CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 11, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Hackboard 2 Intel Celeron N4020 SBC comes with optional 4G/5G cellular modem (crowdfunding)

We’ve seen several x86 SBCs made for the makers’ community including AAEON Up Board family, AMD powered UDOO BOLT boards, and Seeed Studio Odyssey-X864105 SBC and mini PC. Hackboard 2 is another one of those single board computers. Powered by a dual-core Intel Celeron N4020 Gemini Lake Refresh processor coupled with 4GB DDR4 RAM and 64GB eMMC flash, the board offers the usual HDMI, Ethernet, USB ports, plus a 40-pin Raspberry Pi header, and an optional 4G or 5G modem. Hackboard 2 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N4020 dual-core Gemini Lake Refresh processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.8 GHz (Turbo) with 4MB cache, Intel UHD graphics 600; 6W TDP System Memory – 4GB DDR4 RAM Storage – 64 GB onboard eMMC flash, 2x NVMe M.2 slots for up to 4 TB additional storage Video output HDMI 2.0a output up to 4K 30-pin eDP connector for 11.6″ to 15.6″ displays 6-pin […]

December 10, 2020December 11, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Orange Pi R1 Plus router SBC features Rockchip RK3328, Dual GbE

FriendlyELEC NanoPi R2S SBC for headless applications with Rockchip RK3328 processor and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports is getting some competition, as with Orange Pi R1 Plus board, Shenzhen Xunlong Software has updated its Orange Pi R1 board powered by an Allwinner H2+ to RK3328 processor coupled with 1GB RAM, and offering dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, plus one USB port for router applications. Orange Pi R1 Plus board specifications with highlights in bold or stricken through showing differences against R1 board: SoC –Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-450MP2 System Memory – 1GB DDR4 RAM Storage – MicroSD card slot, 16 MB SPI flash Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet via RTL8211E transceiver and RTL8153B USB 3.0 to Ethernet chip + 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (Realtek RTL8189ETV) with u.FL antenna connector and external antenna USB – 1x USB 2.0 port, 1x USB-C OTG port Expansion headers Unpopulated 26-pin “Raspberry Pi […]

December 10, 2020December 10, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Ollie USB board exposes isolated UART, CAN, USB, RS485 & RS232 interfaces (crowdfunding)

Just like months, we wrote about Tigard open-source USB FT2232H board for hardware hacking with easy access to OpenOCD, JTAG, Cortex, flashrom interfaces used to debug/flash boards, extra I/Os with UART, SPI, and I2C, as well as a header to connect a logic analyzer and observe signals. If the board does not exactly match your requirements, Ollie USB board might, also it may not serve exactly the same purpose(s). The board acts as a USB bridge to isolated UART (x2), CAN, USB, RS485, and RS232 interfaces. Ollie specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32F042 Arm Cortex-M0 microcontroller with CAN interface Host interface – Micro USB port Isolated interfaces (all with ESD protection) 2x UART ports up to 12 Mbps with 1.8/3.3/5 V voltage levels (set by slide switch) CAN bus based on CANable/CANtact open hardware, flashed with dual firmware CANtact and Candlelight (switch selectable) and equipped with termination resistor switch Downstream USB […]

December 10, 2020December 10, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

RISC-V hardware & software ecosystem highlights in 2020

The RISC-V Summit 2020 is currently taking place virtually, and RISC-V International, a non-profit corporation aiming to drive the adoption and implementation of the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA), took the occasion to remind us of the growth of the ISA both in terms of commercial adaption, education, and other projects. Calista Redmond, CEO of RISC-V International, detailed the growth in memberships: This year, our technical community has grown 66 percent to more than 2,300 individuals in our more than 50 technical and special interest groups. We’re seeing increased market momentum of RISC-V cores, SoCs, developer boards, software and tools across computing from embedded to enterprise … We’re proud of our growing global membership, which has more than doubled in the last year to 1,000 total members, including 222 organizations.” RISC-V also launched the RISC-V Exchange now listing over 124 RISC-V cores, SoCs, and developer boards, as well as 129 […]

December 9, 2020 by Abhishek Jadhav - No Comments

What is Federated Learning in 5G C-V2X?

Implementation approach of Federated learning

In the past, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G with onboard sensors and GPS gave a huge start to the partial or conditional automation of the vehicles. In today’s era of 4G/5G C-V2X (Cellular vehicle-to-everything) with onboard compute and sensors have pushed the connectivity evolution in the automotive industry. Work has increased on high-automation and fully autonomous vehicles. This is all possible due to wireless communication which is 5G. 5G brings high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and high reliability to the board. With these promises, it becomes very evident that these technologies, specifically with 5G that can be leveraged in vehicles. The technology is not just to connect vehicles, but also tries to see if a vehicle can connect to a network to get some information from the cloud servers. For the use case of vehicles platooning, we can expect a latency of 10 ms with 99.99% reliability and a high data rate […]

December 9, 2020December 9, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

$20 mini spot welder machine welds thin steel strips on battery packs

When I think about welding machines, I imagine fairly large units, protective gloves and masks, plus sparks coming out of the welding process when two metal parts are melted together. So when I saw a small “portable DIY mini spot welder machine” going for $25 on Banggood[update: or just under $20 shipped on Aliexpress], I thought to myself: “what is THAT”? It turns out it’s made for welding jobs with thin nickel-plated steel strips such as the ones that can be found attached to 18650 batteries, or full battery packs. Mini spot welder specifications: Controlled with by unnamed MCU Display – LCD with welding parameters: WELD ENERGY – 01-99 adjustable by up and down keys INPUT – Display input power voltage WELD WAY – Manual / Auto (adjustable with “square label” button) Based on 5x 300A MOSFETs 30cm 10AWG cables for welding pens 25V 10000uF high-frequency low-resistance capacitor to increase […]

December 9, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Foenix 21-5-inch Android 8.1 smart touch computer features MediaTek MT8167A Cortex-A35 SoC

Foenix Touch Console Mediatek MT8167A Smart Display

Earlier this week, we covered Wireless Tag’s Industio 7-inch smart display powered by a SigmaStar SSD201 32-bit Arm Cortex-A7 processor and offering both Ethernet and WiFi 4 connectivity. If you’d like a 64-bit processor, a much larger display size, and faster wireless connectivity, Innocomm has just introduced the “Foenix Touch Console” 21.5-inch open-frame touch computer based on the same MediaTek MT8167A quad-core Cortex-A35 processor as found in the PlayStation Classic, and capable of Ethernet and WiFi 5 (AC) networking. Foenix iCOM1019 touch console preliminary specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT8167A quad-core Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz with PowerVR GE8300 GPU System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 8GB storage, MicroSD card slot Display – 21.5-inch PCAP touchscreen display with 1920×1080 resolution Video Output – Optional HDMI 1.4a Audio – 2-channel 6W amplifier, 2x digital microphones, 3.5mm 4-pole audio jack Camera – Optional 2MP front-facing camera Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet (RJ45) […]

December 9, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Google’s Fuchsia OS is now open to public contributions, gets a “roadmap”

We were first made aware of Fuchsia OS, an open-source operating system developed by Google, in 2016. At the time, nobody clearly knew what was the goal of the project, although some speculated it could be a Linux replacement. We first wrote about it in 2018, as Fuchsia OS added support for several Amlogic processors hinting that it may be used in TV boxes and media streamers. Google also launched a developer website in 2019 to provide more information and resources to people outside the company interested in trying it out. But while the OS development was always made in the open with the source code publicly available, Google did not accept contributions from the community so far. This has now changed, as the company just announced the expansion of Fuchsia’s open-source model to make it easier for the developer community to contribute to the project. Specifically, Google has set […]