry Pi incorporates the computing power of the Raspberry Pi Zero and the Hi-Fi audio processing capabilities of TI’s TAS5805M DAC in a compact, aluminum case. The device delivers up to 25W per channel stereo output and is powered via a 65W+ USB-C PD3.0 adapter. It is “aimed to be paired with medium-to-large speaker systems” and supports both Wi-Fi and Ethernet. The Raspberry Pi board was selected over other lightweight alternatives due to the ease of development it offers. The Raspberry Pi Zero board is small enough to make for an overall compact device and powerful enough to handle the demands of […]
Testing ntttcp as an iperf3 alternative in Windows 11 (and Linux)
ntttcp (Windows NT Test TCP) is a network benchmarking utility similar to iperf3 that works in both Windows and Linux written and recommended by Microsoft over iperf3, so we’ll test the alternative in this mini review. iperf3 is a utility of choice for our reviews of single board computers and mini PCs running either Windows or Linux, but we’ve noticed that while Ethernet (up to 2.5GbE) usually performs just as well in Windows and Linux, WiFi is generally much faster in Ubuntu 22.04 than in Windows 11. So when XDA developers noticed a post by Microsoft saying iperf3 should not be used on Windows 11, it caught my attention. Microsoft explains iperf3 should not be used in Windows for three main reasons: The maintainer of iperf – ESnet (Energy Sciences Network) – says “iperf3 is not officially supported on Windows, but iperf2 is. We recommend you use iperf2. Some people […]
Industrial control board combines Raspberry Pi CM4/CM5 with STM32H7 MCU for real-time control
Paisley Microsystems PMC-C-CMX is a DIN-Rail mountable industrial control board taking a Raspberry Pi CM4 or CM5 (once launched), equipped with an STM32H7 Arm Cortex-M7 microcontroller for real-time control. The carrier board integrates features such as wide voltage input (7 to 55V DC), an M.2 PCIe Gen 3 Key-B and Key-M sockets with cellular option, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and MIPI DSI display interfaces, twp MIPI CSI camera interfaces, and several headers and connectors with RS485, GPIO, I2S, SPI, and more connected to either the Raspberry Pi Compute Module or the STM32H7 MCU. Paisley Microsystems PMC-C-CMX specifications: Supported system-on-modules – Raspberry Pi CM4 or upcoming Raspberry Pi CM5 MCU – STMicro STM32H7B0 Arm Cortex-M7 microcontroller up to 280 MHz with 128KB flash, 1.4MB SRAM MCU <-> CM communication – UART and/or SPI Video Output 2x HDMI ports up to 4Kp60 2x MIPI DSI connectors Camera input – 2x MIPI CSI connectors […]
AAEON BOXER-8645AI Jetson AGX Orin-powered embedded AI system supports up to 8 GMSL2 cameras
AAEON BOXER-8645AI is an embedded AI system powered by NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin that features eight GMSL2 connectors working with e-con Systems’ NileCAM25 Full HD global shutter GMSL2 color cameras with up to 15-meter long cables. The BOXER-8645AI is fitted with the Jetson AGX Orin 32GB with 32GB LPDDR5 and 64GB flash and up to 200 TOPS of AI performance. Other features include M.2 NVMe and 2.5-inch SATA storage, 10GbE and GbE networking ports, HDMI videos, and a few DB9 connectors for RS232, RS485, DIO, and CAN Bus interfaces. The embedded system takes 9V to 36V wide DC input from a 3-pin terminal block. AAEON BOXER-8645AI specifications: AI accelerator module – NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin 32GB CPU – 8-core Arm Cortex-A78AE v8.2 64-bit processor with 2MB L2 + 4MB L3 cache GPU / AI accelerators NVIDIA Ampere architecture with 1792 NVIDIA CUDA cores and 56 Tensor Cores @ 1 GHz […]
congatec conga-SA8 Amston Lake SMARC modules are targeted at industrial edge applications
Congatec’s new conga-SA8 SMARC modules are powered by the Intel Atom x7000RE “Amston Lake” processors. With twice the processing cores and similar power consumption to the previous generation, congatec’s new credit-card-sized modules are “intended for future-facing industrial edge computing and powerful virtualization.” An Intel Core i3‑N305 Alder Lake-N processor is also offered as an alternative to the Intel Atom x7000RE series for high-performance IoT edge applications. The conga-SA8 modules support up to 16GB LPDDR5 onboard memory, 256GB eMMC 5.1 onboard flash memory, and offer several high-bandwidth interfaces such as USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe Gen 3, and SATA Gen 3. The integrated Intel UHD Gen 12 graphics processing unit has up to 32 execution units and can power three independent 4K displays. The conga-SA8 is described as virtualization-ready and has a hypervisor (virtual machine monitor) integrated into the firmware. The RTS hypervisor takes complete advantage of the eight processing cores […]
Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 Platform with Qualcomm QCS6490 AI SoC targets robotics, IoT and embedded applications
Qualcomm had two main announcements at Embedded World 2024: the ultra-low-power Qualcomm QCC730 WiFi microcontroller for battery-powered IoT devices and the Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 Platform hardware and software solution designed for IoT and embedded applications based on the Qualcomm QCS6490 processor that we’re going to cover today. The kit is comprised of a QCS6490 octa-core Cortex-A78/A55 system-on-module with 12 TOPS of AI performance, 6GB RAM, and 128GB UFS flash connected to the 96Boards-compliant Qualcomm RBx development mainboard through interposer, as well as optional cameras, microphone array, and sensors. Qualcomm QCS6490/QCM6490 IoT processor Specifications: CPU – Octa-core Kryo 670 with 1x Gold Plus core (Cortex-A78) @ 2.7 GHz, 3x Gold cores (Cortex-A78) @ 2.4 GHz, 4x Silver cores (Cortex-A55) @ up to 1.9 GHz GPU – Adreno 643L GPU @ 812 MHz with support for Open GL ES 3.2, Open CL 2.0, Vulkan 1.x, DX FL 12 DSP – Hexagon […]
ADLINK unveils Intel Atom x7000RE & x7000C Amston Lake COM Express and SMARC 2.1 modules
ADLINK has released two Intel Atom X7000RE & x7000C Amston Lake-powered modules with the cExpress-ASL COM Express Type 6 Compact module and the LEC-ASL SMARC 2.1 system-on-module both offered with up to 16GB LPDDR5 soldered-down memory and 2.5GbE networking. The modules are designed for high-performance, low-power, and ruggedized edge solutions running 24/7, and with support for Intel TCC and Time Sensitive Networking (TSN), the modules are also suitable for hard-real-time computing workloads required by use cases such as industrial automation, AI robots, smart retail, transportation, network communication, and more. Intel Atom x7000RE and x7000C Amston Lake processors The announcement came as a surprise because I had never heard about Intel Amston Lake processors so far. It might be because they were just announced and all seven SKUs are embedded parts with two to eight cores, and as a result, they may not quite get as much coverage as consumer processors. […]