zephyr

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Arduino Core for Zephyr beta released – Let’s give it a try!

Arduino Core for Zephyr beta released – Let’s give it a try!

Arduino Zephyr Boards llext

Last July, Arduino announced plans to switch from the soon-to-be deprecated Arm Mbed to Zephyr RTOS, and the company has now outed the first beta release of “Arduino Core for Zephyr OS” for a range of boards. From the user’s perspective, this should not change anything. However, there are massive changes under the hood and Arduino sketches are built and executed differently with the Arduino Core for Zephyr.  Some highlights of the new Zephyr-based Arduino core implementation include: Dynamic sketch loading – Sketches are compiled as ELF files and dynamically loaded by a precompiled Zephyr-based firmware. Zephyr subsystems support threading, inter-process communication, and real-time scheduling. Fast compiling and smaller binaries since a thin layer of user code and libraries are compiled, while the rest of the ZephyrOS is already binary. You can get started straightaway with the code and instructions on GitHub. You’ll need Arduino 2.x.x for this to work. […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on NXP i.MX 94 octa-core Cortex-A55/M33/M7 processor targets Edge AI industrial and automotive applications

NXP i.MX 94 octa-core Cortex-A55/M33/M7 processor targets Edge AI industrial and automotive applications

NXP i.MX 94

NXP i.MX 94 is an octa-core Arm SoC with up to four Cortex-A55 application cores, two Arm Cortex-M33 real-time/functional safety cores, two Arm Cortex-M7 real-time/functional safety cores, and an NXP eIQ Neutron NPU designed for Edge AI industrial and automotive applications I initially thought it would be a cost-down version of the NXP i.MX 95, and while it shares many of the same features, it’s more an application-specific processor designed specifically for industrial and automotive applications, lacking a 3D GPU, camera input interfaces, a MIPI DSI display interface, and 10GbE networking, but increasing the number of real-time cores (at the cost of application cores) and adding several networking features such as an Ethernet time-sensitive networking (TSN) switch, 2.5GbE interface, an Ethercat controller, and support for industrial protocols like Profinet or OPC-UA FX. NXP i.MX 94 specifications: CPU Up to 4x Arm Cortex-A55 cores 2x Arm Corex-M7 cores, one for functional […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on MicroPython v1.24 release adds support for RP2350 and ESP32-C6 microcontrollers, various RISC-V improvements

MicroPython v1.24 release adds support for RP2350 and ESP32-C6 microcontrollers, various RISC-V improvements

Micropython v1.24 with ESP32-C6 and RP2350 support

MicroPython has become one of the most popular ways of programming microcontrollers, and the just-released MicroPython v1.24 adds support for the widely-used Raspberry Pi RP2350 and Espresif ESP32-C6 microcontrollers and a range of other changes. Those include improved RISC-V support with native code generation, an updated Zephyr v3.7.0 RTOS with threading support, unified TinyUSB bindings across ports, a portable UART IRQ API, and enhanced mpremote recursive copy. Damien George goes into more detail about the RISC-V improvements: … include an RV32IMC native code emitter, native NLR and GC register scanning implementations for 32- and 64-bit RISC-V, support for placing RV32IMC native code in .mpy files and also freezing it, and RISC-V semihosting support. Testing for RISC-V is done with the qemu and unix ports, and the support is utilised in the esp32 and rp2 ports. The Raspberry Pi RP2350 comes with both Arm Cortex-M33 and RISC-V cores, and the good […]

Posted on by Debashis Das - No Comments on NXP i.MX RT700 dual-core Cortex-M33 AI Crossover MCU includes eIQ Neutron NPU and DSPs

NXP i.MX RT700 dual-core Cortex-M33 AI Crossover MCU includes eIQ Neutron NPU and DSPs

NXP i.MX RT700 AI crossover MCU block diagram

NXP has recently announced the release of  NXP i.MX RT700 RT700 AI crossover MCU following the NXP i.MX RT600 series release in 2018 and the i.MX RT500 series introduction in 2021. The new i.MX RT700 Crossover MCU features two Cortex-M33 cores, a main core clocked at 325 MHz with a Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP and a secondary 250 MHz core with a low-power Tensilica HiFi 1 DSP for always-on sensing tasks. Additionally, it integrates a powerful eIQ Neutron NPU with an upgraded 7.5 MB of SRAM and a 2D GPU with a JPEG/PNG decoder. These features make this device suitable for applications including AR glasses, hearables, smartwatches, wristbands, and more. NXP i.MX RT700 specifications: Compute subsystems Main Compute Subsystem Cortex-M33 @ up to 325 MHz with Arm TrustZone, built-in Memory Protection Unit (MPU), a floating-point unit (FPU),  a HiFi 4 DSP and supported by NVIC for interrupt handling and SWD […]

Posted on by Sayantan Nandy - No Comments on $15 Makerdiary iMX RT1011 Nano Kit runs Zephyr RTOS on 500 MHz NXP iMX RT1011 crossover MCU

$15 Makerdiary iMX RT1011 Nano Kit runs Zephyr RTOS on 500 MHz NXP iMX RT1011 crossover MCU

iMX RT1011 Nano kit

Makerdiary’s iMX RT1011 Nano Kit is a prototyping board featuring the NXP iMX RT1011 Cortex-M7 Crossover MCU running Zephyr RTOS. It offers 128 KB of on-chip RAM, configurable as TCM or general-purpose memory, and supports high-speed USB, UART, SPI, I2C, SAI, PWM, GPIO, and ADC, making it suitable for a variety of embedded applications. The board also includes a 128 Mbit external QSPI flash with XIP support, flexible power management, a programmable LED and Button, and a USB-C connector. It features a dual-row 40-pin layout (DIP/SMT) with up to 33 multi-function GPIO pins, 15 of which can be used as ADC inputs, along with a Serial Wire Debug (SWD) port. Optional pre-soldered headers are available for added flexibility. We previously covered other iMX RT1011-based development boards, such as the Olimex RT1010-Py running MicroPython and Adafruit Metro M7 with CircuitPython firmware. Be sure to check them out if you’re interested. Makerdiary’s […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Akeana unveils 10 RISC-V cores suitable for microcontrollers up to data center chips

Akeana unveils 10 RISC-V cores suitable for microcontrollers up to data center chips

Chip Diagram Akeana 5000

Founded about three years ago, Akeana has just officially launched and announced three 32-bit and 64-bit RISC-V processor lines and SoC IP with the Akeana 100 series for 32-bit microcontrollers, the Akeana 1000 series for 64-bit processors with MMU, and the Akeana 5000 series with much higher single-thread performance and designed for laptops, data centers, and cloud infrastructure. The company also introduced Scalable Coherent Interconnect, Interrupt Controller, and IOMMU IP for building out compute subsystems based on the aforementioned RISC-V cores,  as well as AI-targeted Vector RISC-V Cores and Matrix Computation IP. The design team is said to have previously worked on Marvell’s ThunderX2 server chips. Akeana 100 Series The Akeana 100 Series is a line of highly configurable processors with 32-bit RISC-V cores that support applications from embedded microcontrollers to edge gateways, to personal computing devices. Four Akeana 100 RISC-V cores are available Akeana 110 for area- and power-constrained […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments on Arduino to switch from Arm Mbed to Zephyr RTOS

Arduino to switch from Arm Mbed to Zephyr RTOS

Arduino Zephyr RTOS

Following Arm’s decision to stop supporting Mbed from July 2026 onwards, Arduino has now decided to use Zephyr RTOS instead of Arm Mbed for Arduino boards that rely on the latter including Arduino GIGA, Arduino Nano 33 BLE, Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect, as well as Arduino PRO boards/solutions such as the Portenta, Nicla, and Opta families. Note that Arduino UNO, MKR, and Nano families are not impacted by the change since their Arduino Core implementation does not rely on Mbed. The change is not going to happen overnight as software development takes time, and Arduino plans to release the first beta based on ZephyrOS by the end of 2024. and a rollout for various boards starting in 2025 long before Arm Mbed is phased out for good. Arduino is not new to the Zephyr project as the company became a Silver member last year, and they were aware that Arm […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments on Microchip PIC64GX is a quad-core 64-bit RISC-V microprocessor for real-time processing

Microchip PIC64GX is a quad-core 64-bit RISC-V microprocessor for real-time processing

Microchip PIC64GX

Microchip has introduced its first 64-bit RISC-V microprocessor family with the PIC64GX pin-to-pin compatible with the company’s PolarFire SoC FPGA devices and designed for edge designs for the industrial, automotive, communications, IoT, aerospace, and defense segments. The PIC6GX MPU supports asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP) to run Linux, real-time operating systems, and bare metal in a single processor cluster with secure boot capabilities. The company further claims the PIC64GX MPU is “the first RISC-V multi-core solution that is AMP capable for mixed-criticality systems”. The first member of the PIC64GX RISC-V family is the PIC64GX1000 microprocessor. Microchip PIC64GX1000 specifications: CPU Quad-core SiFive U54 64-bit five-stage, single-issue, in-order pipeline RISC-V (RV64GC) processor at up to 625 MHz with AMP and deterministic latencies, PMP and MMU units Single-core SiFive E51 64-bit RISC-V (RV64IMAC) monitor processor core at up to 625 MHZ with PMP unit Cache L1 memory subsystem with Single-Error Correct, Double-Error Detect (SECDED) Flexible […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design