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

August 21, 2024August 22, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

HDMI to screw terminal adapters could be useful for Raspberry Pi RP2040 and RP2350 boards

The very idea of an HDMI to screw terminal adapters maybe seem moronic at first, but in an era of programmable IOs (PIO), and high-speed serial transmit (HSTX), those could end up being useful for boards or modules based on Raspberry Pi RP2040 or RP2350 since they’ve all be shown to support DVI output through HDMI connectors. There are a few boards that integrate an HDMI port such as the Olimex RP2040-PICO-PC, Solder Party RP2xxx Stamp Carrier XL, or Adafruit Feather RP2040 among others, but most boards don’t include an HDMI port. What they do typically have are GPIO headers, and an HDMI to screw terminal adapter would allow users to easily add an HDMI port to their existing board without soldering simply by using jumper wires, or with a bit more work an old HDMI cable. All HDMI to screw terminal adapters are pretty basic with an HDMI male […]

August 21, 2024August 21, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

xMEMS XMC-2400 is a 1mm-thin solid-state micro cooling fan-on-a-chip for ultrathin devices and SSDs

xMEMS XMC 2400 micro cooling fan on a chip

xMEMS Labs XMC-2400 is a vibration-free, solid-state micro cooling fan-on-a-chip that’s just 1mm thin and designed to cool the processor, other chips, and batteries on space-constraints devices such as smartphones, tablets, extended reality headsets, laptops, as well as SSDs. The XMC-2400 can deliver up to 39cc/sec airflow and up to 1,000Pa back pressure per instance while remaining inaudible and only consuming an estimated 30mW. It’s also rated IP58 for water and dust resistance. It leverages the manufacturing process the company has been using for its ultrathin MEMS speakers. xMEMS XMC-2400 specifications: Top-venting and side-venting packages for flexible integration in different system form-factors Bi-directional flow rate, adjustable up to 39cc/sec Inaudible; all mechanical operation is at ultrasonic frequencies Power consumption – 30mW (estimated) Dimensions – 9.26 x 7.6 x 1.08 mm Weight – 150 mg SMT-reflowable Ingress Protection – IP58 Two packages will be offered: XMC-2400-S – Side-Vented Package supports chip-stacking […]

August 21, 2024August 20, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

$30 Banana Pi BPI-WiFi6 Mini is a dual GbE and WiFi 6 router board with optional 4G LTE or 5G cellular connectivity

Banana Pi BPI-WiFi6 Mini is an inexpensive WiFi 6 and dual Gigabit Ethernet router board with an M.2 Key-B socket and Nano SIM card slot to add 4G LTE or 5G cellular connectivity. It’s a smaller version of the Banana Pi BPI-WiFi 6 router board based on the Triductor TR6560 dual-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor and Triductor TR5220 WiFi 6 chipset that follows the form factor of the Banana BPI-R3 Mini low-profile router board based on MediaTek Filogic 830 processor. Banana Pi BPI-WiFi6 Mini specifications: SoC – Triductor TR6560 dual-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor @ 1.2 GHz with LSW (Line-Card Switching) and hardware NAT up to 5 Gbps WiFi chipset – Triductor TR5220 WiFi 6 chipset System Memory – 128MB DDR3 Storage – 128MB SPI NAND flash Networking 2x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports WiFi WiFi 6 with 2×2 MIMO @ 2.4 GHz, 2×2 MIMO @ 5GHz Antennas – 2.4GHz antenna connector, 2.4GHz/5GHz […]

August 20, 2024March 4, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

UP Squared 7100 Alder Lake-N fanless SBC ships with up to 16GB LPDDR5 and 128GB eMMC flash

AAEON has just introduced the UP Squared 7100 fanless single board computer powered by Intel Processor N-series CPUs (N97 or N100 by default) with up to 16GB LPDDR5 and 128GB eMMC flash in a compact 90 x 85.6mm form factor. The SBC can drive up to three independent 4K displays at 60 Hz, features two RS232/422/485 interfaces, gigabit Ethernet, three USB 3.2 ports, and expansion options that include a 40-pin GPIO header, and two M.2 sockets for NVMe storage and WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity. UP Squared 7100 specifications: Alder Lake-N SoC (one or the other) Default options Intel Processor N100 quad-core processor up to 3.4 GHz with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD Graphics Gen 12 @ 750 MHz; TDP: 6W Intel Processor N97 quad-core processor up to 3.6 GHz with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD Graphics Gen 12 @ 1.2 GHz; TDP: 12W Additional options upon request Intel Core i3-N305 octa-core processor […]

August 20, 2024August 20, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

NanoPi M6 – A Rockchip RK3588S SBC and fanless HMI solution with an integrated 3.5-inch touchscreen display

NanoPi M6 is a Rockchip RK3588S SBC (single board computer) that is also offered as a complete fanless HMI solution with a metal case and a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 800×480 resolution. The M6 is offered with 4GB to 32GB LPDDR5 memory, supports microSD, eMMC flash module, and M.2 NVMe SSD bootable storage, features one HDMI 2.1 port, two MIPI DSI connectors, two MIPI CSI camera connectors, gigabit Ethernet, an M.2 E-Key socket for WiFi and Bluetooth, and a 30-pin GPIO header for expansion among a few other ports and features. NanoPi M6 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU compatible with OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 APIs VPU – 8Kp60 video decoder for H.265/AVS2/VP9/H.264/AV1 codecs, 8Kp30 H.265/H.264 video encoder AI […]

August 19, 2024September 29, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Radxa X4 SBC kit review – Part 1: Unboxing, case assembly, Ubuntu 24.04 installation

The Radxa X4 is a single-board computer that uses an Intel N100 processor instead of an Arm-based SoC found in most SBCs and also embeds a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller for GPIO control. What’s interesting is that the Radxa X4 is a small computer board with a similar form factor as the Raspberry Pi 5 SBC, but benefits from the higher performance of Intel “Alder Lake-N” Processor N100 CPU and out-of-the-box compatibility with most operating systems, except for specific features such as GPIOs. The Intel N100 board also comes with a built-in M.2 M-key socket (so no need for an extra HAT) that supports higher speed storage thanks to a PCIe 3.0 x4 interfaces, as well as WiFi 6 connectivity, making the Radxa X4 an interesting option for those looking for a small, capable computer board for home, IoT, or industrial use. The company sent us a full kit with […]

August 19, 2024August 19, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

The Raspberry Pi 5 SBC is now available with 2GB RAM for just $50

The Raspberry Pi 5 has now a cheaper variant with 2GB of RAM going for just $50 following the launch of the Broadcom BCM2712 SBC in October 2023 with either 4GB or 8GB LPDDR4X-4267 SDRAM for respectively $60 and $80. At the time of the release, we also noted that cheaper variants with 1GB and 2GB RAM should become available later on simply because of the options on the silkscreen. When Eben Upton contacted CNX Software about the release of the Raspberry Pi 5 2GB RAM he explained that Raspberry Pi was “bringing the power of our most modern platform, and all of the optimisations we’ve developed since the launch of the larger memory SKUs last autumn, to a new lower price point”. Raspberry Pi 5 2GB RAM specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM2712 (cost-optimised D0 stepping) CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 processor @ 2.4 GHz with crypto extensions, 512KB per-core […]

August 18, 2024August 19, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Radxa ROCK 5 ITX RK3588 mini-ITX motherboard review – Building an Arm PC and NAS with Debian KDE

ROCK 5 ITX Review: Build Arm Computer NAS

In this review, I’ll show how I installed Debian on the ROCK 5 ITX mini-ITX motherboard powered by a Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Arm Cortex-A76/A55 processor, before building a computer/NAS with the Arm mini-ITX motherboard, testing various features and running benchmarks. In the first part of the review, we checked out the Radxa ROCK 5 ITX (Arm) and Jupiter (RISC-V) mini-ITX motherboards with specifications and unboxing, and the Auriga 6-Bay NAS mini-ITX chassis used in this review. I already built the computer with the Jupiter RISC-V mini-ITX motherboard, so here I simply switched the RISC-V motherboard with the Radxa ROCK 5 ITX Arm motherboard and installed a few SATA drives. Radxa ROCK 5 ITX first boot – A tricky start… Radxa provides getting started instructions on the documentation website which I mostly follow to hopefully boot within a few minutes. I had to prepare the hardware first. So I installed a […]