CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

January 18, 2025January 17, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Jack Dorsey talk at FOSDEM 2025 may lead to protest

Jack Dorsey, who previously owned Twitter and now runs Block, will be giving a talk at FOSDEM 2025 entitled “Infusing Open Source Culture into Company DNA: A Conversation with Jack Dorsey and Manik Surtani, Block’s head of Open Source” and some people don’t like having a billionaire giving a talk at an open-source event and plan to host a protest. I recently wrote about my own FOSDEM 2025 schedule focusing on embedded systems topics, and while the event is usually non-controversial, I was startled by a tweet by FOSDEM organizers who issued a “statement on planned protests during the upcoming FOSDEM 2025”. I eventually found out that it was related to a post by Drew DeVault who did not appreciate having a billionaire talk during the open-source-focused event. The talk is planned in the Janson venue which is the biggest at the event with a capacity of up to […]

January 17, 2025 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

Open hardware RP2350B boards offer up to 16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM, microSD card slot, 48x GPIOs

Olimex PICO2 XL and PICO2 XXL RP2350B Dev board

Olimex has recently released the PICO2-XL and PICO2-XXL open-source hardware RP2350B development boards with up to 16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM, 48 GPIOs, a microSD card slot, and more. The main difference between the two boards is that the PICO2-XL includes 2MB of external QSPI Flash and a compact flat-bottom design, making it ideal for simpler, space-constrained projects. In contrast, the PICO2-XXL offers 16MB of QSPI Flash, 8MB of PSRAM, and a microSD card slot for expanded storage and performance, catering to more demanding applications like IoT and edge computing. Olimex PICO2-XL and PICO2-XXL specifications SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350B MCU CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @150MHz with Arm Trustzone Dual-core 32-bit Hazard3 RISC-V @ 150MHz Up to two cores can be used at the same time Memory – 520KB SRAM 8kB OTP storage Security – Secure boot Package – QFN-80; 10×10 mm Memory – 8MB PSRAM (PICO2-XXL only) Storage PICO2-XL – […]

ArmSoM CM5 Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC

January 17, 2025January 17, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

CrowPanel Advance: ESP32-S3 displays with replaceable WiFi 6, Thread, Zigbee, LoRa, and 2.4GHz wireless modules

CrowPanel Advance: ESP32-S3 display with replaceable wireless modules

Elecrow’s CrowPanel Advance is a family of 2.8-inch to 7-inch ESP32-S3 WiFi and BLE displays that supports replaceable modules for Thread/Zigbee/Matter, WiFi 6, 2.4GHz, and LoRa (Meshtastic) connectivity. Those are updates of the CrowPanel (Basic) displays introduced last year. They feature an ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 module soldered on the back plus headers taking ESP32-H2, ESP32-C6, SX1262 LoRa transceiver, or nRF2401 2.4GHz wireless MCU. CrowPanel Advance 7-inch specifications: Wireless Module – ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 SoC – ESP32-S3 CPU – Dual-core LX7 processor with up to 240MHz Memory – 512KB SRAM, 8MP PSRAM Storage – 384KH ROM Wireless – WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 with BLE Storage – 16MB flash PCB antenna Storage – MicroSD card slot Display 7.0-inch IPS capacitive touchscreen display with 800×480 resolution (SC7277 driver) Viewing Angle: 178° Brightness: 400 cd/m²(Typ.) Color Depth – 16-bit Active Area – 156 x 87mm Audio Built-in microphone Speaker connector Wireless Expansion ESP32-H2 module with 802.15.4 radio […]

January 17, 2025January 17, 2025 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 2 Comments

Home Assistant-compatible 60GHz mmWave radar sensor features a built-in IR blaster (Crowdfunding)

The eMotion Ultra is a Home Assistant-compatible 60GHz mmWave radar presence sensor with a built-in IR blaster with a 15-meter range, a brightness sensor, and a temperature/humidity sensor. It is powered by an Armv8-M KM4 microcontroller with built-in Wi-Fi connectivity and is targeted at simplifying complex smart home setups. The eMotion Ultra 60GHz mmWave radar presence sensor module is reported to be able to “cover up to 40 square meters (430 square feet) using just one device.” It can be configured for up to 4 zones with personalized automations for each zone. The exact Armv8-M KM4 module used isn’t named but is likely based on a Realtek RTL8720CM wireless SoC or other Realtek Ameba microcontroller. Potential applications include security management, lighting automation, home climate control, energy management, and rental property management. We have seen similar presence sensors such as the RoomSense IQ, Seeed Studio’s mmWave fall detection kit, SONOFF SNZB-06P, […]

January 16, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

USB-C and Lightning tester features an LCD display showing the voltage of each pin

VBEST’s Tail Insert Detector is a USB-C and Lightning cable/device tester that reports “real-time” current and voltage of each pin on its built-in display for easy debugging and testing. VBEST Tail Insert Detector highlights and specifications: Port compatibility – USB Type-C male and Lightning male ports Display – Color LCD display Features – Real-time current and voltage detection Misc – Push switch for power and display mode Power 5V via USB-C female port (on the side) Built-in battery Dimensions – 52 x 35 (estimated) x 14mm Sadly, there’s not much in the way of documentation, so it’s unclear how many display modes there are. I’m also confused by the “real-time” voltage and current reporting, because we’re also told it takes 5 seconds to detect “abnormal pins”. The VBEST’s device is very similar to the A2C caberQU and C2C caberQU boards used to respectively test USB-A to USB-C and USB-C to […]

January 16, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Imagination exits the RISC-V CPU market

Imagination Technologies has decided to exit the RISC-V CPU market to redirect its resources to the development of its GPU and AI products. This was reported by eeNews Europe following an interview with the company: Imagination exited its standalone line of CPUs to increase our investment in graphics, AI and compute at the edge which we believe is transformational for our business […] We remain committed to the RISC-V ecosystem and believe this change to our business allows us to partner more easily with the wider ecosystem as providers of the GPU of choice for RISC-V The company announced its entry into RISC-V IP core in 2021 with the introduction of the Catapult 32-bit and 64-bit RISC-V CPU cores, followed by the 32-bit RTXM-2200 real-time core in 2022, and the cost-optimized APXM-6200 RISC-V core was introduced last year. But all those RISC-V CPU cores are gone and won’t be found […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

January 16, 2025January 16, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

FlipMods Combo is a 3-in-1 Flipper Zero expansion module with ESP32, GPS, and CC1101 modules

ESP32 GPS CC1101 3-in-1 expansion Flipper Zero

Sacred Labs’ FlipMods Combo is a 3-in-1 expansion module for the Flipper Zero that combines an ESP32 WiFi and Bluetooth SoC, Texas Instruments CC1101 Sub-GHz wireless microcontroller, and an unnamed GPS module. The expansion module is housed in a neat 3D-printed case and features a built-in GPS antenna, external WiFI/Bluetooth & Sub-Ghz antennas, as well as a switch to send the GPS data to the ESP32 chip or the Flipper Zero. The ESP32 module is preloaded with the Marauder firmware also used in the ESP32 Marauder Pocket Unit and Mayhem v2 for Flipper Zero for penetration testing with Wi-Fi scanning, de-authentication attacks, packet sniffing, and more. FlipMods Combo specifications: Wireless modules ESP32-WROOM-32UE for WiFi and Bluetooth; external SMA antenna (long) Texas Instruments CC1011 for 315, 433, 868, and 915MHz ISM bands; external SMA antenna (short) GPS module with internal antenna Storage – MicroSD card slot up to 32GB USB – […]

January 15, 2025January 15, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Siflower SF21H8898 is a quad-core 64-bit RISC-V SoC for industrial gateways, routers, and controllers

Siflower SF21H8898 SoC features a quad-core 64-bit RISC-V processor clocked at up to 1.25 GHz and a network processing unit (NPU) for handling traffic and is designed for industrial-grade gateways, controllers, and routers. The chip supports up to 2GB DDR3, DDR3L, or DDR4 memory, offers QSGMII (quad GbE), SGMII/HSGMII (GbE/2.5GbE), and RGMII (GbE) networking interfaces, and USB 2.0, PCIE 2.0, SPI, UART, I2C, and PWM interfaces. Siflower SF21H8898 specifications: CPU – Quad-core 64-bit RISC-V processor at up to 1.25 GHz Cache 32KB L1 I-Cache and 32KB L1 D-Cache per core Shared 256 KB L2 cache Memory – Up to 2GB 16-bit DDR3/3L up to 2133Mbps or DDR4 up to 2666Mbps Storage – NAND and NOR SPI flash support Networking 1x QSGMII interface (Serdes 5Gbps rate) for 4x external Gigabit Ethernet PHYs 1x SGMII/HSGMII interface (Serdes1.25/3.125Gbps rate) supporting Gigabit and 2.5Gbps modes 1x RGMII interface for Gigabit Ethernet 1x MDIO interface […]