BGA RAM socket / Interposer
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BGA socket allows RAM upgrades on SBCs

In most cases, both the eMMC flash and RAM are soldered on single board computers, but we’ve previously boards with eMMC flash modules that allows to optionally add storage of various capacity and speed. But today I learned something similar exists for RAM chips with a socket that allows you to clip a BGA chip to change RAM capacity. The BGA socket is simply soldered on the board instead of the RAM chip itself, and as demonstrated on the MangoPi MQ Pro board, you could then insert the chip on the board instead of soldering it. Those are the specifications of the “DDR3x16-96” socket used above: Materials Socket base: LCP (liquid crystal polymers) Contacts: BeCu (Beryllium Copper), selective Au-Au flash over Ni plating Insulation resistance – 1000 MOhm or more at DC 100V Dielectric withstanding voltage – 100V AC for one minute Contact resistance – 50 mOhm max, at 10mA […]

ODROID N2+ Plus metal case
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ameriDroid introduces $20 aluminum case for ODROID-N2+ SBC

You may know ameriDroid as a reseller of single board computers and accessories, but the US company has now designed and manufactured its first accessory with an aluminum case for ODROID-N2+ SBC. ameriDroid says the design of their enclosure is based on the metallic blue case found in the Home Assistant Blue gateway also powered by ODROID-N2+ board, and everything was 100% designed and manufactured by ameriDroid in the United States, specifically in Kentucky and California for the R&D, while the factory is located in Ohio. The enclosure has mostly been designed for industrial application, think of a factory floor for instance, so it may not be the prettiest. The company even explains that it is made of unpainted, unfinished aluminum with potentially some minor surface marks from the manufacturing process, but that it could be polished or painted for a better finish. It ships as a kit with an […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
Qualcomm Edge AI Vision kit
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Qualcomm Edge AI Vision kit combines Qualcomm QCS610 SoC & Sony IMX415 4K ultra low light camera

e-con Systems has recently launched the qSmartAI80_CUQ610, a Qualcomm Edge AI vision kit based on Qualcomm QCS610 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor and featuring a camera module based on Sony STARVIS IMX415 4K ultra low light sensor. The kit is comprised of a QCS610 module with 4GB RAM and 16GB eMMC flash and carrier board designed by VVDN Technologies, as well as e-con Systems 4K camera module, and designed to run vision machine learning and deep learning models at the edge. qSmartAI80_CUQ610 “Qualcomm Edge AI Vision kit” specifications: System-on-Module SoC – Qualcomm QCS610 octa-core processor with 2x Kryo 460 Gold cores @ 2.2 GHz (Cortex-A76 class), and 6x Kryo 430 Silver low-power cores @ 1.8GHz (Cortex-A55 class), Adreno 612 GPU @ 845 MHz, with OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0, Hexagon DSP with Hexagon Vector eXtensions (HVX),  Spectra 250L ISP, 4Kp30 VPU H.265 encode/decode; Note: Qualcomm QCS410 SoC is available upon […]

ASUS Tinker Edge R 3GB RAM
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ASUS Tinker Edge R SBC with 3GB RAM, Rockchip RK3399Pro sells for $179

ASUS Tinker Edge R Pico-ITX single board computer with Rockchip RK3399Pro AI processor was first unveiled in 2019 with 6GB RAM, but a cheaper 3GB RAM version with 2GB RAM for the CPU, and 1GB RAM with the integrated NPU just showed up in my news feeds. Whether it comes with 3GB or 6GB RAM, the Tinker Edge R board should mostly be interesting for AI accelerated workload thanks to the 3 TOPS built-in NPU, as well as the two MIPI CSI camera interfaces. ASUS Tinker Edge R (3GB) SBC specifications: SoC – Rochchip RK3399Pro hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Cortex A72 cores up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.4 GHz, an Arm Mali-T860 MP4 GPU up to 800 MHz with OpenGL ES 1.1 to 3.2, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL 1.2 and DX 11 support, and NPU delivering up to 3.0 TOPS System Memory – 2 GB dual-channel LPDDR4 […]

Arduino Nicla Vision
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Arduino Nicla Vision – A tiny STM32H7 board with 2MP camera, WiFi & Bluetooth LE, sensors

Arduino Nicla Vision is an ultra-compact (~2.3×2.3 cm) board powered by an STMicro STM32H7 dual-core Cortex-M7/M4 microcontroller, and equipped with a 2MP camera, a WiFi & Bluetooth LE module, and a few sensors. Those features make the board suitable for machine vision and edge computing applications such as asset tracking, image detection, object recognition, and predictive maintenance. For instance, image detection, facial recognition, automated optical inspection, vehicle plate reading, or gesture recognition can be added to projects, either using Nicla Vision as a standalone board or in combination with Portenta or MKR boards. Arduino Nicla Vision specifications: Microcontrollers – STMicro STM32H757AII6 dual-core MCU with Arm Cortex M7 @ 480MHz, Cortex-M4 @ 240MHz, 2 MB flash, 1MB RAM Storage – 16MB QSPI flash Connectivity – 2.4GHz WiFi 802.11b/g/n up to 65 Mbps and Bluetooth 5.1 BR/EDR/LE via Murata 1DX module Camera – 2MP GC2145 color camera. USB – Micro USB port […]

UP Xtreme i11 review Edge Insights for Vision
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UP Xtreme i11 mini PC review with Ubuntu 20.04, Edge Insights for Vision

UP Xtreme i11 is both a single board computer and a mini PC powered by an Intel Tiger Lake processor and designed for industrial edge applications. I received the one sample of the mini PC called “UP Xtreme i11 Edge Compute Enabling Kit” last December based on an Intel Core i7-1185GRE processor, fitted with 16GB RAM, a 128GB SSD, and pre-loaded with Ubuntu 20.04 operating system. I’ve now had more time to play with the system, and I’ll report my experience with Ubuntu 20.04 and Edge Insights for Vision, a computer vision framework that’s part of the getting started guide. The latter was missing from my package possibly because customs opened the package, and forgot to put it back in. The most important part is “devkit” is used as username and password. Software for UP Xtreme i11 and Fan Control While Ubuntu 20.04 is pre-installed on the mini PC, it’s […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
Linux 5.16 release
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Linux 5.16 Release – Main Changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.16: Not a lot here since -rc8, which is not unexpected. We had that extra week due to the holidays, and it’s not like we had lots of last-minute things that needed to be sorted out. So this mainly contains some driver fixes (mainly networking and rdma), a cgroup credential use fix, a few core networking fixes, a couple of last-minute reverts, and some other random noise. The appended shortlog is so small that you might as well scroll through it. This obviously means that the merge window for 5.17 opens tomorrow, and I’m happy to say I already have several pending early pull requests. I wish I had even more, because this merge window is going to be somewhat painful due to unfortunate travel for family reasons. So I’ll be doing most of it on the road on a laptop […]

Huenit Robot Arm
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HUENIT modular robot arm takes 3D printer, laser engraver, suction, AI camera modules (Crowdfunding)

Most robot arms are designed to carry and manipulate payloads, but HUENIT modular robot arm is much more versatile as besides a traditional suction module, the robot supports modules such as a 3D printer, laser engraver, pen holder for drawings, and a creator module for let people designed their own. The robot arm can hold payloads of up to 750 grams, have a reach of up to 39 cm without module, supports WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, and can also optionally be fitted with a 2MP AI camera module based on Kendryte K210 RISC-V processor with built-in AI accelerators. HUENIT specifications: Robot arm 4-axis Payload up to 750 grams Reach – 390mm without module Repeatability – 0.05mm Precision – 0.1mm Speed – Up to 500mm/s Storage – MicroSD card slot USB – 1x USB-C port Wireless – WiFI and Bluetooth Misc – UART, external stepper Power Supply – 24V DC input, […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications