Look who is joining the maker community! Sony has showcased their Arduino compatible Spritzer board during the Maker Faire Tokyo on August 5-6. Despite lacking on-board network connectivity, the board is said to have been designed for IoT applications with features such as an integrated GPS and an advanced digital audio codec and amplifier.
Sony Spritzer specifications:
- MCU – Sony CDX5602 ARM Cortex-M4F ×6 micro-controller clocked at up to 156 MHz with 1.5MB SRAM
- Storage – 8MB Flash Memory, micro SD card
- GNSS – GPS, GLONASS, supported
- Audio – 3.5mm audio jack
- Expansion I/Os
- Digital I/O Pins – SPI, I2C, UART, PWM ×4 (3.3V)
- Analog Pins – 6ch (3.3V range)
- Audio I/O – 8ch Digital MICs or 4ch Analog MICs, Stereo Speaker, I2S, CXD5247 audio codec with 192 kHz/24bit High-Resolution audio
- 2x camera interfaces
- USB – 1x micro USB port for programming
- Power Supply – Via Power barrel and Vin pin?
- Dimensions – Arduino UNO form factor?
In case you wonder why they bother to include GPS, but not WiFi or Bluetooth, that’s because the board is actually based on a Sony GPS chipset (CDX5602GF or CDX5602GG) that’s manufactured using FD-SOI process allowing for much lower power consumption. I don’t understand the meaning of “x6” in the specs, unless that’s an hexa-core Cortex M4F MCU, which I don’t think is possible.
The block diagram above does a decent job at explaining what’s feasible with the two chipsets used in the board. You’ll have to connect external module to get Bluetooth, WiFi, and LTE, a display up to 360×240 resolution can be used via SPI, all sort of sensors can be connected via the expansion header, the board is suitable for microphone arrays, and it can be powered by batteries thanks to a charger circuit and fuel gauge inside CXD5247 audio codec / PMU chip. The board can be programmed with the Arduino IDE and USB cable.
The company demonstrated the board the Maker Faire with a drone utilizing the GPS and the 6-axis sensor support, a smart speaker utilizing the audio functions, a self-driving line-tracing miniature car, and a low-power smart sensing IoT camera using the camera interface of Spritzer.
You’ll have to get patient before getting hold the board, as the Spritzer board is planned to be available for developers in early 2018. Visit the product page (in Japanese) for more details.
Thanks to Jasbir for the tip.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Yeah right, I’m gonna run right out and buy one of these from DRM obsessed SONY. I’ll bet that as soon as you plug this into your computer, it tries to install a rootkit.
Looks like a fairly interesting board for something like a USB sound card or MIDI synthesizer actually
@Drone
Maybe if you connect to a Lenovo laptop the two rootkits will cancel out
“MCU – Sony CDX6502 ARM Cortex-M4F ×6 micro-controller clocked at up to 156 MHz with 1.5MB SRAM”
Slides say “CDX5602”. 6502…. You almost had me loving a Sony chip (of pure evil). Not today, Sony, Not today.
@Drone
With such hate speech imho the author “Drone” and cnx-soft are at risk for legal problems…
@LinAdmin
Hate speech? What are you talking about? Sony is DRM obsessed. They put it on all of their audio recording devices after they bought Columbia. They put a rootkit DRM system on the CD-ROM portion of what should have been simple audio CDs. They even got sued *and lost* about that.
@LinAdmin Opinions about companies, substantiated or no, aren’t “hate speech”. Companies aren’t protected against people’s opinions of them.
@willmore
@ahrlad
Ask a lawyer if it is an actionable libel – I do not have any doubts.
@LinAdmin
Under what countries libel laws and how long have you been registered to practice law?
Saw the end product on Sony headset by this platform. where could I buy this SPRITZER?