NiteFury Puts Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA into an M.2 Card (Crowdfunding)

NiteFury FPGA M.2 Card

NiteFury is an FPGA development board, but it works differently than most, as RHS Research LLC put a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA into an M.2 Key M card that you can easily insert into a laptop or mini PC with a 80mm M.2 socket. The board also includes DDR3 memory, and exposes a few configurable I/Os. You can use NiteFury to experiment with Xilinx PCIe IP, but also as FPGA co-processor for example to handle encryption, and encoding/decoding data. NiteFury card specifications: FPGA – Xilinx Artix XC7A200T-2FBG484E delivering up to ~1000 GMAC/s, with 215,360 Logic cells, 33,650 Slices, 269,200 CLB flip-flops, and 740 DSP slices. System Memory – 8 Gbit DDR3 (512 MB x 16) Host Interface – PCIe 4x gen 2 (2 Gb/s) External I/Os Via I/O connectors – 12x I/O including 4x selectable analog or digital – JTAG ready Via PCIe connector – 1x 3.3 V digital I/O (LED), […]

ZED Depth and Motion Tracking Camera Supports NVIDIA Jetson Nano Board

ZED depth camera Jetson Nano

When NVIDIA launched their low cost Jetson Nano development board earlier this week, one reader asked whether it would support binocular depth mapping. It turns out Stereo Labs has updated the SDK (Software Development Kit) for the ZED depth and motion tracking camera in order to support the latest NVIDIA developer kit. Jetson Nano can manage depth and positional tracking at 30 fps in PERFORMANCE mode with 720p resolution, and while the more powerful and expensive Jetson TX2 achieves doubles the performance at 60 fps, it does so at a much higher cost. ZED depth and motion tracking camera specifications: Video 2.2K @ 15 fps (4416×1242 resolution) 1080p @ 30 fps (3840×1080 resolution) 720p @ 60 fps (2560×720 resolution) WVGA @ 100 fps (1344×376 resolution) Depth Resolution – Same as selected video resolution Range – 0.5 to 20 m Format – 32-bits Stereo Baseline – 120 mm Motion 6-axis Pose […]

Alfawise W10 is a $300 Resin (SLA) 3D Printer

Alfawise W10 resin 3d printer

Most 3D printers on the market work with filaments using fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology, but in the past we’ve also seen 3D printers using resin and stereolithography apparatus (SLA) technology. The latter is supposed to enable more detailed, yet faster prints, but storing and keeping the liquid resin is a bit more challenging than simply handling filament. In the past I had come across two resin 3D printers in the news, namely the infamous Peachy printer, and the $99 ONO 3D printer working with a smartphone, which was introduced in 2016, but the company is still working on the printer, and most backers have not received their rewards. But today, I’ve come across another resin 3D printer with Alfawise W10 that’s available  for $299.99 plus a few dollars for shipping. Alfawise W10 key features & specifications: Display – 2.5″ full color LCD display Storage – microSD card slot Build […]

LoDev S76S Board Combines STM32, LoRa and Arm Mbed Support (Crowdfunding)

LoDev S76S

There are already plenty of low power boards with a LoRa radio, but Ronoth offers another option with their tiny LoDev S76S LoRa development board featuring AcSip S76S SiP (system-in-package) with STMicro STM32L073 microcontroller, a Semtech SX1276 LoRa radio, and other components. While most hobbyist LoRa boards are designed to be programmed with the Arduino IDE, LoDev S76S is instead compatible with Arm Mbed. LoDev S76S board specifications: SiP – AcSip S76S system-in-package with STMicro STM32L073 Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 48 MHz with 192 kB flash, 20 kB RAM Semtech SX1276 chip supporting global 863MHz ~ 928MHz ISM Bands RF front-end LoRa Connectivity Receiver Sensitivity – down to -146 dBm TX Power – adjustable up to +20 dBm Range – up to 15 km coverage in suburban areas and up to 5 km coverage in urban areas SMA antenna connector USB – 1x micro USB port for programming and power […]

RAK Wireless Launches RAK7258 Indoor LoRa Gateway for $149

RAK7258 Indoor Gateway

RAK Wireless has just launched a new indoor LoRa gateway with their RAK7258 model featuring Semtech SX1301 8-channel digital baseband chip. The OpenWrt gateway supports Ethernet with PoE, 2.4GHz WiFi, optional NB-IoT, LTE Cat M, LTE 4G module, and is fully compatible with LoRaWAN 1.0.2. The gateway supports all main LoRa regions including EU433, CN470, EU868, US915, and AS923. RAK7258 gateway specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7628 MIPS 24KEc processor @ 580 MHz System Memory – 128MB DDR2 RAM Storage – eMMC flash, microSD card slot Connectivity 10/100 Ethernet with PoE 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 4 with internal antenna LoRa via RAK833 mini PCIe card + RP-SMA antenna Cellular – Extended NB-IoT, Cat M, LTE 4G, supported by default; nano SIM card slot USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port Console – RJ45 RS-232 port Misc – 6x status LED Power Supply – 12V/2A (default) or 42-57V DC PoE Dimensions – 180 […]

MT3620 Mini Dev Board is a Cheaper Microsoft Azure Sphere Board

MT3620 Mini Dev Board

Announced nearly one year ago, Microsoft Azure Sphere is an ecosystem comprised of Azure MCUs with Microsoft Pluton Security System, Linux based Azure Sphere OS, and a secure cloud service called Azure Sphere Security Service. The first official Azure development board – MT3620 Development Board for Azure Sphere – was launched last year for $84.95. The kit may not have attracted a large number of developers, so there’s now a cheaper version – MT3620 Mini Dev board – going for $34.90 on Seeed Studio. Note that’s a pre-order and shipping is scheduled for May 13, 2019. MT3620 Mini dev board specifications: CPU Module – AI-Link WF-M620-RSA1 module with Mediatek MT3620AN single core Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ 500 MHz with 4MB SRAM, dual core Arm Cortex-M4F real-time core @ 200 MHz with 64KB RAM, Pluton security sub-system, and WiFi. Storage – 2x 8MB dual channel quad SPI (TBC) Connectivity –  Dual band […]

HiFive1 Rev B Board Gets FE310-G002 RISC-V Processor, WiFi & Bluetooth Module

HiFive1 Rev B

SiFive launched what may have been the very first RISC-V development board in 2016 thanks to their HiFive1 Arduino compatible board powered by Freedom E310 (FE310) open source RISC-V processor. The company has now launched an upgrade version of the processor and board. Meet FE310-G002 processor and HiFive1 Rev B development board. HiFive1 Rev B development board specifications with new features highlighted in bold or stricken-through: MCU – SiFive Freedom E310-G0002 32-bit RV32IMAC processor @ up to 320+ MHz (1.61 DMIPS/MHz) Storage – 32 Mbit SPI flash (was 128 Mbit in the first version) Connectivity – ESP32-SOLO-1 WiFi & Bluetooth module I/Os 19x Digital I/O Pins 19x external interrupt pins 1x external wakeup pin 9x PWM pins 1/3 SPI Controllers/HW CS Pins I/O Voltages –  3.3V or 5V supported; note: bidirectional level shifters removed so FE310-G002 can drive the I/O pins directly at 3.3V only. USB – 1x micro USB […]

UP Xtreme Board to Feature Intel Whiskey Lake Processor

UP Extreme SBC

AAEON launched their UP board family back in 2015 with the original board featuring an Atom X5 Cherry Trail processor. Since then they’ve launched other models all based on processors with 10W or lower TDP (Thermal Design Power) such as UP Squared Apollo Lake development board. But the company has now upped the ante by going with Intel Core-U series Whiskey Lake processors (15W TDP) in their upcoming UP Xtreme single board computer (SBC) that will feature some of those Core i3/i5/i7 processors. UP Xtreme specifications: SoC- Intel Dual/Quad Core “Whiskey Lake” Core i3/i5/i7 processor @ 1.8 GHz (Boost frequnecy up to 3.9GHz for i3/i5, up to 4.6 GHz for i7) with Intel UHD graphics 620; 15W TDP System Memory – Up to 16GB dual-channel DDR4 memory (soldered on-board) Storage – 16GB to 128GB eMMC 5.1 flash, 1x SATA connector with power connector Video Output 1x eDP with backlight control […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC