CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

March 1, 2019March 1, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

TechNexion AXON and FLEX SoM Families Feature i.MX 8M Mini SoC, FPGA Fabric

Taiwan based Technexion has introduced several new products at Embedded World 2019 including two new SoM families: AXON and FLEX. AXON is a product family of small form factor (58 x 37 mm) modules designed for specialized embedded applications requiring extra I/O flexibility, while FLEX series is a low-cost family making use of the standard LPDDR4 SO-DIMM connector. Specifically, the company launched new AXON and FLEX modules powered by NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor with AXON-IMX8M-MINI featuring AXON Fabric programmable logic, a specialized IC that provides additional functions including nearly infinite pinmuxing, and FLEX-IMX8M-MINI that offers HD multimedia streaming and integrated 3D graphics for cost sensitive applications. AXON-IMX8M-MINI SoM AXON-IMX8M-MINI SoM specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini Solo, Dual or Quad Arm Cortex-A53+M4 processor FPGA – “Axon Fabric” making use of a Lattice MachXO3LF FPGA with 2100 LUTs (LookUp Tables) System Memory – Up to 4GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage […]

February 28, 2019February 28, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Seeeduino Lotus Cortex-M0+ is a $10 Arduino compatible Board with 12 Grove Connectors

Grove modules are cool little add-on boards that connect through 4-pin header using UART, I2C, analog or digital I/Os, and usually you’d need to buy a HAT or shield to connect them to respectively Raspberry Pi or Arduino board. But Seeed Studio has come up with a small Arduino compatible board based on Microchip SAMD21 microcontroller called Seeeduino Lotus Cortex-M0+ that may be the cheapest “Grove” solution around as it sells for just $9.90. Seeeduino Lotus Cortex-M0+ specifications: MCU – Microchip Atmel SAMD21 Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller at 48MHz with 256KB Flash and 32KB SRAM as found in Arduino Zero. USB – 1x micro USB port for power and programming Expansion 12x on-board Grove connectors (6x Digital, 3x Analog, 1x UART and 2x I2C) Arduino UNO headers 14x Digital I/O Pins (10 PWM outputs) 6x Analog Inputs I/O pins are 3.3V, do not input more than 3.3V, otherwise the CPU may […]

February 28, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

TI AM5729 Powered BeagleBone-AI Comes with TI C66x DSP and EVE Cores

Launched in 2013, BeagleBone Black is still one of the most popular hobbyist board thanks to its many I/Os, software support, and affordable price with being the cheapest board around those days. But it looks like we’ll soon have a new version that allows to experiment with artificial intelligence workloads. BeagleBone-AI is powered by Texas Instruments AM5729 SoC equipped with TI C66x digital-signal-processor (DSP) cores and embedded-vision-engine (EVE) cores supported through a TIDL (Texas Instruments Deep Learning) machine learning OpenCL API. BeagleBone-AI preliminary specifications: SoC – TI AM5729 dual core Cortex-A15 processor featuring 4 PRUs, Dual core C66x DSP, and 4 EVEs System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 16GB on-board eMMC flash with high-speed interface Networking – Gigabit Ethernet and high-speed WiFi SB – 1x USB type-C for power and superspeed dual-role controller, 1x USB type-A host Expansion – BeagleBone Black (BBB) compatible headers Dimensions – 86.4 x 53.4 […]

February 28, 2019February 28, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Qualcomm Robotics RB3 Development Platform is Powered by Snapdragon 845 SoC

[Update: The board is now known as “Qualcomm Robotics RB3 Development Platform” instead of DragonBoard 845c”, the rest of the article is unchanged] Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 is one of the fastest Arm processors found in consumer devices, and if you ever wanted a development platform with access to various I/Os, you’d have to go with fairly expensive kits (>$1,000) such as Intrinsyc Open-Q 845 HDK. The good news is that there’s now a cheaper Snapdragon 845 development board, compliant with 96Boards CE specifications, thanks to Thundercomm’s Robotics DragonBoard 845c that combines with processor with 4GB RAM, 64GB UFS storage, and the usual 96boards ports and expansion headers. Robotics DragonBoard 845c specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with 8x custom 64-bit ARMv8 CPUs up to 2.8 GHz Adreno 630 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2 + AEP, DX next, Vulkan 2, OpenCL 2.0 full profile, and RenderScript Hexagon 685 DSP […]

February 27, 2019February 27, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Snapdragon 8cx 5G Compute Platform Targets 5G always on, always connected PCs

Qualcomm announced Snapdragon 8cx processor for so-called always on, always connected mobile PCs in December 2018. The processor comes with eight Qualcomm Kryo 495 core, an Adreno 680 GPU with a 128-bit memory interface, NVME SSD, UFS 3.0 support, as well as a Snapdragon X24 4G LTE modem among other features. But the launch 5G cellular connectivity will start to (slowly) take off this year, so the company also revealed plans for Snapdragon 8cx 5G compute platform that brings the same processing power as 8cx processor but with an extra Snapdragon X55 5G modem. The company did not provide that many details about Snapdragon 8cx 5G in the press release, but we already know Snapdragon 8cx specifications as well as the key features of Snapdragon X55 2nd generation 5G modem, so we should already have a good idea about the platform. Qualcomm highlights the 7nm manufacturing process, multi-day battery life, and multi-gigabit […]

February 27, 2019April 2, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

MINIX NEO Z83-4U Review – Part 1: Unboxing and Teardown

MINIX NEO Z83-4U Ubuntu mini PC was unveiled just a few days ago as the first mini PC from MINIX HK running a Linux operating systems, namely Ubuntu 18.04. The company has sent me a sample for evaluation, so as usual, I’ll first have a look at the hardware in the first part of the review, before reporting my experience with the mini PC in a few weeks. MINIX NEO Z83-4U Unboxing The company has done away with the black and green package for their Android TV boxes and Windows mini PC, and instead went with a purple and (Ubuntu) orange package. I already wrote the specifications in the announcement post, but here they are again on the back of the package. The main difference, in terms of terms, against MINIX NEO Z83-4 Pro (Windows 10 Pro) mini PC is that the storage has been upgraded to 64GB flash since […]

February 27, 2019January 7, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

NXP i.MX 8M Nano is a Power-optimized Arm Cortex-A53/M7 Processor

NXP introduced their first 14nm i.MX processor at Embedded World 2018 last year with i.MX 8 Mini processor equipped with up to four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 2.0 GHz and one real-time Cortex-M4 cores clocked at 400+ MHz, and optional 1080p video output and decoding/encoding. The company has now added another 14nm member to their i.MX 8M family with NXP i.MX 8M Nano family also featuring four Cortex-A53 cores at up to 1.5 GHz, but replacing the Cortex-M4 by a more powerful Cortex-M7 core clocked at up to 600 MHz. The processor is also power-optimized for less than 2W total dynamic power (TDP) and sub-watt in many IoT edge applications. NXP i.MX 8M Nano key features and specifications: Application cores – One to four Arm Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.5 GHz per core; 32KB L1-I Cache/ 32 KB L1-D Cache; 512 KB L2 Cache Real-time core – Arm Cortex-M7 […]

February 26, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Octavo Systems Unveils OSD32MP15x STM32MP1 SiP (System-in-Package)

STMicro STM32MP1 is one of the most interesting microprocessor recently announced, as it should allow a relatively easy upgrade path for projects based on the traditional STM32 Cortex-M4 microcontrollers, thanks to backward compatibility, and the extra one or two Arm Cortex-A7 cores enabling Linux support. We’ve already seen several upcoming evaluation and development boards based on STM32MP157 processor including STMicro’s own discovery kits and evaluation platform, as well as Arrow Electronics Avenger96 board fitted with a tiny 29x29mm SoM. But I suspect we could see even more compact designs soon, as Octavo Systems has now unveiled OSD32MP15x system-in-package with STM32MP15x MPU, up to 1GB RAM, 4K EEPROM, STPMIC1 power management IC, two oscillators, and over 100 passive components all brought together into a 18x18mm package. Octavo Systems OSD32MP15x system-in-package main components and specifications: MPU (MicroProcessor Unit) – STMicroelectronics STM32MP15x with Dual Arm Cortex-A7 @ 650MHz, Arm Cortex-M4 real-time core @ […]