ESP32-C3 board antenna hack
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Antenna hack more than doubles the range of cheap ESP32-C3 USB-C boards

There are plenty of small ESP32-C3 IoT boards with a USB-C connector on the market, and while they all look very similar, antenna designs differ, and less thought-out ones may severely impact the WiFi and Bluetooth range. Peter Neufeld decided to hack one of those cheap ESP32-C3 boards by adding a custom antenna, and this resulted in the board having more than twice the range and almost three times in some cases. Those tiny boards are cramped, so there’s very little space around the ceramic antenna typically used, leading to poor RF performance. To work around that issue, Peter added a 31mm long antenna made of silver-plated wire, making a loop of about 8mm in diameter outside of the board and soldered on the ceramic antenna’s solder joints, and the rest of the wire (about 15mm) points upwards. As you can see from the photo above, he didn’t remove the […]

Microchip SAMA7D65 Cortex A7 MPU
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Microchip SAMA7D65 Cortex-A7 MPU comes in SoC and SiP packages with up to 2Gbit integrated DDR3L memory

Microchip has recently released the SAMA7D65 MPU, a high-performance Arm Cortex-A7 embedded processor designed for HMI and connectivity applications across industrial, home, medical, and appliance markets. The MPU is available in both System-in-Package (SiP) and System-on-Chip (SoC) variants and features various display interfaces, including MIPI DSI, LVDS, and 8-bit Serial RGB interfaces, along with a 2D GPU for graphical acceleration. Memory and storage options include support for 16-bit DDR2/DDR3/DDR3L and LPDDR2/3 memory, optional 1 Gbit or 2 Gbit DDR3 RAM, NAND Flash, eMMC Flash, and SD card. It features dual Gigabit Ethernet with TSN support, an I3C controller, five CAN-FD interfaces, and three high-speed USB ports. Additionally, it comes with various security features, including physically unclonable function (PUF), secure boot, key storage, and cryptographic accelerators for AES, SHA, RSA, and ECC. Microchip SAMA7D65 SoC/SiP specifications: CPU – Arm Cortex-A7 core up to 1 GHz Arm TrustZone, NEON, FPU 32KB L1 I-cache […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
COM-HPC-mMTL 16-core Intel Core Ultra COM-HPC Mini
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ADLINK COM-HPC-mMTL – A COM-HPC Mini Computer-on-Module with up to 16-core Intel Core Ultra 7 165H processor

ADLINK COM-HPC-mMTL is an industrial-grade COM-HPC Mini Computer-on-Module based on Intel Meteor Lake processors up to the 16-core Intel Core Ultra 7 165H featuring Intel Arc Graphics with eight Xe cores, Intel AI Boost NPU up to 8.2 TOPS, and 16x PCIE Gen4 lanes. The COM-HPC R1.2-compliant Mini size module also supports up to 64GB LPDDR5x memory soldered directly onto the board, an optional NVMe BGA SSD, and features two SATA interfaces, two 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, multiple DDI/USB4, and USB 3.0/2.0 through the standard 400-pin board-to-board connector of the 95x70mm CoM. ADLINK COM-HPC-mMTL specifications: Meteor Lake H/U SoC (one or the other) Intel Core Ultra 7 165H 16-core (6P+8E+2LPE) processor @ up to 5.0 / 3.8 / 2.5 GHz with 24MB cache, 8x Xe-cores Intel Arc graphics @ 2.35 GHz, Intel AI Boost NPU; TDP: 28W Intel Core Ultra 7 155H 16-core (6P+8E+2LPE) processor @ up to 4.8 / 3.8 […]

NVIDIA Jetson Carrier Board for drones
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Aerium Lumen – An NVIDIA Jetson carrier board for drones and robots

Aerium System’s Lumen is a carrier board for NVIDIA Jetson SO-DIMM modules designed specifically for drones and robots with a range of low-profile connectors for I/Os for USB, UART, I2C, etc…, and three M.2 sockets for storage and wireless expansion. It targets the same applications as ARK Electronics’ NDAA-compliant Jetson Orin Nano/NX carrier board for drones we covered last year, but it’s not sold as a full kit and lacks NDAA-compliance. On the positive side, it is quite smaller and lighter, so it might be better suited to smaller and/or less complex drones or robots that may still benefit from Vision AI acceleration. Aerium Lumen specifications: Compatible system-on-modules NVIDIA Jetson Nano NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX NVIDIA Jetson TX2 NX Potentially other Jetson-compatible SO-DIMM modules like the Mixtile Core 3588E, but those are not listed by the company. Storage MicroSD card slot M.2 Key-B […]

AAEON UP 710S Edge Mini PC
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AAEON UP 710S Edge Intel Processor N50/N97/N100/N200 mini PC is offered with Windows 11 IoT Enterprise or Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS

AAEON UP 710S Edge is a small fanless Mini PC powered by Intel Processor N50, N97, N100, or N200 Alder Lake-N SoC designed for companies wanting to upgrade industrial automation setups, and running Windows 11 IoT Enterprise 24H2 LTSC or Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS. Based on the UP 710S SBC introduced last November, the mini PC features a 10-pin terminal block with up to eight GPIOs, SPI, I2C, and PWM, an RS-232/422/485 COM, and support for WiFi and Bluetooth via an M.2 2230 E-Key slot. The computer also offers HDMI video output, three USB 3.2 ports, and gigabit Ethernet networking. UP 710S Edge specifications: Alder Lake-N SoC Intel Processor N50 dual-core processor up to 3.4 GHz with 6MB cache, 16EU Intel UHD Graphics @ up to 750 MHz; TDP: 6W Intel Processor N97 quad-core processor up to 3.6 GHz with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD Graphics @ up to 1.2 GHz; […]

TwoTrees TTC6050 CNC Router Review
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TwoTrees TTC6050 CNC router review with vacuum cleaner Monster (M1) kit and a 800W spindle upgrade

Twotrees has sent us a TTC6050 CNC router for review, along with a vacuum cleaner Monster (M1) kit and an 800W spindle upgrade with a speed of 30,000 RPM. The machine is designed for carving and milling various materials such as wood, plastic, and metal. It features a working area of 600 x 500 x 100 mm and comes equipped with a 500W spindle by default, upgradable to an 800W spindle. It’s capable of handling larger workpieces, works faster, and supports a broader variety of materials than the TwoTrees TTC 450 CNC router we reviewed in 2023 with a 500W spindle. In this review, we will start by listing the specifications and going through an unboxing, before assembling the TTC6050 CNC router and the vacuum cleaner Monster (M1) Kit, and installing the Candle CNC software to conduct milling tests on thick MDF wood. After that, we’ll install the 800W high-speed […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
ESP32-P4-Module-DEV-KIT
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ESP32-P4 credit card-sized board features Ethernet, WiFi 6, four USB ports, 40-pin GPIO header, MIPI DSI and CSI connectors

Waveshare ESP32-P4-Module-DEV-KIT credit card-sized board may look like a Linux-powered Raspberry Pi SBC, but instead, it’s based on an “ESP32-P4-Module” comprised of a 400 MHz Espressif ESP32-P4 RISC-V general-purpose microcontroller, an ESP32-C6 “co-processor” for WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5, and a 16MB SPI NOR flash. Designed for HMI applications, the board offers MIPI DSI and CSI connectors, as well as a 100Mbps Ethernet RJ45 jack, four USB 2.0 ports,  a 40-pin GPIO header, and more. It basically integrates the same ports as a Raspberry Pi SBC minus HDMI, but relies on a microcontroller instead of a Linux-capable application processor. Waveshare ESP32-P4-Module-DEV-KIT specifications: ESP32-P4-Module Microcontroller – ESP32-P4NRW32 MCU Dual-core RISC-V microcontroller @ 400 MHz with AI instructions extension and single-precision FPU Single-RISC-V LP (Low-power) MCU core @ up to 40 MHz GPU – 2D Pixel Processing Accelerator (PPA) VPU – H.264 and JPEG codecs support Memory – 768 KB HP L2MEM, […]

XIAO 7.5-inch epaper panel
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Seeed Studio XIAO 7.5″ ePaper panel supports ESPHome firmware, Arduino programming

Seeed Studio XIAO 7.5″ ePaper Panel interfaces an XIAO ESP32-C3 USB-C board and mainly targets the Smart Home market with support for ESPHome, but the monochrome ePaper display is also programmable with the Arduino IDE for a wider range of applications. The display offers a resolution of 800×400 and includes a 2,000mAh battery good for three months per charge with updates every 6 hours. Seeed Studio says the display can operate in the -40°C to 85°C temperature range, so it would be suitable for outdoor use as long as it’s not exposed to rain or dust. The USB-C port of the ESP32-C3 module and the Boot and Reset buttons are easily accessible for charging the display and programming it. XIAO 7.5″ ePaper Panel specifications: Wireless module – XIAO ESP32C3 SoC –  Espressif Systems ESP32-C3 CPU – Single-core RISC-V microcontroller @ 160 MHz Memory/Storage – 400KB SRAM, 384KB ROM, 4MB flash […]

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