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T-Dongle-S3 USB dongle combines ESP32-S3 wireless MCU with optional color display

LilyGO T-Dongle-S3 is a USB dongle based on ESP32-S3 dual-core microcontroller with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, a microSD card slot, as well as an optional 0.96-inch color display. You may remember the company launched the T-Dongle ESP32-S2 last spring, and I first thought it was an update to ESP32-S3, but the new T-Dongle-S3 has quite more compact design and a smaller set of features that makes it suitable for data logging and displaying basic information over a wireless connection. T-Dongle ESP32-S2 development board specifications: Wireless SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3 with Dual-core 32-bit Xtensa LX7 microcontroller up to 240MHz RISC-V ULP Co-processor 512KB SRAM 2.4GHz Wifi 4 (802.11b/g/n) Bluetooth 5.0 BLE + Mesh Storage 4 MB flash (or 16MB flash depending on where you look) MicroSD card socket cleverly “hidden” under the USB connector Display – Optional 0.96-inch 65K color IPS LCD (ST7735 SPI controller) with 160 x […]

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Ubuntu 22.10 released with MicroPython and improved Raspberry Pi display support

Canonical has just released Ubuntu 22.10 “Kinetic Kudu” with improved desktop usability and performance, upgrade enterprise management tooling, and tools to optimize developer workflows, but highlights most relevant to CNX Software readers are the inclusion of MicroPython and improved embedded display support for Raspberry Pi. It feels like Ubuntu 22.04 LTS was just recently outed, but six months have already passed and Ubuntu 22.10 interim release is out. Some of the generic changes include: Toolchain updates to Ruby, Go, GCC and Rust OpenSSH server (sshd) is only activated when an incoming connection request is received to lower the memory footprint on resource-constrained devices A new debuginfod service to help developers and admins debug programs shipped with Ubuntu Landscape 22.10 beta to run and manage Ubuntu server to desktop on most architectures including Arm and RISC-V GNOME 43 with GTK4 for improved performance and consistency. Pipewire audio platform with better Bluetooth […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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Google KataOS – A secure OS for embedded systems written in Rust (mostly)

Google Research has been working on its own Rust-based operating system called KataOS and designed to secure embedded systems that run Machine Learning (ML) applications. There has been a lot of talk about the Rust programming language in recent times, since it offers about the same level of performance as C programming but helps programmers write more secure code with built-in prevention against buffer overflows for instance. It has gained a lot of traction over the years, and Linux 6.1 will be the first kernel release to include Rust code. Google Research noticed that system security is often treated as a feature that can be added to existing systems either by software or an extra security chip. But in a world, where more and more of our private data is exposed to the world through the Internet, it is not good enough, so the company developed KataOS open-source, secure operating […]

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Allwinner V851S/V851SE low-cost camera SoC embeds 64MB DDR2, a 0.5 TOPS NPU

Allwinner V851S/V851SE is a single-core Arm Cortex-A7 SoC with a RISC-V core, an H.265/H.264 video encoder, and a 0.5 TOPS NPU designed for Smart IP cameras with support for features such as human detection and crossing alarms. Both processors ship with 64MB DDR2 memory, and feature USB, Ethernet, and SDIO interfaces, but the V851S is designed for systems with a display, while the V851SE targets traditional headless IP cameras. Both processors are pretty similar, but here are the key differences between Allwinner V851S: Networking – 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port with RMII interface GPIO – 6x ports (PA, PC, PD, PE, PF, PH) Display LCD Parallel RGB, Serial RGB, i8080, BT656 2-lane MIPI DSI SPI – 4x SPI and Allwinner V851SE: Networking – SIP 100 Mbps EPHY GPIO – 5x ports (PA, PC, PE, PF, PH) Display – Not supported SPI – 3x SPI That means the Allwinner V851S requires an […]

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Unexpected Maker TinyS3, FeatherS3 and ProS3 boards feature ESP32-S3 dual-core wireless MCU

Seon Rozenblum, better known as Unexpected Maker, has launched upgrades to its ESP32-S2 boards such as the TinyS2 with ESP32-S3 variants, namely TinyS3, FeatherS3, and ProS3 boards. The new boards share the same form factors as the TinyS2, FeatherS2, and ProS2, but they get a more powerful dual-core microcontroller with AI instructions and 512kB SRAM. The microcontroller also adds Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy (BLE) connectivity with Bluetooth Mesh support, instead of just WiFi 4 connectivity found in the earlier boards. TinyS3, FeatherS3, and ProS3 boards share the following features: SoC – Espressif Systems’ ESP32-S3 with Dual-core 32bit Xtensa LX7 microcontroller up to 240MHz RISC-V ULP Co-processor 512KB SRAM 2.4GHz Wifi 4 (802.11b/g/n) Bluetooth 5.0 BLE + Mesh Memory – 8MB QSPI PSRAM Flash – 8MB to 16MB depending on the model. USB – 1x USB Type-C connector with reverse back-feed protection for power and programming Antenna – 3D high gain […]

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Raspberry Pi RP2040 gets into BBC Micro:bit lookalike board

ELECFREAKS Pico:ed V2 is a Raspberry Pi RP2040 board heavily inspired by the BBC Micro:bit with an edge connector exposing rings suitable for crocodile clips, a 17×7 LED matrix display, and designed for the classroom. We’ve seen several BBC Micro:bit clones – or rather adaptations – over the years with boards such as the SiFive Learn Inventor, Elecrow Mbits, and  HiHope “Big Brother” board. The Pico:ed V2 adds to the list, and the main differences are that it is based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller instead, and does not come with wireless connectivity relying on a USB interface only. ELECFREAKS Pico:ed V2 specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ up to 133Mhz with 264kB of SRAM Storage – 2MB QSPI flash Display – 17×7 dot-matrix display USB – 1x micro USB 1.1 port for power, data, and programming I/Os 25-pin notched “Wavy” connector with up to […]

AAEON Intel Arc
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3D game running on FPGA shown to be 50x more efficient than on x86 hardware

Sphery vs. shapes is an open-source 3D raytraced game written in C and translated into FPGA bitstream that runs 50 times more efficiently on FPGA hardware than on an AMD Ryzen processor. Verilog and VHDL languages typically used on FPGA are not well-suited to game development or other complex applications, so instead, Victor Suarez Rovere and Julian Kemmerer relied on Julian’s “PipelineC” C-like hardware description language (HDL) and Victor’s CflexHDL tool that include parser/generator and math types library in order to run the same code on PC with a standard compile, and on FPGA through a custom C to VHDL translator. More details about the game development and results are provided in a white paper. Some math functions were needed, including: floating point addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, reciprocals, square root, inverse square roots, vector dot products, vector normalization, etc. Fixed point counterparts were also used for performance reasons and to […]

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Banana Pi BPI-M2 Ultra SBC is now offered with Allwinner A40i industrial-grade processor

The Allwinner A40i and A60i industrial-grade quad-core and hexa-core Cortex-A7 processors were first introduced in 2018 with support for the wide -40°C to +85°C industrial temperature range, but so far I had not noticed any hardware making use of either processor. But Banana Pi is now offering the Banana Pi BPI-M2 Ultra SBC, which they launched in 2016 with the Allwinner R40 quad-core Cortex-A7 SoC, with the pin-to-pin and software-compatible Allwinner A40i industrial-grade processor. Banana Pi BPI-M2 Ultra specifications: SoC – Allwinner A40i quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 processor with Arm Mali-400MP2 GPU @ 500 MHz, 1080p60 H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-1/2 video decoder, H.264 1080p45 video encoder System Memory – 2GB DDR3 SDRAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, SATA interface, microSD card slot Video Output HDMI 1.4 port up to 1080p60 4-lane MIPI DSI display connector, or RGB, or LVDS Audio I/O – 3.5mm headphone jack, digital audio output via HDMI, built-in microphone […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC