Pico-Ice board combines Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU with Lattice ICE40 UltraPlus 5K FPGA

Pico Ice Raspberry Pi RP2040 Lattice FPGA board

tinyVision.ai Pico-Ice is a development board with a Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU and a Lattice ICE40 UltraPlus 5K FPGA connected through an 8-bit bus. The Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller provides the clock for the FPGA and can program the FPGA directly or the dedicated FPGA flash using a drag-drop of a UF2 file. Just a few days ago we wrote about the LILYGO T-FPGA board that combines an ESP32-S3 wireless MCU with a Gowin FPGA connected through a 6-bit bus, and the Pico-Ice board provides a similar option with different chips and without wireless connectivity. Pico-Ice specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz with 264KB SRAM with all pins exposed FPGA – Lattice UltraPlus iCE40UP5K FPGA with 5.3K LUTs, 1Mbit SPRAM, 120Kbit DPRAM, 8x multipliers with all pins brought out Memory & storage chips MCU – 4MB QSPI flash FPGA – 4MB QSPI Flash, 8MB low […]

Orange Pi 800 Keyboard PC gets 128GB flash storage

Orange Pi 800 Keyboard PC 128GB eMMC flash

The Orange Pi 800 keyboard PC, launched as an alternative to the Raspberry Pi 400 last year with a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core Cortex-A72/A53 processor and 4GB RAM, has gotten an upgrade to 128GB of eMMC flash instead of just 64GB. The keyboard PC still comes with HDMI 2.0 and VGA video outputs, built-in speakers and microphone, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5 connectivity, a few USB ports, and a 78-key QWERTY keyboard, plus a 26-GPIO connector accessible without opening the device.     Orange Pi 800 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 cores up to 1.8GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.4GHz, and an Arm Mali-T860MP4 GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 128GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 VGA port up to Full HD resolution Audio 3.5mm audio (headphone+mic) jack Integrated speaker(s) and microphone […]

Ultrawide 8.8-inch HDMI and USB information display is offered with optional touchscreen support

8.8-inch information display HDMI USB touchscreen

Last year, I wrote about the Turing Smart Screen low-cost 3.5-inch display based on a WCH CH552T 8-bit E8051 core microcontroller that connects to a PC or other device through a USB Type-C cable in order to display system or other information using AIDA64 software or an open-source Python software. I’ve just come across another display that appears to serve the same purpose, except the “GeekTeches V35” is an ultrawide 8.8-inch display with 1920×480 resolution, micro USB and micro HDMI interfaces, and optional support for a touchscreen. GeekTeches V35 specifications: Display 8.8-inch IPS display with 480×1920 resolution (21:9 aspect ratio) with optional touch screen Pixel size –  0.114  x 0.114 mm Display area – 54.72 x 218.88 mm Wide display angle Brightness – 550cd/m2, adjustable Driver: IC/LCM Driver IC Display interface – “MIPI BIT interface”. Not sure what this is… a typo for MIPI DSI? Backlight current – 160ma Backlight […]

Using BTT Pad 7 touchscreen display with Raspberry Pi CM4

BTT Pad 7 Raspberry Pi OS

The BTT Pad 7, or BIGTREETECH Pad 7 in full, is a 7-inch touchscreen display that ships with the CB1 Allwinner H616 system-on-module compatible with Raspberry Pi CM4. The display is mostly designed for 3D printers with its SPI and CAN Bus interfaces, but it can also be used as a standard tablet PC. So today, I’ll switch the CB1 with a Raspberry Pi CM4 Lite module and report my experience doing the conversion and using it as a Raspberry Pi CM4 tablet PC running Raspberry Pi OS, and test it with a 3D printer with Klipper in another post later on. Installing a Raspberry Pi CM4 (Lite) module in the BTT Pad 7 We’ll need the Pad 7, a Raspberry Pi CM4, and a few tools. The first step is to remove the red heatsink by loosening four screws with a 2.0mm hex key, as well as the cover […]

Sumolink Erhu RP2040 is a $3.60 Raspberry Pi Pico clone with a USB-C port

Raspberry Pi Pico USB-C port

The Sumolink Erhu RP2040 is a Raspberry Pi Pico clone with the exact same features except the micro USB port has been replaced by a USB-C port that may be preferred by some people, and the Wisdpi claims it is one of the world’s cheapest RP2040 MCU boards at $3.60, although that price does not include shipping. We had seen some other replicas, but most offer something different rather than just the USB-C port. Two examples that come to my mind are the WeAct RP2040 with a USB-C port, but also a Reset button and up to 16MB SPI flash, instead of the 2MB flash in the original board, and the Banana Pi BPI-Pico-RP2040 with an extra I2C connector and an RGB LED. Sumolink Erhu RP2040 specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz with 264KB SRAM Storage – 2MB QSPI flash (Note: the specs list […]

BeepBerry handheld Linux computer drives 2.7-inch display with Raspberry Pi Zero W

BeepBerry

Good news! The PocketCHIP handheld Linux computer is back! OK, not quite but that’s what the Raspberry Pi Zero-powered BeepBerry reminds me of with a Blackberry-like keyboard, a small 2.7-inch display, and a 2,000mAh LiPo battery for power. The BeepBerry is another open-source hardware design from SQFMI, who previously did the Watchy ESP32 E-Ink smartwatch, that runs Raspberry Pi OS Lite on the Raspberry Pi Zero/Zero W, and also includes a Raspberry Pi RP2040 to handle the keyboard and peripherals. BeepBerry specifications: SBC – Raspberry Pi Zero board with a Broadcom BCM2835 ARM11 processor @ 700 MHz, VideoCore IV GPU, or Raspberry Pi Zero W with WiFi and Bluetooth Storage – MicroSD card slot Display – Ultra-low power high contrast 2.7-inch Sharp Memory LCD with 400 x 200 resolution User input – QWERTY tactile keyboard w/ backlight and touchpad based on Solder Party BB Q20 Keyboard USB – USB-C programming […]

EDATEC ED-IPC2010 – A compact DIN Rail mountable industrial computer based on Raspberry Pi CM4

DIN Rail Raspberry Pi CM4 industrial computer

EDATEC has launched yet another Raspberry Pi CM4-powered industrial computer with the ED-IPC2010 offering a more compact design than the company’s CM4 Industrial and CM4 Sensing models, and an aluminum alloy enclosure that can easily be mounted to a DIN Rail. Most of the specifications of the new ED-IPC2010 are pretty common with a choice of Raspberry Pi Compute Modules 4 with up to 8GB RAM, 32GB flash, and optional WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0, as well as a full-size HDMI video output, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and a few USB ports. What’s a little different is one FPC connector on the mainboard with both HDMI and USB for touchscreen displays. ED-IPC2010 specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi CM4 SoC – Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor @ 1.5GHz with VideoCore VI GPU System Memory –  1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB RAM Storage – 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB eMMC flash Wireless – […]

MediaTek Genio 1200 system-on-module powers Cortex-A78/A55 AIoT & robotics development kit

I-Pi SMARC 1200

ADLINK Technology’s SMARC 2.1 compliant LEC-MTK-I12000 system-on-module (SoM) features the MediaTek Genio 1200 octa-core Cortex-A78/A55 AIoT processor coupled with up to 8GB RAM and 256GB UFS storage, and powers the I-Pi SMARC 1200 development kit designed for robotics and AIoT applications. LEC-MTK-I1200 MediaTek Genio 1200 system-on-module LEC-MTK-I1200 SoM specifications: SoC – MediaTek Genio 1200 (MT8395) octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A78 cores @ 2.2GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 2.0GHz with penta-core Arm Mali-G57 GPU @ 880MHz with support for OpenGL ES 3.2/2.0/1.1, Vulkan 1.1/1.0, OpenCL 2.2, 5.0 TOPS NPU, HiFi 4 audio DSP, etc… System Memory – 4 or 8 GB LPDDR4X Storage – 32, 64, 128, or 256 GB UFS storage, compatible with UFS gear 2.1 Wireless – 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 2×2 MU-MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0 314-pin MXM connector with Storage – 1x SDIO (4-bit) compatible with SD/SDIO standard, up to version 3.0 Display HDMI 2.0b up to 4Kp60 Dual-channel LVDS […]