Tomisin Olujinmi, Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 22, 2024April 22, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 2 Comments

Louder Raspberry Pi is an open-source home media center that is powered by Raspberry Pi Zero and a TI TAS5805M DAC

Louder Raspberry Pi is an open-source home media center based on a combination of the Raspberry Pi Zero W or Zero 2 W and the Texas Instruments TAS5805M DAC. It is an audio entertainment platform created by Andriy Malyshenko of Sonocotta, a Polish electronics hobbyist and maker. Louder Raspberry Pi incorporates the computing power of the Raspberry Pi Zero and the Hi-Fi audio processing capabilities of TI’s TAS5805M DAC in a compact, aluminum case. The device delivers up to 25W per channel stereo output and is powered via a 65W+ USB-C PD3.0 adapter. It is “aimed to be paired with medium-to-large speaker systems” and supports both Wi-Fi and Ethernet. The Raspberry Pi board was selected over other lightweight alternatives due to the ease of development it offers. The Raspberry Pi Zero board is small enough to make for an overall compact device and powerful enough to handle the demands of […]

April 22, 2024April 21, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 1 Comment

FOCn ESP32-S3-based, medium-power BLDC driver module supports SimpleFOC

European engineer, Matej Planinšek of PLab, has developed the FOCn — a medium-power BLDC driver module based on ESP32-S3 WiSoC capable of delivering up to 10A of continuous current. It is compatible with the SimpleFOC Arduino library making it easier to control BLDC (brushless direct current) and stepper motors with the field-oriented control algorithm. The developer was inspired to create the FOCn module when their search for a custom-made, SimpleFOC-compatible driver module that met all their requirements failed. The name is related to field-oriented control (FOC) and also means “face slap” in Slovenian, Matej’s native language. The driver module is based on the ESP32-S3 dual-core XTensa LX7 microcontroller which provides Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The microcontroller further supports ESP-NOW, a low-power and low-latency communication protocol, which makes it possible for multiple FOCn boards to talk to one another. FOCn driver module specifications: MCU – ESP32-S3 dual-core XTensa LX7 microcontroller @ […]

April 19, 2024April 19, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - No Comments

SB Components LoRaWAN gateways and nodes are made for Raspberry Pi and ESP32 boards (Crowdfunding)

UK-based hardware developer, SB Components, has designed a new LoRaWAN product series (gateways and nodes) for the Raspberry Pi SBCs, Raspberry Pi Pico, ESP32, and other hardware, based on RAKWireless RAK5146 and RAK3172 modules. The products are available in up to five variants (plus two relay boards) and are built to cater to hobbyists with different needs. They support several LoRaWAN server platforms including The Things Stack, Chirpstack, and Helium, with adaptive spreading factors, coding rates, and bandwidth configurations. The LoRaWAN products include: Gateways – RAK5146 LoRaWAN Gateway HAT and RAK3172 LoRaWAN Gateway HAT for the Raspberry Pi SBCs Nodes – RAK3172 LoRaWAN Module (Powered by Raspberry Pi Pico), Raspberry Pi RP2040 USB Dongle, RAK3172 LoRaWAN Module (powered by ESP32), LoRaWAN Breakout, GatePi LoRaWAN 4-Ch Relay, GatePi LoRaWAN 8-Ch Relay LoRaWAN (long-range wide access network) uses the LoRa modulation technique to transmit data over large distances. In a LoRAWAN network, […]

April 17, 2024April 17, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - No Comments

congatec conga-SA8 Amston Lake SMARC modules are targeted at industrial edge applications

Congatec’s new conga-SA8 SMARC modules are powered by the Intel Atom x7000RE “Amston Lake” processors. With twice the processing cores and similar power consumption to the previous generation, congatec’s new credit-card-sized modules are “intended for future-facing industrial edge computing and powerful virtualization.” An Intel Core i3‑N305 Alder Lake-N processor is also offered as an alternative to the Intel Atom x7000RE series for high-performance IoT edge applications. The conga-SA8 modules support up to 16GB LPDDR5 onboard memory, 256GB eMMC 5.1 onboard flash memory, and offer several high-bandwidth interfaces such as USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe Gen 3, and SATA Gen 3. The integrated Intel UHD Gen 12 graphics processing unit has up to 32 execution units and can power three independent 4K displays. The conga-SA8 is described as virtualization-ready and has a hypervisor (virtual machine monitor) integrated into the firmware. The RTS hypervisor takes complete advantage of the eight processing cores […]

April 15, 2024April 14, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 1 Comment

GigaDevice announces GD32F5 Cortex-M33 microcontroller targeted at high-performance applications

GigaDevice GD32F5 Cortex-M33 microcontroller

GigaDevice has officially launched the GD32F5 microcontroller series based on the Arm Cortex-M33 core. The Arm Cortex-M33 core has a maximum operating frequency of 200MHz and a working performance of up to 3.31 CoreMark/MHz. It also comes with a digital signal processing extension and a single-precision floating-point unit to reduce the load on the core. The GD32F5 microcontrollers are designed for high-performance applications and come equipped with up to 7.5MB on-chip flash, 1MB static RAM (SRAM), and diverse connectivity peripherals. The on-chip flash includes a zero-wait execution area (code flash) to improve code processing efficiency and real-time performance, and sizable data flash space for storing backups and parameters. The products support seamless OTA updates with a maximum of 2MB for Read-While-Write (RWW) operations. According to GigaDevice, the GD32F5 series is expected to find applications in “energy and power management, photovoltaic energy storage, industrial automation, programmable logic controllers (PLC), network communication […]

April 12, 2024April 12, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 1 Comment

SolidRun Bedrock R8000 is the first Industrial PC to feature AMD Ryzen Embedded 8000 series

Bedrock 8000 AMD Ryzen Embedded 8000 industrial PC

Israeli embedded systems manufacturer, SolidRun, has recently introduced the Bedrock R8000, a new fanless, Industrial PC targeted at edge AI applications. The Bedrock R8000 integrates the newly-announced AMD Ryzen Embedded 8000 series processors with 8 Zen 4 cores and 16 threads clocked at up to 5.1 GHz. The Ryzen Embedded 8000 Series has a 16 TOPS NPU for AI workloads and offers up to 10 years of guaranteed availability. Also, up to 3 AI accelerators (either Hailo-10 or Hailo 8) can be combined with the onboard NPU to achieve over 100 TOPS for generative or inferencing AI workloads. Apart from the Ryzen Embedded 8000 series, the Bedrock R8000 series also supports other Accelerated Processing Units (APU) in the “Hawk Point” family. The CPU power limit can be adjusted in the BIOS within a range of 8W to 54W. Memory goes up to 96GB DDR5 ECC/non-ECC and three NVME PCIe Gen4 […]

April 11, 2024April 11, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 2 Comments

Renesas RA0 Cortex-M23 MCU series target power and cost-sensitive applications

Renesas has announced the new low-power RA0 microcontroller series based on the power-efficient Arm Cortex-M23 core and the entry-level RA0E1 Group in the series. According to Renesas, the RA0 microcontrollers offer the “industry’s lowest overall power consumption for general-purpose 32-bit MCUs.” With a current consumption of 84.3 μA/MHz in active mode and only 0.82 mA in sleep mode, these microcontrollers are built to provide ultra-low power consumption. They also offer a Software Standby mode where the CPU, peripheral functions, and internal oscillators cease to operate. This mode reduces power consumption further by 99% down to 0.20 µA. They also come with a high-precision, High-speed On-Chip Oscillator (HOCO) for fast wake-up. The Cortex-M23 core is based on the Armv8-M instruction set and offers a maximum clock frequency of 32 MHz, with up to 64KB of code flash memory and 12KB SRAM for storing application code and data. This feature set makes […]

April 10, 2024April 10, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - No Comments

Imagination launches the APXM-6200 RISC-V “Catapult” CPU for cost-sensitive consumer and industrial applications

Imagination has expanded its Catapult product portfolio to include a new RISC-V core, the Imagination APXM-6200 CPU. The APXM-6200 is a 64-bit, in-order application processor with an 11-stage, dual-issue pipeline. There isn’t much information on the new Imagination RISC-V core on the product page but we know it offers “best-in-class” performance density, a minimal silicon footprint, and industry-standard security features. The CPU is targeted at intelligent consumer and industrial applications and delivers a 2.5x improvement in performance density and a 65% improvement in normalized performance over comparable Arm Cortex-A53 and other cores on the market. It’s also faster than the Cortex-A510 Armv9 core in SpecINT2k6. Imagination claims that combining the APXM-6200 CPU with their GPUs will ensure a 2x increase in bus utilization and a 2x reduction in memory traffic. It also comes with RISC-V vector extensions, and AI compute libraries and supports fast data coupling with AI accelerators for […]