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ASRock Industrial announces Intel Elkhart Lake mini PCs and motherboards

Intel Atom x6000E Series, Celeron, and Pentium Elkhart Lake processors for IoT Edge applications were launched in September 2020, with many companies shortly introducing modules, single board computers, motherboards, and industrial, rugged mini PCs after the official announcement. ASRock Industrial took more time to announce their Elkhart Lake offerings, with three families of hardware platforms with NUC 6000 BOX Series and IBOX 6000 Series mini PCs, as well as NUC 6000 Motherboard series. We’ll have a look at the three families in detail below, mostly using information from products based on Celeron J6412, one of the more recent Elkhart Lake processors that was launched in Q1 2021. ASRock NUC 6000 Motherboard Series Specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Celeron J6412 quad-core processor @ 2.0/2.6 GHz (Turbo) with 1.5MB cache, 16 EU Intel UHD Graphics; 10W TDP Intel Celeron N6210 dual-core processor @ 1.2/2.6 GHz (Turbo) with 1.5MB cache, 16 […]

Ubuntu RISC-V HiFive QEMU
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Ubuntu 20.04/21.04 64-bit RISC-V released for QEMU, HiFive boards

Let’s a lot of excitement around RISC-V open architecture, but a lot of work still needs to be done to bring the ecosystem to level with Arm or x86 architecture from the silicon to the software. Progress is made step-by-step and one of these steps is Canonical released Ubuntu 64-bit RISC-V (RISCV64) images for some of SiFive HiFive boards, as well as QEMU open-source emulator. Specifically, Canonical released an Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS image for HiFive Unleashed & QEMU, and an Ubuntu 21.04 image for HiFive Unleashed, HiFive Unmatched, and QEMU. Note those are only server images, and there’s no desktop image yet like for Ubuntu 21.04 on Raspberry Pi 2/3/4. It’s been possible to run RISC-V Linux in QEMU for at least three years, but when I tried it was a minimal system based on Busybox, so let’s try again with Ubuntu 21.04 following the instructions provided on Discourse. I […]

Graperain Samsung, Rockchip RK3588, and Qualcomm CPU modules, SBCs, and carrier boards
TPM 2.0 module price
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TPM 2.0 modules quadruple in price, run out of stock following Windows 11 announcement

Microsoft announced Windows 11 with new system requirements that include having hardware with a TPM 2.0 chip. Yesterday, we noted that could be an issue, as not all computers, laptops, and tablets may come with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), especially if version 2.0 is required. Microsoft explains it’s for a good reason, name improved security, but the requirement has already had an impact on the market, even though Windows 11 is not officially available just yet, as TPM 2.0 modules have quadrupled in price according to a Tweet from Shen Ye, senior director, global head of hardware products for HTC. Note that while the bottom scale shows dates, it only shows dates when the price changes and the price was indeed $24.90 before Microsoft’s announcement, and gradually went up to $99.90 within 12 hours. At the time of writing, that module is out of stock on Amazon. Shen further […]

LoRaWAN Gateway Red-Node
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UG65 LoRaWAN gateway supports Node-RED, up to 2,000 nodes

Node-RED is a popular flow-based, visual programming development tool originally developed by IBM for wiring together hardware devices, APIs, and online services as part of the Internet of Things. But despite being designed for the IoT, I’ve seldom seen Node-RED support for LoRaWAN hardware, the only exception being the Axon platform, a tiny WiFi & LoRaWAN board. But there’s at least one more option with Milestone IoT’s UG65 LoRaWAN gateway, launched late last year, getting a firmware update that adds Node-RED support. UG65 LoRaWAN gateway specifications: SoC – NXP quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @  1.5 GHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR4 RAM Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash Connectivity LoRaWAN Semtech SX1302 based Fully Integrated Internal Antenna (Optional: 1 × 50 Ω N-Female External Antenna Connector) 8 channels Frequency Bands – CN470, IN865, EU868, RU864, US915, AU915, KR920, AS923 Sensitivity – -140dBm Sensitivity @292bps Output Power – 27dBm Max Protocol […]

Windows 11 release
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Windows 11 announced with widgets, Android apps support, new system requirements

As expected, Microsoft has formally announced Windows 11 operating system that’s basically Windows 10 with a new look, and some extra features such as Snap Layouts, Snap Groups, and Desktops to further improve the multitasking experience. Snap Layouts and Snap Groups will allow you to select pre-defined layouts to quickly arrange windows as you see fit, and you can define multiple “Desktops” for work, gaming, or school, etc… Other changes include Chat from Microsoft Teams integrated into the taskbar, new gaming features such as DirectX 12 Ultimate, Direct Storage for faster loading, or Auto HDR, a new Microsoft Store with support for Android apps through the Amazon Appstore, and AI-powered widgets to display useful information like calendar, weather, news, stock quotes, etc… There are also features that have become deprecated or pushed to the wayside with, for example, Cortana not used anymore during installation and not pinned to the taskbar, […]

Pimoroni PGA2040 Breakout Board
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PGA2040 is a Compact Raspberry Pi RP2040 Breakout Board by Pimoroni

Pimoroni is known for its development boards with a small form factor. PGA2040 is another compact breakout board featuring the Raspberry Pi  RP2040 microcontroller. The board comes in the form of a Pin Grid Array (PGA) with RP2040 at its center. The PGA allows the accommodation of 48 pins around the perimeter of SoC on such a small footprint. After seeing some of the advanced RP2040 boards featuring wireless functionalities in the past few months, such as the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect board, Pico Wireless Carrier board, and Wio RP2040 Mini development board, the PGA2040 is a simple board with only necessary components, thus making it suitable for compact, simple applications. However, this increases the complexity and efforts from users for interfacing additional components to implement advanced applications. Talking more about the necessary components on the board, it comes with a Crystal Oscillator, 8MB of QSPI flash, and a 3V3 […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
Posture correction smart sensor
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Posture correction smart sensor helps you sit or stand upright

It’s easy to adopt a bad posture either while sitting in front of a computer or while walking and your mobile, and over time this may lead to unaesthetic and/or painful postural disorders. To solve this issue, a posture correction smart sensor may be used in place of a posture belt with what looks like a GPS tracker placed on the back of the patient, and which notifies bad postures by vibrating and to your smartphone depending on a user-configured angle range. Specifications listed for the posture-correction-smart-sensor: Sensor – Unnamed Bosch gravity sensor Connectivity  – Bluetooth 4.2 Misc Medical-grade gel patch to attach the device to the bag Vibration motor Battery – 200mAh; 30 minutes charge good for about 5 days when using it for about 8 hours per day Dimensions – 6 x 4 x 1.2 cm Weight – 16 grams. The device ships with a micro USB cable […]

Sipeed RV-Debugger Plus
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$3.5 RV-Debugger Plus UART & JTAG debug board comes with BL702 Zigbee & BLE RISC-V SoC

USB to UART debug boards are a necessity for anyone playing with single board computers, at least when using bleeding-edge bootloader or Linux kernel where the target board may not always boot, or when troubleshooting booting problems. Those are often based on FDTI or WCH chips, but Sipeed RV-Debugger Plus features Bouffalo Lab BL702 Zigbee & Bluetooth LE RISC-V SoC instead and offers both UART and JTAG interfaces. So let’s have a look at both the board and SoC. Sipeed RV-Debugger Plus USB to TLL debug boards are meant to be simple and that’s the case for Sipeed latest BL702 board as it comes with a 12-pin connector with Tx/Rx for UART, 8 signals for JTAG, plus 5V, 3.3V, and GND power signals. We can also see pads for Tx/Rx/CTS, a boot button, a crystal oscillator, and a USB-C port to connect to the host computer. What I don’t see […]

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