CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

June 25, 2017June 25, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

MXCHIP AZ3166 IoT Developer Kit is Designed to Work with Microsoft Azure

MXCHIP is a Shanghai based company designing and manufacturing WiFi IoT modules such as EMW3165, which has now made a development board based on their EMW3166 STM32+ Cypress module – called MXChip AZ3166 – specifically designed for Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform. MXChip AZ3166 board specifications: Wireless Module – EMW3166 WiFi module with STM32F412 ARM Cortex M4F MCU @ 100 MHz with 256KB SRAM，1MB+2MB SPI Flash, Cypress BCM43362 WiFi chip Display – 128×64 OLED display Audio – Audio codec, built-in microphone, and 3.5mm heaphone jack Sensors – Motion sensor, magnetometer, atmospheric pressure sensor, temperature and humidity sensor Expansion – Finger extension interface with 25 external I/O pins including GPIOs, I2C, I2S, UART, ADC, Reset, 3.3V, and GND Debugging – DAP Link emulator USB – 1x Micro USB port for power, programming, debugging Misc – 2x user buttons; 1x RGB light; 3x working status indicator; IR emitter; Security encryption chip Power Supply […]

June 24, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

IceZero Lattice iCE40 FPGA Board is Designed for Raspberry Pi Zero

Yesterday, we reported about Olimex’s open source hardware iCE40HX8K-EVB board with a Lattice iCE40 (HX8K) FPGA, and today, another iCE40 FPGA board, also open source hardware, appeared in my news feed with Trenz Electronic’s IceZero board specifically designed to be programmed using a Raspberry Pi Zero board. IceZero board specifications: FPGA – Lattice ICE40HX4K with 3520 logic gates, and 80 Kbit memory Storage – SPI Flash for FPGA self-configuration Misc – 3x User LEDs; User Clock: 100 MHz Expansion – 4x unpopulated PMOD Connectors; 40-pin Raspberry Pi female header Dimensions – 56 x 30.5mm (Raspberry Pi HAT Compatible) The board is supported by icoTC open source FPGA toolchain for Windows and Linux, which you can use in Raspberry Pi Zero (W), and other RPi board with a 40-pin header running Raspbian, as explained in that simple example in Github. Trenz electronic only shared part of the documentation, but you’ll find […]

June 23, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

NXP Unveils LPC84x ARM Cortex M0+ MCU Family, and LPCXpresso845-MAX Evaluation Board

NXP Semiconductors has expanded LPC800 series MCUs with the new LPC84x family of 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0+ microcontroller said to offer 10 times the performance, three times more power saving savings, and 50 percent smaller code-size than 8- or 16-bit microcontrollers. Key features of LPC84x MCU family (LPC844 / LPC845): MCU Core – ARM Cortex-M0+ core @ 30 MHz with advanced power optimization RAM – 16 kB RAM (Logic for Bit banding across all of SRAM) Storage – 64 kB Flash, small 64-byte page size suitable for EEPROM emulation Peripherals Timers – 32-bit CTimer, WWDT, 4-channel multi-rate, SCTimer/PWM Serial Interfaces – Up to 4x I2C, 2x SPI, up to 5x UART Analog Interfaces – 12 ch, 12-bit ADC up to 1.2 Msps; 2x 10-bit DAC; comparator with external Vreg; 9-channel capacitive touch interface working in sleep and deep sleep modes Up to 54 GPIOs 25-ch DMA offloads core Power Control Five […]

June 23, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

GR-LYCHEE Development Board to Combine Renesas RZ/A1LU Processor, ESP32 Module, and a VGA Camera

Japanese semiconductor vendors have mostly stayed away from the maker market, at least outside Japan, as most people would be hard-pressed to come up with a hobbyist development board powered by processor or micro-controller from Toshiba, Sony, Renesas or other Japanese companies, despite the three aforementioned names being in the top 20 semiconductors companies. I can only remember having written about Fujitsu F-Cue 96Boards, as well as Renesas GR-PEACH mbed board since I started this blog 7 years ago. Renesas seems to be the only company to have a real community behind with their “Gadget Renesas” pink-colored development boards, and the latest and seventh board is GR-LYCHEE powered by Renesas RZ/A1LU ARM Cortex-A9 processor, and equipped with a WiFi & Bluetooth module, and a camera. Renesas GR-LYCHEE board preliminary specifications: Micro-processor – Renesas RZ / A1LU (R7S721030VCFP 176-pin QFP) ARM Cortex-A9 Processor @ 384 MHz with 3MB on-chip SRAM Storage […]

June 23, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Olimex Introduces 40 Euros iCE40HX8K-EVB Board with Lattice ICE40 FPGA

Last year, Olimex launched their first FPGA board with iCE40HX1K-EVB. The board is very cheap at 22 Euros, but what you can do with it is limited since it only comes with 1280 logic cells. The company has now introduced an upgraded model called iCE40HX8K-EVB with 7680 logic cells, and more I/O headers. Olimex iCE40HX8K-EVB specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semi iCE40HX8K-CT256 FPGA with 7680 logic gates, 960 Logic Array Blocks, and 128 Kbit memory System Memory – 256Kx16 SRAM (512KB SRAM) Storage – 2MB serial flash Expansion 34-pin connector to access FPGA I/Os 4x 40 pin connectors for GPIOs Debugging / Programming – 10-pin “PGM” connector Misc – 2x user buttons, reset button, 2x user LEDs, power & programming status LEDs Power Supply – 5V via power jack Dimensions – 67×65 cm The board is open source hardware with the KiCAD schematics and PCB layout, BoM, and Gerber files available […]

June 22, 2017June 22, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

OnePlus 5 Smartphone Linux Kernel & Android Source Code Released

OnePlus 5 is a premium smartphone powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 6 to 8 GB LPDDR4x RAM, 64 to 128 GB UFS 2.0 storage and a 5.5″ Full HD display, as well as the usual LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS.. connectivity. It was launched yesterday for $479 with 6GB RAM/64GB storage, $539 with 8GB RAM/128GB storage, and today, I’ve just read on XDA developers that the company had already released the source code for the phone. Beside the official Google Nexus/Pixel smartphones, many manufacturers will drag their feet before they eventually open the source code that they are legally required to release. Some companies will release the source code as tarballs, which works, but OnePlus has done better with Linux 4.4.21 source code available on Github. You should also be able to get the Android 7.1 Nougat source code as indicated here:

repo init -u git://github.com/OnePlusOSS/android.git -b oneplus/QC8998_N_7.1
repo sync

1 2	repo init -u git://github.com/OnePlusOSS/android.git -b oneplus/QC8998_N_7.1 repo sync

The source code should lead to improvements […]

June 22, 2017 by Steven - 5 Comments

THL Box 1 Pro TV Box Review – Part 1: Unboxing and Teardown

Today we will be taking a look at the THL Box1 Pro box. We will take this is two parts, first being the unboxing and teardown then software and performance. Let’s start with the unit’s specs. THL Box 1 Pro TV Box specifications CPU – Amlogic S905X quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.51GHz GPU – Penta-core Mali-450MP GPU @ 750 MHz Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash + micro SD card slot (up to 32GB) Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60 fps, AV port Audio – HDMI, AV port (stereo audio) Video Codecs – VP9 4K @60fps, 10-bit H.265 4K @ 60 fps, H.264 4K @ 30 fps and more Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n/ac Dual Band Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0 Interfaces – HDMI port, RJ45 port (100Mbps Ethernet), 2x USB Host, micro SD Card Slot, AV Out, DC jack […]

June 22, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Inforce 6309 Snapdragon 410E micro SBC is Now Selling for $89 (Promo)

With its Snapdragon 410E processor, Inforce 6309 single board computer is similar to Qualcomm DragonBoard 410c board, except it adds a Gigabit Ethernet port with optional PoE/RS484 add-on, switches HDMI with micro HDMI, replaces Low and High speed connectors with LVDS, dual MIPI-DSI, and 26-pin IO onnector, as well as offering an extended temperature range. It’s also designed for production, rather than just development, but it normally costs $126 instead of $75 for Qualcomm’s 96Boards compliant board. Inforce is now bringing that price down with a summer promotion allowing you to buy the board for $89 using summer coupon, excluding potential taxes, and shipping. I’ll reproduce the specifications below for reference: SoC- Qualcomm Snapdragon 410/410E (APQ8016/APQ8016E) quad-core ARM CortexA53 @ 1.2 GHz with Adreno 306 GPU and Hexagon QDSP6 @ 700 MHz System Memory – 1GB LPDDR3 @ 533MHz, single-channel 32-bit (4.2GBps) Storage – 8GB eMMC flash (eMCP package with […]