Mediatek MT2625 NB-IoT SoC is Designed for Cellular IoT Devices working Worldwide

Mediatek has recently unveiled MT2625 SoC based on an ARM Cortex-M core, equipped with an NB-IoT “WorldMode” modem allowing for a single design worldwide, and supporting the latest 3GPP Release 14 (LTE Cat NB2) specification. Mediatek MT2625 specifications: CPU – ARM Cortex-M @ up to 104 MHz with FPU Embedded Memory – 4MB PSRAM Storage – 4MB NOR Flash Connectivity NB-IoT compatible with 3GPP Release 14 Full frequency band (450MHz to 2.1GHz) of 3GPP R13 (NB1) and R14 (NB2) standards Integrated baseband, RF, and modem DSP Peripherals – I2C,  I2S,  PCM,  SDIO,  UART Power Supply – Integrated PMU The solution will be found in products for worldwide transportation, municipal use, and consumer products, with a much longer battery life compared to existing devices relying on other 2G/3G/4G standards. According to the press release, one of the first module based on MT2625 has been designed in collaboration with China Mobile, integrates […]

Unistorm AK1 Intel Celeron J3455 mini PC Sells for $158

Last month, I wrote about MeLE PCG35 Apo mini PC based on Intel Celeron J3455 “Apollo Lake” processor. It has started to sell for $179 this week, but there’s now a cheaper option with similar specifications thanks to Unistorm AK1 mini PC going for $158.30 instead. Unistorm AK1 mini PC specifications with highlights in bold or stricken-through showing differences with PCG35 Apo: SoC – Intel Celeron J3455 quad core “Apollo Lake” processor @ 1.50 / 2.30 GHz with a 12 EU Intel HD Graphics 500 @ 250/750 MHz (10W TDP) System Memory – 4GB LPDDR3 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, 1x 2.5″ SATA HDD slot, 1x mSATA SSD slot, 1x micro SD slot Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 4K @ 30 Hz, and VGA Audio – Via HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi & Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

Rockchip Has Setup an Official Open Source Website with Software & Hardware Documentation, Source Code

As a young engineer, I first understood the importance of good documentation thanks to an incomplete Holtek MCU datasheet that made us waste weeks of development, and the value open source software thanks to Sigma Designs’ SDK that was full of binary blobs with our applications often crashing inside those, leading to software development delays, especially since we had access to limited support. More recently, if you ever worked with the most popular Chinese processors found in ARM Linux development board, usually made by Allwinner, Amlogic, or Rockchip, you must have gone through roadblocks due to a lack of documentation and software support. So far, Allwinner is purely relying on linux-sunxi community and “leaks” of their documentation and SDKs, while Amlogic has had their “open linux” microsite  for several years, but you won’t find complete documentation like technical reference manual, schematics, and part of the source code requires you to […]

DLP LightCrafter Display 2000 EVM Adds a Pico Projector to BeagleBone Black for $99

Back in 2012, Texas Instruments introduced DLP LightCrafter pico projector evaluation module powered by a TMS320DM365 ARM9 processor @ 300 MHz running embedded Linux, and selling for $599. Since then, we have seen many products including projectors based on DLP technology such as standalone tiny projectors, Windows mini PCs, Android TV boxes, tablets, an even light bulbs. However, so far I can’t remember seeing any easy way to easily integrate DLP projector with the cheap ARM Linux development boards available today. Texas Instruments has now filled that void with DLP LightCrafter Display 2000 EVM that adds a pico-projector to BeagleBone Black (or Green) based on the new 0.2″ DLP2000 DMD (Digital Mirror Device) chip. The board is comprised of two subsystems: Light engine (top) with the optics, red, green, and blue LEDs, and the 640 × 360 (nHD) DLP2000 DMD configured to deliver around 20 lumens by default (this can […]

iPazzPort SY-20-19RS TV Box Doubles as an Air Mouse Holder and Charger

iPazzPort SY-20-19RS is yet another Amlogic S905X powered Android TV box. But it sells with an air mouse with qwerty keyboard and touchpad by default, and includes a slot right in the middle to hold and charge the air mouse / remote control. iPassport SY-20-19RS TV box specifications: SoC –  Amlogic S905X quad core ARM Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz with  penta-core Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot up to 32GB Video Output – HDMI 2.0, AV Video Codecs – 1080p/4k2k H.264, H.265, VP9; HD AVC/VC-1, HD MPEG1/2/4, RM/RMVB, Xvid/DivX 3/4/5/6, RealVideo 8/9/10 Audio – HDMI, AV, coaxial S/PDIF Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet (N.B.: Sellers mention GbE, but S905X does not support it), dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports Power Supply –  DC 5V/3A Dimensions – 124 mm ∅ x 80.7 […]

Microchip SAM D5x and SAM E5x ARM Cortex-M4 Micro-Controllers Launched with Optional Ethernet and CAN Bus

Microchip has just introduced two new families of micro-controllers based on ARM Cortex-M4F with SAM D5x and SAM E5x series sporting up to 1 MB of dual-panel flash and 256 KB of SRAM both with ECC support. Both families also support QSPI flash with XIP (eXecute In Place) support, features an SD card controller and a capacitive touch controller, with SAM E5x family also adding support for two CAN-FD ports and Ethernet. Microchip SAM A5x/E5x key features and specifications: MCU Core – ARM Cortex-M4F core running at 120 MHz with single precision Floating Point Unit (FPU) Memory – Internal memory architecture with user configurable Tightly Coupled Memory, System memory, Memory Protection Unit and 4KB Combined I-cache and D-cache; up to 256KB ECC SRAM, up to 1MB ECC flash Storage I/F – Quad Serial Peripheral Interface(QSPI) with Execute in Place (XIP) Support Peripherals Up to 2x Secure Digital Host Controller (SDHC) […]

UP 7000 SBC

Intel’s Movidius Neural Compute Stick Supports Raspberry Pi 3 Board

Last month, Intel introduced Movidius Neural Computer Stick to accelerate applications such as object recognition, and do so offline, i.e. without the cloud, and at low power. While there was not that much information available at the time, the minimal requirements for the host machine were that it had to be a x86_64 computer running Ubuntu 16.04, and come with at least 1GB RAM, and 4GB storage. So I understood the stick would only work attached with 64-bit Intel or AMD processors, and ARM development boards would not be an option. But today, I’ve found that Movidius had uploaded a new video showing a Python based object recognition demo with the Neural Compute Stick connected to the the Raspberry Pi 3 board. You just need to add a USB camera, copy ncapi directory from the SDK installed on your Ubuntu 16.04 development machine to the Debian Jessie installed on RPi 3 […]

STMicro Introduces 20 Cents STM8S001J3 8-Bit MCU in 8-Pin Package

STMicro has launched a new 8-bit micro-controller that sells for $0.20 per unit in 10k quantities, a price not too far from the one of cheapest MCU, especially considering it comes with flash. STM8S001J3 is also the first STM8 MCU offered in 8-pin package (SO8N), and should compete with some of the Microchip Attiny or PIC12F series micro-controllers. STM8S001J3 specifications: Core – 16 MHz advanced STM8 core with Harvard architecture and 3-stage pipeline,extended instruction set System Memory – 1 Kbyte RAM Storage 8 Kbytes Flash memory; data retention 20 years at 55 °C after 100 cycles 128-byte true data EEPROM; endurance up to 100 k write/erase cycles Clock, reset and supply management 2.95 V to 5.5 V operating voltage Flexible clock control, 3 master clock sources: external clock input; internal, user-trimmable 16 MHz RC; internal low-power 128 kHz RC Clock security system with clock monitor Power management – Low-power modes […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC