zephyr News - Page 2 of 8 - CNX Software

August 29, 2025August 29, 2025 by Debashis Das - No Comments

NXP MCX A34 mixed-signal Cortex-M33 MCU delivers 17x faster math acceleration for motor control and HVAC systems

NXP has launched the MCX A34 mixed-signal Arm Cortex-M33 industrial MCU, an upgrade of the MCX A14x and MCX A15x MCUs, which were introduced in 2024. While the A14x/A15x offered Cortex-M33 cores up to 96 MHz, 128 KB Flash, 32 KB SRAM, a 12-bit ADC, the A34 scales up with a 180 MHz core, up to 1 MB Flash, 256 KB SRAM, four 16-bit ADCs (3.2 Msps), four OpAmps, a 12-bit DAC, and FlexPWM with enhanced quadrature decoding. It also features a dedicated Math Acceleration Unit (MAU) that executes trigonometric, reciprocal, and square root operations up to 17x faster than CMSIS-DSP, a SmartDMA coprocessor for offloading data transfers, and advanced security features with tamper detection and secure boot. Connectivity is also richer, with up to six UARTs, four I²C, two SPI, and a CAN FD interface. MCX A34 specifications: MCU core – Arm Cortex-M33 core clocked at up to 180 […]

August 13, 2025August 14, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Alif Ensemble E4, E6, and E8 Cortex-M55/A32 MCUs and MPUs feature Ethos-U85 NPU for small language models (SLM)

Alif Ensemble E4 E6 E8 Ethos U85 MCU small language models

Alif Semiconductor unveiled the Ensemble E4, E6, and E8 dual-core Cortex-M55 Edge AI microcontrollers and fusion processors, all equipped with Arm Ethos-U85 with the ability to run small language models (SLM) on-device while consuming just 36mW of power on the E4 SKU. Besides the ability to handle generative AI workloads, the new microcontrollers also integrate two power-efficient Ethos-U55 NPUs for AI vision. They can perform power-efficient object detection in less than 2ms and image classification in less than 8ms. Other highlights include support for up to two MIPI CSI image sensors, a fully hardware-accelerated image signal processor (ISP) pipeline operating at up to 60 FPS at 2MP resolution, and a new wide memory subsystem to enable an inferencing speed of well under a millisecond. Alif Ensemble E4 Ensemble E4 specifications: CPU High-Performance Arm Cortex-M55 core @ up to 400 MHz High-Efficiency Arm Cortex-M55 core @ up to 160 MHz GPU […]

July 31, 2025 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

Seeed Studio XIAO nRF54L15 USB-C boards support Matter, Thread, Zigbee, and Amazon Sidewalk

Seeed Studio recently introduced the XIAO nRF54L15 series, which includes the XIAO nRF54L15 and XIAO nRF54L15 Sense USB-C development boards. Built around Nordic’s 128MHz nRF54L15 Cortex-M33 wireless SoC with 1.5MB NVM, 256KB RAM, these modules are suitable for wearables, smart home, IIoT sensors, and low-power wireless devices. Both boards support BLE 6.0, Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Amazon Sidewalk, and proprietary 2.4 GHz protocols. The Sense variant adds a digital microphone and a 6-axis IMU. Common features include 16 GPIOs and a USB Type-C port for power, programming, and charging. Security features include TrustZone, secure boot, firmware update support, side-channel protection, and tamper detection. XIAO nRF54L15 Series Specifications Wireless MCU – Nordic Semi nRF54L15 wireless SoC CPU Arm Cortex-M33 @ up to 128 MHz RISC-V coprocessor for “software-defined peripheral” Memory – 256 KB SRAM Storage – 1.5MB Non-volatile Memory (NVM) Wireless Bluetooth LE 6.0 (includes Channel Sounding) Thread, Zigbee (IEEE 802.15.4-2020) Matter […]

July 28, 2025July 27, 2025 by Debashis Das - No Comments

VS Code gets AutoML Embedded plugin for automated model tuning, deployment, and benchmarking

AutoML for Embedded, developed by Analog Devices (ADI) and Antmicro, is an open-source plugin for Visual Studio Code that works alongside ADI’s CodeFusion Studio plugin. Built on the Kenning framework, it automates the full ML pipeline, including model search, hyperparameter tuning, optimization, compression, and deployment, making edge AI development easy on resource-constrained devices. The company mentions that it supports the ADI MAX78002 AI accelerator MCU, the MAX32690 MCU, Renode-based simulation, and Zephyr RTOS. It uses SMAC and Hyperband algorithms for automated model search and hyperparameter tuning, along with model compression and quantization to meet strict memory and compute limits. The plugin offers built-in benchmarking for inference speed, memory footprint, and accuracy, while performing RAM and compute compatibility checks. All these features make it useful for applications like image classification, anomaly detection, predictive maintenance, NLP, and action recognition on low-power IoT and embedded systems. AutoML Embedded overview: Type – Open-source AutoML plugin […]

July 2, 2025July 3, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Renesas R8P1 – A 1 GHz Arm Cortex-M85 microcontroller with Ethos-U55 NPU for Audio and Vision AI applications

Renesas has introduced its most powerful Cortex-A85 microcontroller to date: the R8P1, clocked at 1 GHz and equipped with a 500 MHz Arm Ethos-U55 NPU for edge AI applications, as well as an Arm Cortex-M33 real-time core clocked at 250 MHz. With a 2D GPU, MIPI DSI and parallel RGB display interfaces, MIPI CSI and parallel camera interfaces, and I2S and PDM audio interface, the Renesas RA8P1 is mainly designed to address Voice AI and Vision AI applications requiring real-time analytics. The 1 GHz microcontroller also has plenty of other peripherals and security features, as we can see from the specifications and block diagram below. Renesas RA8P1 specifications: MCU core 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 – 2D drawing engine NPU – Arm Ethos-U55 NPU delivering 256 […]

May 5, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

KSTR-IMX93 single board computer pairs NXP i.MX 93 SoC with Nordic Semi nRF5340, nRF9151, and nRF7002 wireless chips

Conclusive Engineering KSTR-IMX93 is a single board computer (SBC) powered by an NXP i.MX 93 Cortex-A55/M33 AI SoC and equipped with three Nordic Semi wireless solutions, namely nRF5340 SoC, nRF9151 SiP, and nRF7002 WiFi 6 coprocessor. This allows the board to offer a wide range of wireless and wired connectivity options with Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.4 LE, Zigbee, Thread, NB-IoT, LTE Cat-M1, and GNSS. In some way, the KSTR-IMX93 is the equivalent of combining a Nordic Thingy:91 X Cellular IoT development platform with an Arm Linux SBC. KSTR-IMX93 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 93 CPU Single or dual-core Arm Cortex-A55 up to 1.7 GHz Arm Cortex-M33 up to 250 MHz GPU – PXP 2D GPU with blending/composition, resize, color space conversion NPU – Arm Ethos-U65 NPU @ 1 GHz up to 0.5 TOPS Memory – 640 KB OCRAM w/ ECC Security – EdgeLock Secure Enclave System Memory […]

March 27, 2025March 28, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

emCraft SOM-NRF9151 – A Nordic Semi nRF9151 System-on-Module with LTE-M, NB-IoT, DECT NR+, and GNSS

Better known for its Linux and uCLinux-powered system-on-modules, emCraft has just launched the SOM-NRF9151 system-on-module powered by a Nordic Semi nRF9151 Arm Cortex-M33 SiP (System-in-Package) with LTE-M, NB-IoT, and DECT NR+ connectivity, and GNSS functionality. The SoM also features a 16MB SPI flash, an nPMIC1300 for power management, a Nano SIM card slot, and a footprint for an eSIM. I/Os and power signals are exposed through two 50-pin board-to-board connectors, and the company provides a starter kit with a baseboard for evaluation. emCraft SOM-NRF9151 specifications: SiP – Nordic Semi nRF9151 CPU – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 64 MHz Memory – 256 KB SRAM Storage – 1 MB flash Wireless – LTE-M, NB-IoT, and DECT NR+ modem with GNSS 700-2200 MHz LTE bands: B1-B5, B8, B12, B13, B17-B20, B25, B26, B28, B65, B66, B85 Power Class 5 20 dBm Power Class 3 23 dBm 1.9GHz NR+ band support Certified for global operation […]

March 18, 2025September 3, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Makerdiary nRF9151 Connect Kit board offers LTE-M, NB-IoT, DECT NR+, and GPS connectivity, on-board battery charger

Makerdiary nRF9151 Connect Kit is a Nordic Semi nRF9151-based board with LTE-M, NB-IoT, GNSS, and DECT NR+ connectivity, an on-board battery charger, and a built-in nRF52820 “interface” MCU for debugging and programming. The board features a USB-C port for power and programming, two 20-pin headers for expansion with through and castellated holes, a nano SIM card slot and a footprint for an eSIM, user and reset buttons, and a few user LEDs. Makerdiary nRF9151 Connect Kit specifications: SiP – Nordic Semi nRF9151 CPU – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 64 MHz Memory – 256 KB SRAM Storage – 1 MB flash Wireless – LTE-M and NB-IoT modem with GNSS 700-2200 MHz LTE bands: B1-B5, B8, B12, B13, B17-B20, B25, B26, B28, B65, B66, B85 Power Class 5 20 dBm Power Class 3 23 dBm 1.9GHz NR+ band support Certified for global operation Security – Arm TrustZone + Arm CryptoCell Interface MCU – […]