CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 16, 2020April 16, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

YARC Case Can House a Raspberry Pi Board with one HAT Expansion Board and Up to 3 Hard Drives (Crowdfunding)

There are plenty of enclosures for Raspberry Pi board and other compact x86 or Arm Linux SBCs, but many projects require expansion boards and it’s not always possible to use an off-the-shelf case. That’s with that in mind that Stefano Zorzi and other enthusiasts have created YARC (Yes, Another Raspberry Case), a hexagonal case that supports the most popular single board computers, even when an add-on board – such as a Raspberry Pi HAT – is attached to the board. There’s enough space for up to three 2.5″ hard drives. Those are the boards officially supported (tested?) with the case: Raspberry Pi B +, 2B, 3B, 3B +, 4B, A +, 3A + Hardkernel ODROID C1, C2 AAEON Up Board Asus Tinker board and Tinker board S Radxa Rock Pi 4 Orange Pi PC, Pi PC2, Pi PC Plus Basically any board with compatible mounting holes can be installed in […]

April 15, 2020July 31, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Raspberry Pi powered Ventilators and 80+ Open Source Ventilators Listed & Ranked

With the (potential) shortage of ventilators due to COVID-19 pandemic, people have been working together to create cheaper and/or open-source ventilators, and we previously covered a smartphone-powered ventilator, as well as an open-source Arduino ventilator. It should come as no surprise some companies have started to make ventilators powered by Raspberry Pi boards. Raspberry Pi Zero Production Ramped up for Ventilators Tom’s Hardware reports the Raspberry Pi Foundation is specifically ramping up production of the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero because manufacturers are indeed integrating the tiny SBC into ventilators. Eben Upton, CEO and Founder of Raspberry Pi Foundation/Trading, explains: One of the main challenges with rapidly scaling manufacture of products like this is that you may be able to surge production of the air-handling elements, but you still need to provide the control element: often the components you need are on 20-week lead times and (hopefully) we’ll be out of […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

April 15, 2020July 31, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ADLink Launches Vizi-AI Development Starter Kit for Industrial Machine Vision & Artificial Intelligence

ADLINK has recently launched Vizi-AI development starter kit for industrial machine vision and artificial intelligence (AI) at the edge in collaboration with Intel and Arrow Electronics. Vizi-AI is comprised of a carrier board that looks to be the same as used in the company’s I-Pi SMARC development kit equipped with an Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU and combined with LEC-AL Intel Atom Apollo Lake SMARC computer module. Vizi-AI SBC Let’s have a look at the hardware features and specifications of Vizi-AI SBC (aka VIZI-AI LEC-AL-E3940-AI-4G-32G): SoC – Intel Atom x5-E3940 quad-core Apollo Lake-I processor @ up to 1.6 / 1.8 GHz (Turbo) with 12EU Intel HD Graphics 500; 9.5W TDP System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 (Option up to 8GB) Storage – 1x MicroSD card slot AI Accelerator – Intel Movidius Myriad-X VPU (Vision Processing Unit) Video – 1x HDMI port, single-channel LVDS/eDP interface via flat cable Audio – On-carrier audio […]

April 15, 2020April 15, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

GitHub Now Supports Unlimited Collaborators in Free Private Repositories, Lowers Monthly Fees

GitHub has always been free to use with basically no limits on public repositories, but until now developers could only use GitHub for their private projects with up to three collaborators per repository for free and had to switch to a paid plan to work with a larger team. The limit on the number of collaborators has just been removed in GitHub Free, and the company also lowered the price of their monthly plans with the following key changes: GitHub Free plan for teams with unlimited collaborators in private repositories, 2,000 GitHub Actions minutes/month, and GitHub Community Support. Unlimited collaborators in private repositories as part of GitHub Free plans. Monthly pricing for the Pro plan has been reduced from $7/month to $4/month (Now only available as part of Student Developer Pack, see FAQ) Monthly pricing for the paid Team plan has been reduced from $9/user to $4/user. Actions minutes and […]

April 14, 2020April 14, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 61 Comments

BreadBee is a Tiny Embedded Linux SBC based on MStar MSC313E Camera SoC (Crowdfunding)

There are plenty of tiny and compact Arm Linux SBC on the market from NanoPi NEO to Raspberry Pi Zero or Rock Pi S. But Daniel Palmer has been able to design an even smaller board – BreadBee – based on MStar MSC313E Cortex-A7 SoC since the processor also embeds 64MB RAM, or enough to run embedded Linux.BreadBee specifications: SoC – MStar MSC313E Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ ~1.0 GHz with NEON, FPU, 64MB DDR2 Storage – 16MB SPI NOR flash Networking – 10/100M Ethernet (RJ45) USB – 1x Micro USB 2.0 port Expansion 24-pin dual-row header (2.54mm pitch) with SPI, I2C, 4x 10-bit ADC, 3x UART, GPIOs 21-pin header (1.27mm pitch) with SD/SDIO, USB 2.0, GPIOs Misc – RTC, Watchdog timer Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port Dimensions – 32 x 30mm Despite MStar MSC313E being a camera processor, the camera interface does not seem exposed in the […]

April 14, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Events Calendar Launched for Open Source or/and Embedded Systems Exhibitions, Workshops, Seminars…

Last month after writing about Arrow Embedded To Go online event, I was told: “it would be great to have a ‘event’ area on the site…” So I looked into it and installed a plugin to provide just that with an Events Calendar page. Currently, there are two events listed, but if you are organizing any events related to embedded systems, open-source hardware, the maker community feel free to submit your event on the page. The events can be offline or online and range from larger exhibitions like Embedded World to seminars, webinars, or even local workshops. If you have one or more such events planned, please try to submit it, and report any issue you may find in the comments section. Thanks!

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

April 14, 2020April 14, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SGET SMARC 2.1 Hardware Specification Allows Up to 4 Cameras, 4 Ethernet Interfaces

There are plenty of standards for systems-on-module that are supposed to allow interoperability between vendors. For example vendor 1 may create a Qseven SoM that works with vendor 2’s Qseven compliant carrier board which should accept any Qseven compatible module, although in practice, there are always some small differences that may cause problems. Many of those standards are managed by SGET (Standardization Groups for Embedded Technologies) including SMARC (“Smart Mobility ARChitecture”), Qseven, and Embedded NUC. A recent post on ADLINK Technology alerted us of the publication of SMARC 2.1 hardware specification (PDF) with the following changes: Incorporated Errata 1.1 Rev. 2 (2/9/2017) Updated signal tables with pin number, power domain, termination information… Added details for eDP[0:1]_HPD Added SERDES as alternative function for PCIeC and PCIeD Added MDIO Interface Updated power domains and power sequencing Added two extra GPIOs PCIe Clock Request signals for PCIeA and PCIeBat at previous locations Changed […]

April 13, 2020April 14, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

X96Q Android 10 TV Box Shows Up with Allwinner H313 Quad-core Cortex-A53 Processor

It looks like Allwinner has come up with a new confusing processor. Allwinner H3 is a popular quad-core Cortex-A7 processor that’s been around for years, but the company has now launched an Allwinner H313 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor that’s found in some TV boxes running Android 10, namely X96Q with 1 to 2 GB RAM, and 8 to 16GB storage. X96Q TV box specifications: SoC – Allwinner H313 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.35 GHz with Arm Mali G31 MP2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2 and Vulkan System Memory – 1GB/2GB SDRAM Storage – 8GB/16GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz, AV port for video composite + stereo audio Video Codecs VP9 Profile-2 up to 4K 30fps H.265 Main10 @ L5.1 up to 4K 60fps AVS2 JiZhun 10-bit Profile up to 4K 60fps H.264 BP/MP/HP @ L4.2 […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications