CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

January 7, 2020January 7, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Raspberry Pi 4 Powered Open Source Hardware Robot Paves the Way for Robot Maids

Raspberry Pi 4 Open Source Hardware Robot

Eventually, we all expect robots to do chores and other manual tasks performed by humans such as preparing and serving food at restaurants, carry objects over rough terrain as opposed to just inside the warehouse with a flat floor, or even moves pieces on a chessboard when other humans are no here to play with us. I’m fully expecting to eventually own a robot maid of sorts to wash dishes, mop the floors, and perform other tasks on my behalf. We are not there yet, but Raspberry Pi 4 powered Pollen Robotics’ Reachy open source-hardware robot is getting us closer to the goal as it can handle small objects and via two robotic arms and a dual-camera head, and can also interact with humans using a microphone and a speaker. Key features and specifications of Reachy robot: Main body SBC – Raspberry Pi 4 SBC with 2GB according to a […]

January 7, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

NXP i.MX 8M Plus Processor Targets AI Applications with a 2.3 TOPS Neural Processing Unit

NXP has just announced its first i.MX processor with a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) at CES 2020. The NXP i.MX 8M Plus SoC is built upon the existing i.MX 8M Nano family with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor running at up to 2GHz, an independent real-time Cortex-M7 microcontroller @ 800MHz, and a Vivante 3D GPU, but adds a 2.3 TOPS NPU to the mix. The NPU will enable advanced machine learning inference at the industrial and IoT (Internet-of-Things) edges for applications such as people and object recognition for public safety, industrial machine vision, robotics, hand gesture, and emotion detection with natural language processing. NXP i.MX 8M Plus key features and specifications: CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with 512KB ECC cache Real-time MCU – Arm Cortex-M7 @ up to 800 MHz GPU – Vivante GC7000UL 3D GPU, Vivante GC520L 2D GPU DSP – HiFi […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

January 7, 2020January 7, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Acer Swift 3 (SF314-42) AMD Ryzen 4700U Laptop to Launch in March for €599 and Up

AMD just announced its 15W Ryzen 4000-U series processors for laptops aiming to compete against Intel Ice Lake processors, and one of the first ultrathin laptop based on AMD Ryzen 4700U processor will be Acer Swift 3 (SF314-42) equipped with a 14″ display, up to 16GB LPDDR4x memory, and up to 512GB PCIe SSD storage. Acer Swift 3 (SF314-42) specifications: SoC – Up to AMD Ryzen 4700U octa-core/octa-thread Zen 2 processor @ 2.0 GHz / 4.1 (Boost) and 7-core Radeon graphics; 15W TDP; 7nm process System Memory – Up to 16GB of LPDDR4x RAM Storage – Up to 512 GB PCIe SSD Display – 14″ Full HD display Video Output – HDMI Audio – Stereo speakers, 3.5mm headphone jack Camera – 720p webcam Connectivity – WiFi 6 (802.11ax) USB – 1x USB Type-C port, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, Dimensions – 32.25 x 21.8 x 15.95 mm Weight – […]

January 7, 2020May 8, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

AMD Announces 15W Ryzen 4000-U Series and Athlon 3000-Series Mobile Processors

Intel makes plenty of processors with 6W to 10W TDP suitable for entry-level products or mid-range laptop that require long battery life, but there’s less of a choice from AMD, especially at the low-end, and the most recent AMD processors with a low power budget start at 12W+ with AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 and Ryzen Embedded R1000-series both of which mostly targets industrial and embedded applications. But with CES 2020 about to kick off, the company has now unveiled several 15 Watts processors wit the Ryzen 4000-U series targetting ultra-thin laptop, and Athlon 3000-series for entry-level notebooks. AMD Ryzen 4000-U Series AMD Ryzen 4000-series are actually comprised of two sub-families with the 45W Ryzen 4000-H series for higher performance gaming laptops, and the 15W Ryzen 4000-U series for ultra-thin laptops, and I’ll focus on the latter in this post. MODEL CORES/ THREADS cTDP (Watts) BOOST/ BASE FREQ. (GHz) RADEON GRAPHICS […]

January 6, 2020April 15, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

GL.iNet Slate OpenWrt Travel Router Supports Tor, Wireguard VPN, and Cloudflare DNS over HTTPS/TLS

A couple of months ago, we wrote about GL.iNet Mudi portable WiFi router with built-in 4G LTE connectivity and supporting features such as the Tor Project, up to 25 VPN providers, and Cloudflare DNS over HTTPS or TLS. Mudi was launched on Kickstarter and should start shipping very soon, but I was informed about another OpenWrt travel router from the company with GL.iNet Slate also supporting many of the same features, but doing away with built-in cellular connectivity and battery. GL.iNet Slate (GL-AR750S-Ext) router specifications: SoC – Qualcomm QCA9563 MIPS 74Kc processor @ 775MHz System Memory – 128MB DDR2 Storage – Dual Flash 16MB NOR + 128MB NAND, MicroSD card slot up to 128GB Networking Ethernet 1x Gigabit Ethernet WAN 2x Gigabit Ethernet LAN WiFi Dual-band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 with transmission rates up to 300Mbps (2.4GHz) + 433Mbps (5GHz) 2x 2dBi external antennas 3G/4G – Optional via cellular USB […]

January 6, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

WiFI 6E Aims to Leverage 6 GHz Unlicensed Spectrum

If you live and/or work in an urban environment, you may have noticed 2.4GHz WiFi may not be so reliable as too many people are using the frequency leading to interference. 5 GHz WiFi is here to help, but with the Internet of Things more and more WiFi devices will come online in the next few years, and there won’t be enough capacity using 2.4 and 5 GHz. 60GHz WiFi (802.11ad/802.11ay) may not work for IoT since the signal would not go through walls. That’s why the Wi-Fi Alliance has introduced WiFi 6E, and upgrade of WiFi 6, that can leverage 6 GHz unlicensed spectrum and expand the bandwidth available for Wi-Fi. I’ve taken the US spectrum wall chart from 2016 to show where WiFi 6E would stand, and it looks pretty crowded to me with mobile, fixed and satellite applications using the 5.925 to 7.125 GHz spectrum to be […]

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

January 6, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

$4 Orange Pi 4/4B PCIe Expansion Board Includes an mPCIe socket, and a SIM card Slot

Rockchip RK3399 based Orange Pi 4 & 4B boards launched last year with a PCIe connector. But the PCIe interface is available via a 24-pin FPC connector, not quite a standard like a PCIe slot or mPCIe socket, and hard to use for most projects as you’d need to make your own PCIe adapter board. But it’s now become much easier to use the PCIe interface as Shenzhen Xunlong Software has now launched a $3.90 expansion board connecting to the 24-pin FPC connector, and allowing users to connect mPCIe cards, especially the ones for 3G/4G connectivity as a SIM card slot is also included.PCIe expansion board specifications: 24-pin FPC PCIe connector to Orange Pi 4/4B with PCIe, USB, power “key”, and GPIO1_A0 (See schematics below) mPCIe card socket SIM card socket Misc – Reset key Dimensions – 58 x 32 mm The company confirmed the PCIe interface should work in […]

January 6, 2020January 7, 2020 by Stephen Vicinanza - 1 Comment

Zotac Reveals Two 15W AMD Ryzen 3 Mini PC’s: ZBOX MA621 and CA621 Nano

Zotac ZBOX Makes a Run At AMD Ryzen Based Mini PCs Zotac, the mini PC manufacturer, has announced two new additions to its long-standing line up of small form-factor computers. The newest additions are the ZBOX MA621 Nano and the ZBOX CA621 Nano. The Nano’s are both housed in enclosures nearly identical to the previous Zotac offerings. Background on ZBOX Launching an AMD mini PC is not a first for ZOTAC, but the last time they unveiled AMD based mini PCs was in 2014. Where The Mini-PCs Will Be Presented The offerings, which will be unveiled at the 2020 CES in Los Vegas, later this year, were announced from Hong Kong a few days ago. Both of the ZBOX computers run AMD Ryzen 3 CPUs. Two Cooling Solutions The ZBOX CA621 Nano is passively cooled for silent running, while the MA621 Nano is actively cooled. The differences in size are […]