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July 7, 2025July 10, 2025 by Sponsored Post - No Comments

Get your carrier board for the LattePanda Mu x86 Compute Module manufactured for free, win prizes (Sponsored)

LattePanda MU Carrier Board Design Challenge

DFRobot and NextPCB are currently running a PCB design contest offering free PCB manufacturing and prizes worth up to $800 to people designing and submitting a carrier board design for the LattePanda Mu x86 Compute Module. As a reminder, the LattePanda Mu Compute Module is an x86 system-on-module initially launched with the Intel Processor N100 Alder Lake-N CPU, and later offered with a more powerful Core i3-N305 octa-core processor. It comes with up to 16GB LPDDR5-4800, 64GB eMMC 5.1 flash, and exposes I/Os through a 260-pin SO-DIMM connector. Arnon reviewed the LattePanda Mu (N100) with Windows 11 and Ubuntu 24.04 using the two reference carrier boards from DFRobot. But now, the company wants to encourage the development of more carrier boards for the LattePanda Mu, hence the PCB design contest. So what can you win exactly? Winners selected by a panel of judges from DFRobot and NextPCB will be offered […]

June 30, 2025July 3, 2025 by Sponsored Post - No Comments

Join PCBWay’s 11th Anniversary Celebration — Coupons, Modules Are Waiting for You (Sponsored)

PCBWay, founded in 2014, has emerged as a global electronics manufacturing powerhouse, offering solutions spanning PCB design, fabrication, assembly, 3D printing, and CNC machining. This year marks their 11th anniversary. To celebrate this milestone, they’ve launched a series of promotional activities. Let’s get some coupons and win free gifts right now! Join the event: https://www.pcbway.com/activity/anniversary11th.html Promotion Period: 2025.6.18 – 2025.7.18 Sneak Peek: Ongoing Activities! Exclusive Coupons As a token of appreciation, they’re offering 9 base coupons plus up to 10 extra ones, totaling up to $485. With limited quantities available, don’t miss the chance to enjoy PCBWay’s high-quality services and save on your orders! Special Offers Cost-effectiveness has always been a priority for customers. Recognizing this, they provide great discounts on PCB & 3D orders, with savings of up to 60%. Get your 10 PCBs at only $5 now. Meanwhile, their module store is joining the celebration with special deals. […]

March 18, 2025March 19, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

You can now buy Raspberry Pi RP2350 MCU for 80 cents and up, RP2354A and RP2354B variants coming soon

The Raspberry Pi RP2350 dual-core Cortex-M33/RISC-V MCU was first unveiled along with the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 in August 2024. Since then we have covered many Raspberry Pi RP2350 news and boards, but the microcontroller was hard to source for hobbyist and low-volume projects, which partially explains why companies like NextPCB had promotions offering free PCBA prototyping services for RP2350 designs. The good news is that Raspberry Pi has just announced general availability for the RP2350 microcontrollers starting at $0.80 per unit for the RP2350A in 3,400-piece reels, or $1.1 in single quantity, so anybody can buy the MCUs from their favorite distributor. The British company also announced the RP2354A and RP2354B variants with 2MB of stacked flash memory would soon be available to select partners and mass production will ramp up later this year. Here’s the current official pricing information for the RP2040 and RP2350 microcontrollers. Users can simply […]

March 10, 2025March 13, 2025 by Sponsored Post - No Comments

NextPCB offers free ESP32-S3 PCBA prototypes for original designs (Sponsored)

NextPCB has started offering free PCBA prototypes for PCB designs based on the ESP32-S3 wireless microcontroller following a similar offer for free Raspberry Pi RP2040/RP2350 PCBAs launched in January 2025. The Chinese PCB/PCBA manufacturer’s new “accelerator campaign” targets developers, makers, and researchers who developed their own PCB based on the ESP32-S3 microcontroller. They can get two free PCBA prototypes for the original design. Slots are however limited, and NextPCB will select 20 projects for sponsorship. If selected, you’ll get the following: Free Prototyping – Get 2 free PCBA units, including PCB fabrication, components, assembly, and worldwide shipping (valued up to $500 US). Technical Support – Get expert assistance with manufacturing engineering, design guidance, certification, and production. Personalized Assistance – Receive dedicated one-on-one support throughout your manufacturing journey. The company will prioritize business projects, but hobbyist designs that contribute to the open-source community and showcase interesting applications using ESP32-S3 will also […]

February 21, 2025February 21, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

KiCad 9 released with support for embedded files, tables in schematics, custom ERC/DRC errors, mouse scroll wheel actions, and more

KiCad 9 open-source EDA software has just been released with a range of new features such as support for embedded files (fonts, 3D files, PDF), tables in schematics, custom ERC/DRC errors, warnings, and exclusion comments, mouse scroll wheel actions, multiple track drag, and much more. The latest KiCad 9.0.0 release includes 4,870 unique commits from hundreds of developers and translators, and the KiCad library has further gained 1500 new symbols, 750 new footprints, and 132 new 3D models. There are way too many changes to list them all here, so I’ll mention some highlights here: Jobsets (predefined output jobs) – Feature that provides predefined sets of ‘jobs’— plotting, exporting, and running DRC—on schematics and PCBs. Independent jobset files are reusable as users may want to create output pipelines that they can apply across their projects for consistency. Jobsets can be run from the command line or the KiCad GUI. Embedded […]

February 19, 2025February 22, 2025 by Sponsored Post - 1 Comment

Check out this 24-layer HDI PCB made with PCBWay’s high-layer, high-order interposer PCB manufacturing services (Sponsored)

Connections between chips have become increasingly complex, and applications with higher frequency and speed requirements may not make use of traditional PCB technology. That’s where the interposer PCB, a new type of PCB comes into play. PCBWay has the capability to manufacture high-layer, high-order PCBs, and even successfully developed a 24-layer, 6-order arbitrary interconnection HDI PCB. The interposer PCB is a highly precise, high-density interconnect (HDI) PCB that allows for a higher wiring density per unit area compared to traditional PCBs. HDI PCBs are characterized by features such as micro vias, finer lines and spaces, higher connection pad density, and the use of blind and buried vias. These features enable the miniaturization of electronic devices by allowing more functionality to be packed into a smaller space. The design characteristics of this PCB include inner layers connected to the outer layers through laser microvias and dense routing, resulting in a multi-structure […]

February 4, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Compulab RoboDesigner – Design and order a custom SBC within one hour from your web browser

RoboDesigner SBC designer program 3D view

Compulab RoboDesigner is a new web-based tool and service that allows you to design and or a custom SBC using one of Compulab’s system-on-module within about one hour instead of going through the more lengthy process of designing a carrier board by yourself. I’ve given it a try, and it’s really easy to use even if you don’t have any engineering skills. It’s very similar to Gumstix Geppetoo introduced in 2013 for Overo SoMs, and now called Upverter with support for a wider range of modules including Raspberry Pi Compute Modules. The first step is to go to https://robo-designer.com/ and click on Select Functions. Right now, the selection of SoMs is rather limited because there’s only one: CMiMX8M C-Lab CORE with an NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 16GB eMMC flash. You can then select the I/O modules you want from the list with the remaining […]

January 20, 2025January 23, 2025 by Sponsored Post - No Comments

NextPCB offers free PCBA prototypes for RP2350/RP2040 designs, RP2040 MCU as low as 30 cents (Sponsored)

NextPCB Free PCBA with Raspberry Pi RP2040 RP2350 MCU

NextPCB Accelerator is an initiative from the PCB and PCBA manufacturer to empower innovators and creators to bring their ideas to life, and the ongoing campaign features the Raspberry Pi RP2350 and RP2040 microcontrollers. Specifically, NextPCB offers two free PCBA prototypes for any original design based on either the RP2350 Cortex-M33/RISC-V microcontroller or RP2040 Arm Cortex-M0+ MCU from Raspberry Pi. The company also offers subsidized bulk pricing for the Raspberry Pi RP2040 for any company or maker mass-producing their design with NextPCB. Besides PCB manufacturing, NextPCB will offer professional assembly of the RP2040 or RP2350 chips using their precision pick-and-place machines, advanced automated inspection equipment, and carefully controlled manufacturing practices. NextPCB’s IC programming and firmware burning services will free up time for customers, and functional testing services will make sure all prototypes are tested for functionality before leaving the production line. The conditions of the offer are pretty straightforward. NextPCB […]