Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

January 17, 2025January 17, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 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 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) - 5 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 […]

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 […]

January 14, 2025March 29, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

OpenFlexture Microscope is an open-source, 3D-printed microscope based on Raspberry Pi 4 SBC and Camera Module v2

The OpenFlexture Microscope is a DIY, open-source, 3D-printed microscope built around the Raspberry Pi 4, a Raspberry Pi Camera Module v2, and a choice of optics or various qualities up to lab-grade optics. It can be motorized using low-cost geared stepper motors and can achieve a resolution of up to around 100 nanometers I found out about the OpenFlexture Microscope in one of the sessions at the upcoming FOSDEM 2025 event whose description partially reads: The OpenFlexure Microscope is an open-source laboratory-grade digital robotic microscope. As a robotic microscope, it is able to automatically scan microscope slides creating, enormous multi-gigapixel digital representations of samples. The microscope is already undergoing evaluation for malaria and cancer diagnosis in Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Philippines. As an open project, our key goal is to support local manufacturing of microscopes in low-resource settings. [..] high-quality consistent documentation has enabled thousands of microscopes to be built […]

January 14, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

IBASE INA1607 is a fanless uCPE/SD-WAN appliance powered by an Intel Atom x7405C Amston Lake SoC

IBASE Technology’s INA1607 is a fanless uCPE (universal Customer Premises Equipment) and SD-WAN (Software-defined WAN) appliance powered by an Intel Atom x7405C Amston Lake processor coupled with up to 16GB ECC or non-EEC DDR5 memory. The embedded computer comes with offers up to 64GB eMMC flash, features a 2.5-inch SATA bay, offers four 2.5GbE RJ45 ports, two dual-function GbE ports (RJ45/SFP), and supports wireless expansion for WiFi 6 or 4G LTE/5G modules through mini PCIe and M.2 slots and up to six antennas. IBASE INA1607 specifications: SoC – Intel Atom X7405C quad-core Amston Lake processor @ up to 2.2GHz with 6MB cache; TDP: 12W System Memory – Up to 16GB DDR5 4800MHz ECC/Non-ECC via SODIMM socket Storage 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB eMMC flash M.2 2280 B-Key 3042/3080 socket for SATA III or PCIe SSD 2.5-inch SATA drive bay Networking 4x 2.5GbE RJ45 ports via Intel i226-V controllers 2x GbE RJ45 […]

January 14, 2025January 13, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Morse Micro MM8108 WiFi HaLow SoC supports up to 43.33 Mbps transfer rate, improves range and power efficiency

Morse Micro MM8108 is a new WiFi HaLow (802.11ah) SoC with a throughput of up to 43.33 Mbps, and improved range and power efficiency compared to its predecessor the Morse Micro MM6108 introduced in 2022 and supporting up to 32.3 Mbps transfer rate. The new chip is also smaller at just 5x5mm in a BGA package instead of 6x6mm in a QFN48 package for the MM6108/MM6104, adds a USB 2.0 host interface besides SDIO 2.0 and SPI, as well as a MIPI RFFE (Radio Frequency Front-End) for integration and interoperability with multi-radio systems. Morse Micro MM8108 specifications: 32-bit RISC-V Host Applications Processor (HAP) Single-Chip IEEE802.11ah Wi-Fi HaLow transceiver for low-power, long-reach IoT applications Worldwide Sub-1 GHz frequency bands (850MHz to 950MHz) On-chip 26 dBm power amplifier with support for external FEM (Front End Module) option 1/2/4/8 MHz channel bandwidth for up to 43.3 Mbps data rate using 256-QAM modulation at […]