rtos News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 2, 2026July 2, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Titan Mini is a smaller Renesas RA8P1-based Edge AI board for RT-Thread RTOS development

The Titan Mini is a smaller and somewhat cheaper version of the RA8P1 Titan board introduced in 2025 for AIoT applications and RT-Thread RTOS development. It still features a Renesas R7KA8P1 Cortex-M85/M33 microcontroller with an Arm Ethos-U55 NPU, but comes with lower-capacity memory and storage chips (32MB SDRAM and 8MB QSPI flash), drops the RJ45 Ethernet ports with a single FPC Ethernet connector, among other cost-saving measures. The only benefit I see besides the smaller size and slightly lower price is the presence of a microphone and a speaker connector for audio applications. Titan Mini specifications: SoC – Renesas RA8P1 (R7KA8P1) MCU cores Arm Cortex-M85 clocked at 1 GHz with Helium MVE (M-Profile Vector Extension) with 32KB I/D caches; 7300+ CoreMarks Arm Cortex-M33 clocked at 250 MHz with 32KB I/D caches GPU – D/AVE 2D drawing engine NPU – Arm Ethos-U55 NPU delivering 256 GOPS at 500 MHz Memory – […]

June 6, 2026June 6, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Docker for Microcontrollers? AkiraOS combines Zephyr RTOS with WebAssembly (WASM) applications

AkiraOS is a Zephyr-based embedded OS that runs sandboxed WebAssembly applications on microcontrollers and lets users deploy and update firmware OTA without reflashing. In other words, it’s similar to Docker containers, but for microcontrollers. The open-source embedded platform separates the OS from the application. That means the firmware stays stable, while apps are independent .wasm binaries deployable over-the-air without touching the OS, and portable so a single binary works on ESP32-S3, nRF5x, or STM32 MCU boards. AkiraOS highlights: User space Up to 8 wasm apps can be installed Up to two apps can run at the same time Footprint: 50KB to 200KB per app Akiraz runtime – Custom WASM runtime App Manager UI Framework with 32 widgets Shell/console 18 API modules WebAssembly Micro Runtime (WAMR) – Two options: Interpreter or Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compilation with 10 to 50x higher performance RTOS – Zephyr RTOS Scheduler Network stack HTTP for OTA updates […]

April 2, 2026April 3, 2026 by Debashis Das - No Comments

Nuvoton NuMicro M3331 Cortex-M33 MCU features built-in ARGB LED controller, optional USB 2.0 OTG interface

Nuvoton’s new NuMicro M3331 is a series of 32-bit Arm Cortex-M33 MCUs clocked at 180 MHz that integrate an ARGB LED controller, a DSP instruction set, a single-precision FPU, and TrustZone security for smart factories, renewable energy systems, and consumer devices. In the past, we have written about other Cortex-M33 MCUs like the STM32U3B5/C5, Texas Instruments MSPM33C321A, Nordic Semi’s nRF54LM20A, and various others, but the Nuvoton M3331 series specifically features a built-in Enhanced LED Light Strip Interface (ELLSI) and up to 10 standard LLSI channels. This allows the MCU to natively support gaming ARGB Gen1 and Gen2 LED control protocols, completely offloading the CPU to run fluid, dynamic LED effects. It comes in two variants, the M3333 series and the M3334 series, with the latter adding a high-speed USB 2.0 OTG controller with an integrated PHY. NuMicro M3331 specifications: MCU core – Arm Cortex-M33 32-bit CPU @ 180 MHz with single-precision […]

March 27, 2026 by Debashis Das - 8 Comments

Microchip SAM9X75 Hybrid automotive MCU – Surprisingly ARM9 is still a thing in 2026

When Microchip launched the SAM9X60 in 2020, we were surprised to see a new SoC based on a legacy ARM926EJ-S core. But we were even more surprised to see Microchip doubling down with the SAM9X75, a hybrid automotive-qualified (AEC-Q100 Grade 2) System-in-Package (SiP) with the same classic ARM9 core and integrated DDR2 or DDR3L memory. The first part will be the SAM9X75D5M SiP with 512MB on-chip DDR2 RAM, but the company also designed the SAM9X75D1G with 1 Gbit DDR3L and the SAM9X75D2G featuring 2 Gbit DDR3L. The SAM9X75 hybrid ARM9 MCU targets developers who need an MCU-like development environment, while benefiting from higher processing and display capabilities of microprocessors for automotive and e-mobility HMI applications. Microchip SAM9X75D5M specifications: CPU subsystem Core – ARM926EJ-S running up to 800 MHz (significant increase from older 400-600MHz variants) 32 KB data cache, 32 KB instruction cache, and Memory Management Unit (MMU). Memory 512 Mbit […]

March 5, 2026March 5, 2026 by Debashis Das - 2 Comments

Grinn ReneSOM-V2H is a tiny LGA SoM based on Renesas RZ/V2H processor for vision AI applications

Polish embedded systems company Grinn has recently introduced ReneSOM-V2H, a tiny vision AI SoM built around the Renesas RZ/V2H vision AI processor. Measuring just 42.6 x 37 mm, Grinn claims it is the world’s smallest module based on this specific Renesas MPU, and targets space-constrained Edge AI applications such as smart cameras, robotics, and industrial automation. The RZ/V2H SoC features a heterogeneous architecture with 4x Cortex-A55 cores, 2x Cortex-R8 cores, and 1x Cortex-M33 core, along with a DRP-AI3 accelerator with up to 8 TOPS. It supports LPDDR4 memory and eMMC storage, along with various connectivity options, including PCIe Gen3 (4-lane), USB 3.2, USB 2.0, and Gigabit Ethernet. It also provides four MIPI-CSI camera inputs and a MIPI-DSI display output for vision applications. Grinn ReneSOM-V2H specifications: SoC – Renesas RZ/V2H CPU/MCU cores 4x Arm Cortex-A55 cores up to 1.8 GHz 2x Cortex-R8 real-time cores up to 800 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller core up […]

February 16, 2026February 16, 2026 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

LR2021 LoRa Plus board combines Semtech LR2021 and Nordic nRF54L15 for high-speed FLRC and LoRa connectivity

Last year, Semtech released the LR2021 LoRa Plus transceiver chip, designed to address the low data-rate issue associated with LoRa, but surprisingly, they didn’t release a development board for the chip. Now, almost a year later, Seeed Studio and Semtech have partnered to introduce the LR2021 LoRa Plus development kit targeting long-range high-speed LoRa and FLRC applications up to 2.6 Mbps. Not only does the board support LoRa Gen 4 technology, providing Sub-GHz, 2.4 GHz ISM, and S/L-band operation, but a XIAO nRF54L15 board also adds dual-core processing (Arm Cortex-M33 + RISC-V) and supports other short-range protocols, including NFC, Bluetooth LE 6.0, Matter, Thread, and 2.4 GHz proprietary protocols. The development board also features a 0.96-inch 128×64 OLED, three Grove connectors for expansion, a USB Type-C for power, SWD debugging, and two Sub-GHz and 2.4 GHz SMA connectors. It is compatible with Arduino Uno, STM32 Nucleo, and Nordic DK boards. […]

February 11, 2026February 12, 2026 by Debashis Das - 3 Comments

Open Stack standalone 4G LTE IoT board runs RTOS on Quectel EC200U LTE module (Crowdfunding)

Open Stack — Standalone 4G LTE IoT & Connectivity Module

Open Stack is a standalone 4G LTE IoT connectivity board designed to run RTOS-based C applications directly on the Quectel EC200U series LTE module, meaning you don’t need an external MCU like Arduino, ESP32, or Raspberry Pi. By removing the MCU, the board reduces power consumption, bill-of-materials (BOM) cost, and physical footprint. The board supports multi-band LTE with GSM fallback, GNSS, and Bluetooth 4.2, as well as IPv4/IPv6 client and server modes. It also includes a USB Type-C port, a Nano SIM card slot, LTE/GNSS/BLE antenna connectors, an OLED information display, status LEDs, control buttons, and a 40-pin Raspberry Pi HAT-compatible GPIO header. Networking support includes TCP/UDP, SSL/TLS, HTTP/HTTPS, MQTT, LwM2M, CoAP, FTP/FTPS, and PPP, making it suitable for asset tracking, industrial monitoring, BLE-to-LTE gateways, remote infrastructure, and always-connected IoT deployments without additional controller hardware. Open Stack specifications: Cellular Module – Quectel EC200U-CN series (EC200UCNAA-N05-SGNSA) module Cellular Connectivity: LTE FDD […]

January 28, 2026January 28, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Ariel OS – A Rust RTOS for IoT microcontrollers

Ariel OS is a new RTOS for microcontrollers written in Rust with support for popular hardware architectures (Arm Cortex-M, ESP32, RISC-V) and boards from Espressif, Nordic Semi, Raspberry Pi, and STMicroelectronics. Ariel OS is built on top of Embassy Rust framework and embedded-hal Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) for embedded systems, and adds several OS functionalities and a multi-core capable scheduler. It is mainly designed for secure, memory-safe, networked applications on microcontrollers. The developers further describe Ariel OS as follows on the project’s website: Ariel OS follows an approach whereby it simultaneously integrates a curated ecosystem of libraries (available via crates.io), and adds missing operating system functionalities as depicted below. Such functionalities include a preemptive multicore scheduler, portable peripheral APIs, additional network security facilities, as well as a meta-build system to bind it all together. As a result, a low-power IoT developer can focus on business logic sitting on top of […]