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 […]

CH340 vs CH343
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WCH CH343 USB to serial chips support 1.8V to 5V IO voltage, 6 Mbps baud rate, custom VID/PID

WCH CH340  family of USB to serial chip is very popular, and often found on development boards for debugging/access to the serial console, but the company has now introduced the CH343 “Gen3” chip – just like CH9102F apparently – with a higher 6 Mbps baud rate, support for 1.8V, 2.5V, 3.3V, and 5V IO voltage, and the ability to request custom USB VID/PID numbers. Three variants exist with CH343P, CH343G, and CH343K with different packages: QFN16, SOP16, and ESSOP10 respectively. CH343P contains an EEPROM for easy customization, while CH343G and CH343K PID/VID can still be customized for larger orders. CH343 key features and specifications: Full-speed USB 2.0 device interface Hardware full-duplex serial UART interface with baud rate varies from 50bps to 6Mbps. Automatic identification and dynamic adaptation of common communication baud rate of 115200bps and below. Supports 5, 6, 7, or 8 data bits, as well as odd, even, space, […]

Graperain Samsung, Rockchip RK3588, and Qualcomm CPU modules, SBCs, and carrier boards
ROC-RK3588S-PC
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ROC-RK3588S-PC is the first Rockchip RK3588S SBC, supports up to 32GB RAM

Rockchip RK3588S processor, a cost-down version of Rockchip RK3588 SoC with fewer interfaces, has made its way into Firefly ROC-RK3588S-PC SBC (single board computer) about the size of a credit card and equipped with up to 32GB RAM. The compact SBC also comes with up to 128GB eMMC flash, and offers support for NVMe storage, up to four video outputs through HDMI, USB-C and MIPI DSI interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, two MIPI CSI camera interfaces, and more. Firefly ROC-RK3588S-PC specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores, Arm Mali-G610 MP4 quad-core GPU with OpenGL ES3.2 / OpenCL 2.2 / Vulkan1.1 support, 6 TOPS NPU, and an 8Kp60 H.265/VP9/AVS2 video decoder, 4Kp60 decoder, 8Kp30 H.265/H.264 video encoder System Memory – 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or 32GB LPDDR4/LPDDR4x/LPDDR5 Storage 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB eMMC flash M.2 (PCIe 2.0) socket for […]

PineSound development board
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PineSound is a development board for earbuds and digital audio players

You may have read Pine64’s April’s Fools spoof about the PineBuds and PinePod earlier this month. It turns out those will be real, and the Pine64 PineSound development board will be used to bring the PineBuds earbuds and PinePod digital audio player to market. The PineSound board features Bestechnic BES2300 Bluetooth 5.0 audio chip, two coaxial & optical input and output, a 3.5mm headphone jack, 4.4mm and 2.5mm balanced jacks, an SMA connector, a USB Type-C connector, plus interfaces for a touchscreen display. PineSound preliminary specifications: WiSoC – Bestechnic BES2300-YP dual-core Arm Cortex-M4F @ up to 300 MHz with HW DSP instruction, 992KB SRAM, 4MB flash, Bluetooth 5.0 dual mode. Supports hybrid ANC (active noise cancellation) and TWS (true wireless stereo). Note: the datasheet has been made available in the comments section. Display – LCD (should be SPI) and touch panel connectors Audio Coaxial & optical input (left) Coaxial & […]

LU-ASR01 offline speech recognition module
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$8 LU-ASR01 offline speech recognition board features “TW-ASR ONE” chip

LU-ASR01 is a board capable of offline speech recognition with a built-in microphone, a speaker connector, twelve through holes for GPIOs and a temperature sensor interface for DHT11/DS18B20,  plus a USB Type-C port for power and programming. At first, I thought it might be based on the Unisound US516P6 microcontroller which we’ve seen on some inexpensive offline speech recognition modules, but the chip looks completely different, with the marking TW-ASR ONE. So let’s investigate… LU-ASR01 board specifications took some effort, but here’s what I’ve managed: MCU – TW-ASR ONE (aka TWen ASR ONE) microcontroller with 4MB flash, 512KB RAM, and a BNPU for voice processing; package: QFN48L (6x6x0.85mm) Audio I/O Built-in microphone 2-pin speaker header plus 3W power amplifier for 4Ω/3W speaker Voice recognition Up to 10 meters wake-up range 98% ultra-high recognition rate Customizable to 5 wake-up words and 200 recognition words USB – 1x USB Type-C port for […]

Maple Eye ESP32-S3 camera displays
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Maple Eye ESP32-S3 board offers 2MP camera, microphone, and two LCD displays

AnalogLamb Maple Eye ESP32-S3 is a WiFi and Bluetooth connected board based on ESP32-S3 dual-core Xtensa LX7 microcontroller and equipped with one 2MP camera, one microphone, and two LCD displays placed on each side of the board. Those features, plus 8MB of flash and an 8 MB Octal PSRAM, allow the board to make good use of ESP32-S3 AI instructions through the ESP-DL library found in ESP-WHO framework in order to speed up face detection and recognition algorithms, or for audio processing. Maple Eye ESP32-S3 specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 module with ESP32-S3 dual-core Xtensa LX7 processor @ up to 240 MHz integrating vector instructions  for AI acceleration, 512 KB SRAM, 8MB PSRAM & 8MB Octal SPI Flash Storage – MicroSD card interface Displays – 2x 1.3-inch TFT LCD displays, selectable by switch Camera – 2MP OV2640 camera Audio – Digital microphone for VAD (voice activity detection) & ASR (automatic […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
ClearFog LX2-Lite
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SolidRun launches 16-core LX2162A LX2-Lite SOM and ClearFog LX2-Lite development board

SolidRun has launched the LX2-Lite SOM based on NXP Layerscape LX2-Lite SoC with up to 16 Arm Cortex-A72 cores, together with ClearFog LX2-Lite development platform equipped with two SFP28 cages up to 25Gbps each, two SFP+ cage up to 10Gbps each, and eight Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports for networking applications. With a footprint measuring just 58 x 48mm, or about 25% the size of a standard COM Express 7 module, the company claims the LX2-Lite Mini SOM, based on LX2162A, is the smallest 16-core SOM platform in the world, and the module and development board target high-performance SD-WAN, network security, and industrial control solutions. SolidRun LX2-Lite SOM Specifications: SoC (one of the other) NXP Layerscape LX2082A with 8x Cortex A72 cores @ 2.0 GHz NXP Layerscape LX2122A with 12x Cortex A72 cores @ 2.0 GHz NXP Layerscape LX2162A with 16x Cortex A72 cores @ 2.0 GHz System Memory – Up […]

Raspberry Pi Imager username password
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Raspberry Pi OS removes default “Pi” username, adds experimental support for Wayland

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just released a new version of Raspberry Pi OS that removes the default username (pi) for security reasons, adds experimental support for Wayland, and lets people configure their Raspberry Pi with Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Default username no more The most significant change in the new Raspberry Pi OS is the removal of the default “pi” user as several countries have legislation against default credentials for security reasons. That includes the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill (PSTI) in the UK, and California’s SB-327 IoT devices security law. Those laws mostly target default passwords, but removing a default username can be useful too to prevent force brute attacks. One consequence of removing the default username is that you won’t be able to skip the wizard in both the Desktop and Lite versions of Raspberry Pi OS since a new user needs to be created first. […]

Boardcon LGA3576 Rockchip RK3576 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications