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

January 17, 2024January 17, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ECS LIVA X3A – A Rockchip RK3588-powered fanless Android 12 mini PC with four HDMI ports

LIVA X3A Rockchip RK3588 fanless mini PC

Powered by a Rockchip RK3588 processor, ECS LIVA X3A fanless Android 12 mini PC is designed for digital signage and self-service kiosks with its four HDMI output ports capable of driving three 4K displays and an additional Full HD display. ECS is better known for its x86 mini PCs, but the company also introduced Rockchip Arm-based platforms in the past with the LIVA Q1A (RK3288/RK3399) and LIVA M300-W (RK3399K) mini PCs as well as the ECS-RK3568 3.5-inch SBC. The latest LIVA X3A fanless mini PC features the most powerful Rockchip processor, namely the RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC. ECS LIVA X3A specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 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 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 support VPU – 8Kp60 video decoder for H.265/AVS2/VP9/H.264/AV1 codecs, 8Kp30 […]

January 16, 2024January 16, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

ArduinoSimulator is an open-source Arduino Simulator that runs in your web browser

Leonardo Russo’s ArduinoSimulator is an open-source Arduino Simulator written in JavaScript that runs code directly in your web browser and shows the serial output and digital/analog pins status for various Arduino boards namely Arduino UNO R3, MEGA1280, MEGA2560, and NANO V3. We previously covered the Wokwi simulator for ESP32. Arduino, and Raspberry Pi RP2040 that’s a great little tool for educators to emulate circuits and run code right in a web browser, and it even supports the ESP32-P4 wireless MCU although it’s yet to be released. While the simulators are written in JavaScript and open-source, the tool itself is not, and for instance, you can’t run a self-hosted instance of Wokwi or use it offline. The ArduinoSimulator is fully open-source and runs entirely from a web browser. It’s not quite as complex and full-featured as Wokwi, as you can’t build your own circuits, but you still have an area to […]

January 16, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Debian 12 and Linux upstreaming for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite SoC

When Qualcomm launched the powerful 4.2 GHz Snapdragon X Elite 12-core Arm SoC for “mobile PCs” (better known as laptops), I was surprised they showed benchmarks for both Windows and Linux as in the past, the company focused on Windows only for this type of processor. But at the time we were only shown Geekbench 6.2 results in Linux, so it was not clear what was supported at the time. But a recent post by Abel Vesa, Linaro engineer, explains a fully working Debian 12 image with GPU rendering and WiFi connectivity was ready right before launch and work is now being done to upstream the code to Linux mainline. In this post, he shares the Linux upstreaming plan and provides instructions to install Debian 12 on an official Snapdragon X Elite reference design. Upstreaming will be done in two parts, starting with support for the following: Qualcomm Oryon CPUs Clocks, […]

January 16, 2024January 16, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

AAEON UP Xtreme 7100 robotics SBC and mini PC is offered with Core i3-N305 or Processor N97 CPU

AAEON UP Xtreme 7100 SBC and Mini PC powered by an Intel Core i3-N305 or Processor N97 Alder Lake-N CPU and designed as an “all-in-one robotics solution” providing the sensor data processing, graphics, and other resources required for path planning and control algorithms used in AGVs (automated guided vehicles) and AMRs (autonomous mobile robots). The UP Xtreme 7100 single board computer and UP Xtreme 7100 Edge mini PC are both offered in compact form factors suitable for robots and feature terminal blocks for serial communication (RS-232/422/485 port and CAN bus) and a 30-pin Phoenix connector with 24V digital I/O and GPIOs. Other features useful for industrial use include 9V to 36V DC input, vibration/shock resistance, and lockable I/O ports. UP Xtreme 7100 specifications: Alder Lake N-series SoC (one or the other) Intel Processor N97 quad-core processor up to 3.6 GHz with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD Graphics Gen 12 @ […]

January 15, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Betavolt BV100 3V nuclear battery aims to deliver 100 microwatts for over 50 years

Btavolt BV100 is a nuclear battery that never needs to be charged and designed to output 3V/100µW (microwatts) for over 50 years for the aerospace industry, AI equipment, medical devices, MEMS systems, advanced sensors, small drones, and micro-robots. At 15x15x5mm, the 50-year nuclear battery is fairly small although 100 microwatts is not a lot of power… That’s only the first step, however, as the Chinese company plans to launch a 1W nuclear battery, and says that if (government) policies allow, nuclear batteries should eventually enable smartphones that never need to be charged and forever fly drones… How does that all work? First, as Betavolt states in its press release (in Chinese), it’s not exactly new technical as in the 1960’s, the US and the USSR used betavoltaic batteries for the space programs. But those were relatively large and heavy, operated at high temperatures, and were expensive. Wikipedia mentions that one […]

January 15, 2024January 15, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

GL.iNet Flint 2 router review – Part 2: WiFi 6, 2.5GbE, WireGuard performance

In the first part of the review of the GL.iNet GL-MT6000 “Flint 2” WiFi 6 router, I had a look at the package content and the hardware design with a teardown of the router, and quickly tried it out. I’ve now had more time to play with the router focusing the review on WiFi 6 and 2.5GbE performance, and checking whether of 900 Mbps Wireguard VPN claim had any truth to it. The router also supports the Tor network to anonymously browse the web, Adguard Home to get rid of unwanted ads, and Repeater mode among other features. Those all work with the Fliont 2 router, but I won’t cover those in detail here, and invite you to check out the GL.iNet Brume 2 security gateway review for Tor and Adguard Home and the GL.iNet Beryl AX review for the repeater mode test. Connecting wired and wireless clients The Flint […]

January 14, 2024January 14, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

How I “fixed” the display on Lichee Console 4A terminal

When I wrote a hands-on post about Lichee Console 4A RISC-V development terminal I noted the display would sometimes have strange effects or simply go black. I’ve now fixed the issue, and I was just probably unlucky since the issue must be rare, but I’ll still document it in case somebody encounters a similar problem and for fun! First, the video below shows what I would see on my terminal after using it for a few minutes. Since then, the display has gone completely dark, and all I see is the backlight, but I can still access the device through an SSH terminal. It looks like a bad connection issue, but I still contacted Sipeed and they told me it must have been the display connector. So I turned off the device and reopened the enclosure to remove and reinsert the cable for the display as shown in the photo […]

January 12, 2024March 9, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

MINIX NEO Z100-0dB fanless N100 mini PC review – Part 1: Unboxing, teardown, and first boot

MINIX Z100-0dB (or MINIX NEO Z100-0dB) is a fanless mini PC powered by the popular Intel Processor N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N CPU with up to 32GB RAM, up to 512GB M.2 SSD, various USB 3.2/2.0 ports, a microSD card slot, two HDMI 2.0 ports, and a 2.5GbE RJ45 jack, as well as WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless module. MINIX sent us a sample of the NEO Z100-0dB mini PC for review with 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM and a 512GB M.2 SSD preloaded with Windows 11 Pro. Since we’ve already listed the specifications in the announcement, today, we’ll go through an unboxing and a teardown before giving it a quick try booting Windows 11 Pro. We will then test the performance and features of the mini PC in detail with Windows 11 Pro and Ubuntu 22.04 (or 24.04) in the next parts of the review in several weeks. MINIX NEO […]