CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 6, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Fipsy is a $10 Breadboard-Friendly FPGA Board for Education (Crowdfunding)

We’ve already seen several cheap FPGA boards in the past with the $25 miniSpartan3 (Xilinx), $34 Spartixed (Xilinx), or 40 Euros Olimex iCE40HX8K-EVB boards (Lattice), but if you have a really tight budget you can now plat with FPGA for just $10 thanks to Fipsy board. With its 256 LUTs Lattice Semi MachXO2 FPGA, you’ll be limited to what you can do for specific projects, but it could be useful to teach yourself or students FPGA programming, especially it also happens to be breadboard-friendly. Fipsy specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semiconductors MachXO2 (LCMXO2-256HC-4SG32C) FPGA @ 269 MHz max. with 256 LUTs, 2 kbit Distributed RAM, 32 LABs (Logic Array Blocks) Programmable by SPI and I2C Expansion – 2x 10-pin header supporting various interfaces including: LVCMOS 3.3/2.5/1.8/1.5/1.2 LVTTL LVDS Bus-LVDS MLVDS RSDS LVPECL SSTL 25/18 HSTL 18 Schmitt trigger inputs, up to 0.5 V hysteresis Misc – Onboard LED Operating Supply Voltage – 3.3 […]

April 6, 2018April 6, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Droplet Computing Aims to Run Apps on any Device (Regardless of the Operating System)

The most popular apps are normally ported to all commonly used operating systems such Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Android and iOS, but apps will a lower user base or older apps may not to ported to all operating systems due to the development time / costs involved. In order to solve this issue, UK based Droplet Computing has introduced Droplet Universal, a patent-pending application container solution that decouples applications from the operating system, and enables applications to run on any device, on- or offline. The solution relies on WebAssembly, and allows you to run the app – placed in a low footprint universal container – from a web browser with Chrome v60 (v62 for Android), Firefox v52, Safari v11, and Edge v16 or greater currently supported. Arm and x86 platform are supported, although it’s not yet possible to run Arm apps on x86 with Droplet Universal. It’s hard to know […]

April 6, 2018April 6, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 34 Comments

Shedbuilt Binary Blob-Free Linux Distribution Works with Allwinner H3/H5 Boards (Orange Pi, Libre Computer)

Most open source Linux distributions are only partially open source, as while most packages will be built from publicly available source code, they usually come with closed source binary blobs for GPU drivers, wireless module firmware and so on. Shedbuilt is described as “a decentralized, self-hosting GNU/Linux for Arm devices built from the latest upstream sources”, and as the developer (Auston Stewart) explains – see comments section – it does not contain any binary blob. Eventually the distribution may support more boards, but for now, the current System 1 “Amano” release supports four Allwinner H3/H5 boards: Orange Pi PC, Orange Pi One, Orange Pi PC 2, and Libre Computer ALL-H3-CC “Tritium”. Orange Pi Lite (with WiFi) and Libre Computer AML-S905X-CC “Le Potato” images are said to be coming soon. You can download the SD card images and access documentation on Shedbuilt.net. The Linux distribution relies on Shedmake script to automate […]

April 5, 2018April 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

$19.50 BPI:bit ESP32 Board is Inspired by BBC Micro:bit, Compatible with Webduino and Arduino IDE

BBC micro:bit board for education was first unveiled in 2015, before starting to be given away to UK students, and later sold for about $19 in 2016. The board supports Bluetooth connectivity, includes an array of 25 LEDs, as well as a specific 20-pin edge connector also featuring 5 large holes (rings) for 3 I/Os and power. So far I had not seen any clones or alternative boards inspired from the design, as we see for Arduino or Raspberry Pi boards. But SinoVoIP (Banana Pi) has changed that with their BPI:bit clearly inspired from the Micro:bit, but offering both WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity via an ESP32 module. Hardware specifications: Wireless module – ESP-WROOM-32 module with WiFi and Bluetooth LE connectivity LEDs – 25x RGB LED array Sensors – 2x light sensors, thermistor, 9-axis accelerometer / gyroscope / compass (MPU-9250) Expansion – 3 digital/analog I/O rings, 3V/GND ring, 20-pin edge connector […]

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

OSD3358-SM-RED Beaglebone Black Compatible Board Comes with Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, 4x USB Ports, and More

BeagleBone-Black-Compatible-Development-Board

Octavo Systems is known for their OSD335x system-in-packages (SiP) that integrate Texas Instruments Sitara AM335x Cortex A8 processor, memory, LDO, and some passive components into a single package, as well as related development kits such the $25 PocketBeagle which was introduced by the BeagleBoard foundation last September. The company has now launched OSD335-SM-RED development board featuring their OSD3358-512M-BSM SiP with 512MB RAM, with Gigabit Ethernet, micro HDMI, four USB 2.0 port, BeagleBone Black headers, some sensors, etc… OSD3358-SM-RED specifications: SiP – Octavo Systems OSD3358-512M-BSM with TI Sitara AM3358 Arm Cortex-A8 processor @ up to 1 GHz, 512MB DDR3 Memory, power management Storage – 16GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot Video Output – micro HDMI port Connectivity – 10/100/1000 Ethernet USB – 1x µUSB Client, 4x USB 2.0 ports (via USB hub) Sensors – 9-axis IMU, barometer, temperature sensor + header Expansion – 2x expansion connectors compatible with BeagleBone Black […]

April 5, 2018April 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

DirtyJTAG Firmware Convert $2 STM32 “Bluepill” Boards or ST-Link V2 Clones into JTAG Adapters

DirtyJTAG is a JTAG adapter firmware for cheap STM32 boards like BluePill or equally inexpensive ST-Link V2 clones that was developed to create an alternative to the cheap – but now obsolete – LPT Wiggler cables, and more expensive USB JTAG probes. You’ll find the source, and documentation on Github. First, you’ll need to flash the firmware using the DFU method or an SWD programmer (for ST-Link) or USB to TLL debug board (for STM32 dev boards), before making the connection to the target board as shown below (for Bluepill). STM32 JTAG PA0 TDI PA1 TDO PA2 TCK PA3 TMS PA4 TRST PA5 SRST You can then use mainline UrJTAG for your newly flashed JTAG adapter. If you prefer OpenOCD, it might eventually be possible to use Versaloon firmware instead on STM32 Bluepill board. Thanks to Zoobab for the tip.

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

Intel Tremont Will Succeed Goldmont Plus Microarchitecture

Goldmont Plus is the microarchitecture found in Gemini Lake processors, and products are just starting to get to market as we’ve seen with our recent Intel June Canyon NUC mini PC review. But we already know the successor of the microarchitecture thanks to a programming document entitled “Intel Architecture Instruction Set Extensions and Future Features Programming Reference” which references “Future Tremont and later” micro-architecture. Here the full list of new instructions listed in the document: CLWB – Force cache line write-back without flush GFNI – Galois Field New Instructions ENCLV – SGX oversubscription instructions Split Lock Detection – detection and cause an exception for split locks CLDEMOTE – Cache line demote instruction Direct store – MOVDIRI and MOVDIR64B User wait – TPAUSE, UMONITOR, UMWAIT That does not give much clue, but Wikichip found a patch submitted to the Linux Kernel mailing list on March 1st, that reveals a bit more: […]

April 4, 2018April 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Arm Releases Android / Linux Vulkan User Space Drivers for Mali GPUs (HiKey 960, Firefly-RK3288 Boards)

A little while ago, I wrote about Imagination’s PowerVR CLDNN Neural Network SDK and Image for Acer Chromebook R13, and some people looks into the Arch Linux Arm image and were pleasantly surprised to find Vulkan drivers, as it was the first Arm platform support Vulkan in Linux. It looks like there are now more Arm hardware supporting Vulkan drivers in Linux, as Arm has released binary user-space components for GNU/Linux and Android for development platforms featuring the Arm Mali Midgard GPU family, and – provided the GPU can handle it – supporting the following APIs: OpenGL ES 1.1 / 2.0 / 3.0 / 3.1 / 3.2, OpenCL 1.1 / 1.2 / 2.0, Vulkan 1.0, and RenderScript. Mali-G71 GPU is supported by Android 8.0 and Linux (fbdev) ARM64 drivers for Hikey 960 board, and Mali-T760 should be supported by Linux drivers (fbdev / wayland / X11) for Firefly-RK3288 board. Hikey […]