CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

June 3, 2018June 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

Sonoff S26 Smart Socket Mini Review & Teardown

ITEAD Studio very recently launched their Sonoff S26 WiFi Smart plug as a more compact and cost effective upgrade to their Sonoff S20 smart sockets, and which comes in 6 different versions for China, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe type F for Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Eastern Europe, and Europe type E for France, Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Tunisia and Morocco. You can find the one that suits you most on World Standard website. I was interested in getting the device, mostly to check the hardware design, so the company sent me one sample to try out. Sonoff S26 Unboxing Sonoff S26 comes is a white package with Sonoff branding. I received the US type plug (S26B model) which includes a ground pin on both side, so it’s not suitable for most sockets here in Thailand that do not […]

June 2, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

My Attempt at Getting Started with Zephyr Project OS on ESP32

Zephyr Project is a real-time operating systems for the Internet of Things (IoT) that was introduced in early 2016, and supported/hosted by the Linux Foundation. It runs on a fairly large number of MCU boards from different architecture (x86, Arm, RISC-V, etc..), and Linaro even launched 96boards IoT compliant hardware like BLE Carbon board that are designed to run Zephyr Project. More recently, Linaro CEO revealed several commercial products are shipping with Zephyr Project OS, so I thought it might be a good time to give it a try. Target Board – Wemos Lolin32 I only had STM32 Bluepill, and some ESP32 boards, so I went with the latter since it comes with WiFi. But instead of re-using some of my existing boards, I asked Banggood whether they could send Wemos Lolin32, which they did. They sell it for $7.99 shipped, but any other ESP32 board should do. The board […]

June 1, 2018June 4, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

UDOO BOLT AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 SBC Goes for $229 and Up (Crowdfunding)

While Intel has been outing low cost and low power processors with less than 10W TDP over the years with their Bay Trail, Cherry Trail, Braswell, Apollo Lake, and now Gemini Lake processors, AMD has not really ventured into the low power space, and the latest announcements about 10-12W processors was for their Embedded G-Series J Family, which I have not seen in many products. More recently, the company introduced Ryzen Embedded V1000 family of processors with 4 to 8 Zen cores, 4K support, 10 GbE interface, and more with a TDP of 12 to 25W for Ryzen Embedded V1202B & V1605B dual / quad core processors. The latest x86 UDOO board – dubbed UDOO BOLT – will be one of the rare AMD development boards available on the market with pricing starting at $229. Two versions of the board will be available: UDOO BOLT v3 with Ryzen Embedded V1202B, […]

June 1, 2018September 10, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Allwinner T2 is a Rebranded Allwinner A20 Processor Operating in Industrial Temperature Range

Last month, Allwinner unveiled A40 and A60 industrial and military grade processors leveraging IP blocks from the old-but-popular Allwinner A20 dual core processor. This is good news for software support, as A40 and A60 should hopefully become supported in U-boot and the Linux kernel without too many efforts, as well as for companies or makers requiring wider temperature ranges in their products. However, those new processors were not pin-to-pin compatible with Allwinner A20, so a PCB redesign would be required. That’s where Allwinner T2 comes into play, as reported by Olimex, it is a rebranded Allwinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 processor with an industrial temperature range (-40 to +85 °C) that makes it suitable for automotive infotainment. I actually covered Allwinner T2 back in 2015, but at the time Allwinner did not mention anything about temperature range, and SATA support – found in A20 – was not shows in […]

June 1, 2018September 3, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Arm Announces Cortex-A76 CPU with Laptop-class Performance, Mali-G76 GPU, Mali-V76 8K VPU

Arm Cortex A75 based processors are only found in a few SoCs and devices, but Arm keeps on innovating, and they’ve now announced a new suite of of IP with Cortex-A76 CPU enabling 35 percent more performance, and Mali-G76 GPU with ML support and 30 percent higher efficiency and performance. SoC based on those new CPU and GPU IP will provide “laptop-class” performance, and the company also announced Arm Mali-V76 VPU with support for 8K video decoding and encoding. Arm Cortex A76 After Cortex A75, the Arm Cortex-A76 CPU is the second high performance processor core based on DynamIQ technology, and beside the 35 percent performance gain mentioned in the introduction, it also offers 40 percent improved efficiency, as well as delivers 4x compute performance improvements for AI/ML at the edge. Highlights of Cortex A76: Architecture – Armv8-A (Harvard) with Armv8.1, Armv8.2, Armv8.3 (LDAPR instructions only), cryptography and RAS extensions […]

May 31, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Banana Pi BPI-S64 Core is a “Compute Module” based on Actions Semi S700 Processor

SinoVoIP has launched many development boards & SBCs under the Banana Pi brands, but so far they had not designed any system-on-modules (SoM). Banana Pi BPI-S64 Core is their first SoM, which they refer to as “Compute Module” for the compulsory Raspberry Pi reference, and it’s not based on Allwinner or Realtek processors used in many of their recent boards, but instead an Actions Semi S700 quad core Cortex A53 processor. Banana Pi BPI-S64 Core specifications: SoC – Actions Semi S700 quad core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Mali-450MP4 GPU with OpenGL ES2.0/1.1, OpenVG 1.1, EGL 1.5 support System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash Edge Connector – 204-pin SO-DIMM connector Power Supply – PMIC on-board Dimensions – 67.5 x 30 mm The company also provides Banana pi BPI-S64 core kit for getting started with the module. Development kit preliminary specifications: SODIMM slot for Banana BPI-S64 Core […]

May 31, 2018May 31, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Sony SPRESENSE Arduino Compatible GNSS + Audio IoT Board To Sell for $50 (in Japan)

Last year, we covered Sony Spritzer, an Arduino compatible with a Sony hexa-core Arm Cortex-M4F micro-controller, a built-in GNSS receiver, and an audio codec. The product page for this product is now gone, but it appears Sony only renamed it to SPRESENSE, made some design modifications, and is ready to launch the main board for 5,500 JPY (~$50), and the extension board for an extra 3,500 JPY ($32) on July 31, 2018. Sony SPRESENSE main board (CXD5602PWBMAIN1) specifications: MCU – Sony CXD5602 ARM Cortex-M4F ×6 micro-controller clocked at up to 156 MHz with 1.5MB SRAM Storage – 8MB Flash Memory GNSS – GPS & GLONASS Audio – 3.5mm audio jack Expansion I/Os Digital I/O Pins – GPIO, SPI, I2C, UART, PWM, I2S Analog Pins – 2ch (0.7V range) Camera interface USB – 1x micro USB port for programming and power Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port Dimensions – […]

May 31, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Intel Launches Optane DC Persistent Memory Compatible with DDR4 DIMMs

Intel and Micron jointly announced 3D Xpoint technology in 2015 that promised to be 1,000 times faster and endurant than NAND flash, and 10 times denser than conventional DRAM. Products were launched in 2017 under the Optane brand with somewhat lower specifications starting with enterprise PCIe SSDs, followed by Optane M.2 cards, and Optane PCIe SSDs for the consumer market which do improve performance for very specific tasks. But beside storage devices, Intel also planned to launch Optane memory that fits into RAM slot, and they’ve finally done that with their Optane DC Persistent Memory fitting into DDR4 DIMMs with capacity ranging from 128GB to 512GB. The Optane DC Persistent Memory modules are made for the datacenter, and will be supported by the next generation of Intel’s Xeon server platforms. The module are sampling now with mass production planned for later this year, but only to select customer. Broad availability […]