CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

January 11, 2024January 13, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Arduino and Silicon Labs collaborate to bring Matter to Arduino boards and IDE

Arduino and Silicon Labs have joined hands to both bring Matter-compatible SiLabs wireless microcontrollers to the Arduino IDE and then design an upcoming Arduino Nano based on SiLabs MGM240 Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller with Matter, Thread, Zigbee, and Bluetooth LE protocols. Available now: Arduino Core for Silicon Labs devices The first phase of the collaboration involves getting Arduino core for Silicon Labs development boards so that compatible devices can be programmed in the IDE. The good news is that it’s available now and works with four existing wireless boards: SparkFun Thing Plus Matter MGM240P based on MGM240PB32VNA Arm Cortex-M33 MCU with Matter, Thread, Zigbee 3.0, and Bluetooth 5.3 LE connectivity SiLabs xG27 Dev Kit based on EFR32BG27C140F768IM40 Arm Cortex-M33 MCU with Bluetooth LE 5.3, Bluetooth Mesh, Proprietary 2.4 GHz connectivity SiLabs xG24 Explorer Kit based on EFR32MG24B210F1536IM48 Arm Cortex-M33 MCU with Bluetooth 5.3 LE, Bluetooth Mesh, Matter, OpenThread, Zigbee, Proprietary 2.4 […]

January 11, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Spacetouch SPV60 AI audio processor features a 400 MHz Andes D25F RISC-V core

Spacetouch SPV60 is a RISC-V AI audio processor with an Andes D25F 32-bit RISC-V CPU IP core with P-extension (DSP/SIMD) that is also found in the Telink TLSR9 wireless audio microcontroller introduced in 2020. But the SPV60 is clocked at a higher 400 MHz frequency, adopts a CPU + NPU + uDSP heterogeneous multi-core architecture with a 100 GOPS AI accelerator and a micro DSP capable of handling 1024-point FFT and iFFT among other mathematical functions, and offers a range of peripherals interfaces such as USB 2.0, SPDIF, I2C, PDM for microphone arrays, and more. Spacetouch SPV60 specifications: CPU Andes D25F 32-bit RISC-V core with P extension (DSP/SIMD ISA) clocked at up to 400MHz 5-stage pipeline Hardware multiplication/division operations Single precision floating point accelerator 32KB I-Cache and 16KB D-Cache; 32KB L2 Cache Spacetouch-designed uDSP – Support for 1024-point FFT and IFFT, FIR, COS, SIN, SQRT, Arctan, LOG, and other functions […]

Graperain Samsung, Rockchip RK3588, and Qualcomm CPU modules, SBCs, and carrier boards

January 11, 2024July 5, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SunFounder PiCar-X 2.0 review – A Raspberry Pi 4 AI robot car programmable with Blockly or Python

SunFounder PiCar-X 2.0 is an AI-powered self-driving robot car using the Raspberry Pi 3/4 as the main processing board. It is equipped with a camera module that can be moved by a 2-axis servo motor, allowing the camera to pan or tilt, an ultrasonic module for detecting distant objects, and a line detection module. The PiCar-X robot can also perform computer vision tasks such as color detection, face detection, traffic signs detection, automatic obstacle avoidance, and automatic line tracking. The PiCar-X can be programmed with two computer languages: Blockly-based Ezblock Studio drag-and-drop program and Python, and the robot works with OpenCV computer vision library and TensorFlow for AI workloads. Finally, you can also control the robot through the SunFounder controller application on your mobile phone. The company sent us a sample of the Picar-X 2.0 for review, so let’s get started. SunFounder PiCar-X 2.0 robot overview The PiCar-X robot kit […]

January 10, 2024February 6, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Lichee Console 4A portable RISC-V development terminal review – Part 1: Unboxing, teardown, and hands on

Sipeed has just sent me a “Lichee Console 4A portable RISC-V development terminal” for review. It’s a quad-core RISC-V mini laptop based on the Alibaba T-Head TH1520 processor with a 7-inch touchscreen display, and my model is equipped with a Lichee LM4A module fitted with 16GB RAM and 128GB eMMC flash. I’ll start the review of the RISC-V developer kit with an unboxing, a teardown, and a quick try with the preinstalled Debian 12 “Bookworm” image, before testing the latter in the second part of the review. The second part will take some time as we have about twenty reviews planned for now, four of which I’ll be taking care of myself… Lichee Console 4A unboxing I received the device in a package indicating I had been sent the 16GB+128GB model and reading “Lichee Console 4A portable RISC-V developer terminal” which makes it clear it’s based on RISC-V, is portable […]

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 9 Comments

Espressif announces the ESP32-C61 WiFi 6 SoC with improved affordability and wireless connectivity

Espressif has announced the ESP32-C61 SoC, a new ESP32-Cx chip with improved wireless connectivity, and expanded memory options. The ESP32-C61 builds upon the foundation laid by previous ESP32-Cx chips, such as the ESP32-C2 and ESP-C3, and its specifications appear to be quite similar to the ESP32-C6 launched in early 2023, but this SoC also adds support for the BLE Mesh 1.1 protocol and Quad SPI PSRAM at a frequency of up to 120MHz. It supports WiFi 6 on two modes (802.11ax and 802.11b/g/n) and includes a Bluetooth 5 (LE) radio with support for long-range operation through advertisement extension and coded PHY. The TWT (Target Wake Time) feature is supported in 802.11ax mode to save power, as well as OFDMA (Uplink/Downlink) and MU-MIMO (Downlink) for a high-quality, low-latency connection between devices. ESP32-C61 specifications: CPU – Single-core, 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller that can be clocked up to 160MHz Memory: 320KB on-chip SRAM 256KB […]

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Emporia Vue Gen 2 energy monitor ships with 16 CT clamps, supports single and three-phase power

We’ve just written about the “Smart Powermeter” measuring the power consumption of AC appliances through six CT clamps and running either ESPHome or Arduino firmware on ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth microcontroller. Some people asked about tri-phase and having more CT clamps. One of the commenters then recommended readers to look at the Emporia Vue energy monitor that ships with 16 CT clamps for individual devices/rooms, two 200A CT clamps for whole house monitoring, and supports single-phase up to 240VAC line-neutral, single, split-phase 120/240VAC, and three-phase up to 415Y/240VAC (no Delta). So let’s do that now. Emporia Vue Gen 2 specifications: Connectivity – 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 Probes 2x 200A current sensors for service mains; 3.5mm plug; dimensions: 65 x 44 x 41mm 16x 50A current sensors to individually monitor air conditioner, furnace, water heater, washer, dryer, range, etc; 2.5mm plug, dimensions: 41 x 23 x 26; accurate from ±2% […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

January 9, 2024February 9, 2025 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 8 Comments

The EQSP32 is a no-code, no-solder Industrial Internet of Things Controller powered by a generative AI assistant (Crowdfunding)

The EQSP32 controller is a complete, end-to-end solution for IoT applications that recently launched on Kickstarter. It is a compact, wireless Industrial IoT controller based on the ESP32-S3 wireless SoC with a 250MHz dual-core processor, 512KB of RAM, and 8MB of flash memory. The product leverages artificial intelligence and code for automation projects can be generated automatically by the bundled generative AI programming assistant. The EQSP32 controller features 16 terminals that can be configured as analog or digital inputs, or as digital outputs. Switches, pushbuttons, keypads, LED strips, sensors, servos, potentiometers, etc., can be connected to these terminals. It is similar to the EdgeBox-Edge-100 we covered a while back but lacks an Ethernet port and uses less power overall. EQSP32 specifications: SoC: Espressif Systems ESP32-S3 dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller @ 240 MHz, 512KB RAM Memory – 8MB flash Network Connectivity: Bluetooth, WiFi USB – USB-C programming port I/O: 16 multipurpose […]

January 9, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

ASRock Industrial upgrades mini-ITX, micro-ATX, and ATX motherboards for Intel Core 14th Gen Raptor Lake-S Refresh processors

ASROCK Industrial 14th gen mini-ITX micro-ATX ATX motherboards

ASRock Industrial has just announced 25 (twenty-five!) industrial motherboards powered by 14th gen Intel Core Raptor Lake-S Refresh hybrid processors with up to 24 cores and 32 threads introduced last October, and supporting up to 96GB DDR5 4800/5600 memory. The thin and high-rise mini-ITX, micro-ATX, and ATX industrial motherboards support up to four 4K displays, PCIe Gen5 interfaces, up to three 2.5GbE ports (and 10GbE LAN for the IMB-X1316-10G model), and USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20 Gbps) ports for factory automation, robotics, machine vision, smart retail, kiosks, digital signage, gaming, security, and more. I would usually list the specifications of the motherboards, but since we have 25 different models, I’ll skip that and provide a summary. One reason ASRock Industrial has so many models is that those are existing motherboards with socketed processors and the company offered 12th and 13th gen CPUs so far, and the company simply updated the BIOS […]