CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

November 1, 2023November 1, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

$15 Olimex RT1010-Py board runs MicroPython on 500 MHz NXP i.MX RT1011 Cortex-M7 MCU

Olimex RT1010-Py is a small development board powered by a 500 MHz NXP i.MX RT1011 Cortex-M7 MCU designed to run MicroPython and about four times faster than the Raspberry Pi Pico. The board comes with two 20-pin GPIO headers exposing various interfaces such as SPI and I2C, a microSD card slot for storage, two buttons, and a USB-C Type port for power and programming. The RT1010-Py also includes a 12-pin fUEXT connector to connect Olimex’s UEXT modules via a flat cable. Olimex RT1010-Py specifications: SoC – NXP iMX RT1011 crossover microcontroller with an Arm Cortex-M7 clocked at 500 MHz and 128KB SRAM/TCM Storage – 2MB SPI Flash, microSD card slot USB – 1x USB 2.0 OTG Type-C port Expansion 2x 20-pin headers with up to 15x GPIO, 3x UART, 2x SPI, 2x I2C, 1x I2S, 4x PWM. 5x analog input fUEXT connector (12-pin flat cable 0.5 mm step connector) with […]

November 1, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

RAKwireless Blues.ONE LoRaWAN, LTE-M and NB-IoT devkit ships with Blues NoteCard including a 500MB data plan

RAKwireless Blues.ONE is a LoRaWAN IoT development kit that also supports LTE-M and NB-IoT cellular connectivity through the Blues NoteCard which comes with 10 years and an upgradeable 500MB cellular data plan. The devkit relies on the WisBlock modular IoT prototyping system with the RAK13102 WisBlock Blues Notecarrier, the Blues NoteCard, a WisBlock Base Board, and a WisBlock Core module. It can be used to prototype or develop IoT devices for industrial automation and asset-tracking applications. Blues.ONE specifications: RAK4631 WisBlock Core Module SoC – Nordic nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller @ 64 MHz with 1 MB Flash, 256 KB RAM, Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0 protocol stack LoRaWAN – Semtech SX1262 LoRa Transceiver with LoRaWAN 1.0.2 protocol stack (supports Class A & C), global coverage support: RU864, IN865, EU868, US915, AU915, KR920, AS923 RAK19007 WisBlock Base Board 4x Sensor Slots 1x IO Slot 1x USB Type C connector Rechargeable battery connector Solar […]

November 1, 2023November 28, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

GEEKOM Mini IT13 Core i9 mini PC review – Part 1: Specs, unboxing, teardown, and first boot

GEEKOM Mini IT13 is a powerful 13th gen Raptor Lake mini PC that was unveiled last August with either an Intel Core i9-13900H, Core i7-13700H, or Core i5-13500H processor, up to 32GB RAM, 2TB NVMe, and interfaces such as HDMI 2.0, USB4, 2.5GbE, and so on. The company has sent us a review sample of the Mini IT13 mini PC equipped with a Core-i9 14-core processor, 32GB RAM, and a 2TB NVMe SSD. We’ll start the review with an unboxing, a teardown to check the hardware design and upgradability of the device, and quickly try out to boot the system with the pre-installed Windows 11 Pro. But let’s go through the specifications before that. GEEKOM Mini IT13 specifications SoC – Intel Core i9-13900H 13th Gen Raptor Lake processor with 14 cores, 20 threads up to 5.40 GHz, 24MB Cache, Iris Xe graphics; TDP: 45W System Memory – Dual-channel DDR4-3200 SODIMM, […]

October 31, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Renesas RA8M1 is the world’s first Arm Cortex-M85 microcontroller

Renesas RA8M1 Arm Cortex-M85 microcontroller

Renesas RA8M1 is an up to 480 MHz Arm Cortex-M85 microcontroller with Arm Helium technology to improve DSP and machine learning performance on Cortex-M microcontrollers, and delivering up to 6.39 CoreMark/MHz performance using EEMBC’s CoreMark, or over 3,000 CoreMark at 480 MHz. The Arm Cortex-M85 core was first unveiled in April 2022 as a faster Cortex-M7 alternative and new Arm Helium technology that delivers machine learning performance similar to Cortex-M55 application processor. We had some teases about the upcoming Renesas Cortex-M85 in the last year, but the world’s first Cortex-M85 microcontroller is finally here. Renesas RA8M1 key features and specifications: MCU core – Arm Cortex-M85 clocked at 240 to 480 MHz with Helium MVE (M-Profile Vector Extension) with 32KB I/D Caches and 12KB Data Flash Memory & Storage 1MB SRAM with TCM 1MB to 2MB Flash memory External memory interfaces (CS/SDRAM) Camera – 16-bit Capture Engine Unit (CEU) interface Communication […]

October 31, 2023October 31, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite SoC benchmarks in Windows and Linux

Snapdragon X Elite reference laptop 23W vs 80W

Qualcomm unveiled the 4.3 GHz 12-core Snapdragon X Elite processor for laptops last week since some bold claims about the performance and efficiency. The company has now released benchmarks for the processor verified by third parties such as Anandtech and Notebookcheck showing the new Snapdragon processor performance is quite amazing with the Arm processor indeed matching Apple, Intel, and AMD high-end chips. What’s more is that the new SoC was tested in both Windows and Linux (using Geekbench 6.2), so in hindsight, I was wrong to say the Snapdragon X Lite would be a Windows-only processor when only seeing the DX12 listed in the specifications… Before we look into the benchmark results, we should note that Qualcomm provided two versions of the Snapdragon X Elite laptop prototype both using active cooling: “demo config A” high-performance system configured to run at an 80W TDP, and a low-power, thinner “demo config B” […]

October 31, 2023November 5, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Raspberry Pi 5 Kit Review – Part 1: Unboxing, Assembly and First Boot

Raspberry Pi 5 Kit Review Raspberry Pi OS boot

I’m quite late on that one, but after an extended holiday, I’m now ready to review the Raspberry Pi 5 the company sent me last month. I’ll do so with the latest Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm based on Debian 12 and CNX Software’s “tropical reviews” are usually more demanding than most others due to the higher ambient temperature (usually around 28°C in my room) in Thailand. But since Raspberry Pi did not just send the Raspberry Pi 5, but a full kit with keyboard, mouse, enclosure, and more, I’ll start with a post mostly looking at the hardware with an unboxing, assembly, plus a quick try at Debian 12 on the new SBC. Raspberry Pi 5 Kit Unboxing Besides the Raspberry Pi 5 itself, the package included the active cooler (heatsink + fan), a microSD card preloaded with a pre-release Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm image, a USB-PD power supply, a […]

October 30, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

MediaTek Genio 1200 Arm Cortex-A78/A55 EVK gets official Ubuntu 22.04 support

Canonical and MediaTek announced optimized Ubuntu images for the Genio 1200 EVK during Embedded Word 2023 last March, but at the time, I could not find any images for download, and there was just an invitation to come check out Ubuntu Core running on the MediaTek Genio platform at the event. But things have progressed well, and Canonical has now announced the availability of Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop and Server for not only the high-end Genio 1200 EVK, but also the mid-range Genio 700 EVK, and the entry-level Genio 350 EVK. That should be good news, as when I tested the i-Pi SMARC 1200 devkit earlier this year (June 2023), the Genio 1200 Arm Cortex-A78/A55 processor (aka MediaTek MT8195) showed really good performance in benchmarks, but at the time, the only option was to use a Yocto image, which is great, but there were still some unresolved software issues and the […]

October 30, 2023January 8, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Linux 6.6 LTS release – Highlights, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

The Linux 6.6 release has just been announced by Linus Torvalds on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): So this last week has been pretty calm, and I have absolutely no excuses to delay the v6.6 release any more, so here it is. There’s a random smattering of fixes all over, and apart from some bigger fixes to the r8152 driver, it’s all fairly small. Below is the shortlog for last week for anybody who really wants to get a flavor of the details. It’s short enough to scroll through. This obviously means that the merge window for 6.7 opens tomorrow, and I appreciate how many early pull requests I have lined up, with 40+ ready to go. That will make it a bit easier for me to deal with it, since I’ll be on the road for the first week of the merge window. Linus About two months ago, […]