NVIDIA Tegra X1 octa-core Arm processor with a 256-core Maxwell GPU was introduced in 2015. The processor powers the popular NVIDIA Shield Android TV box, and is found in Jetson TX1 development board which still costs $500 and is approaching end-of-life. The company has now introduced a much cheaper board with Jetson Nano Developer Kit offered for just $99. It’s not exactly powered by Tegra X1 however, but instead what appears to be a cost-down version of the processor with four Arm Cortex-A57 cores clocked at 1.43 GHz and a 128-core Maxwell GPU. Jetson Nano developer kit specifications: Jetson Nano CPU Module 128-core Maxwell GPU Quad-core Arm A57 processor @ 1.43 GHz System Memory – 4GB 64-bit LPDDR4 @ 25.6 GB/s Storage – microSD card slot (devkit) or 16GB eMMC flash (production) Video Encode – 4K @ 30 | 4x 1080p @ 30 | 9x 720p @ 30 (H.264/H.265) Video […]
Getting Started with Temperature & Humidity Sensors on ESP8266 using ANAVI Thermometer
ANAVI Thermometer was launched on CrowdSupply in January. It is an ESP8266 WiFi board with a built-in DHT22 temperature and humidity sensor, support for external DS18B20 waterproof temperature sensor, as well as other sensors thanks to three I2C sensors. I received the ANAVI Thermometer starter kit last month, and I’ve only found time to play with it in the last few days. I’ll start with a unboxing, assembly guide, before showing it action, and I’ll try to make it interface with Home Assistant over MQTT. ANAVI Thermometer Starter Kit Unboxing The kit comes with ANAVI Thermometer board, a plastic stand, a USB to TTL debug board, an I2C OLED display, a few nuts and bolts, and a couple of KiCad and ANAVI stickers. Leon ANAVI also added a traffic light board and LEDs, but it’s not normally part of the kit 🙂 ANAVI Thermometer board include an ESP8266 module, AM2302 […]
Vnopn K1 Fanless AMD Mini PC Sells for $134 and Up
There are plenty of sub-$200 Intel powered fanless mini PCs, but if you’re looking for AMD models it’s more of a struggle. Vnopn K1 is one of the rare low cost fanless AMD mini PCs, and the good news is that it’s sold for just $133.68 on Aliexpress plus a few extra dollars for shipping. There are few tricks to achieve this low price. First that’s a barebone model, and if you want memory, storage, and WiFi, the cost climbs to $168.67 with 2GB RAM, and a 32GB SSD. The 8W AMD A6-1450 quad core processor APU found in the mini PC is rather old as well since it was launched in 2013, or almost 6 years ago. Vnopn K1 specifications: APU – AMD A6-1450 quad core “Jaguar” processor @ 1.0 / 1.4 GHz (Turbo) with 2MB L2 cache, Radeon HD 8250 GPU; 8W TDP System Memory -2GB, 4GB, or […]
Cypress PSoC 64 Microcontrollers Target Secure IoT Applications
If you are like me, you probably don’t remember, but back in 2017 Arm announced the Platform Security Architecture (PSA) that defines a set of requirements to secure low cost Internet of Things devices. There’s now at least one PSA compliant microcontroller, as Cypress Semiconductor introduced their PSoC 64 Secure MCU at Embedded World 2019 last month. The press release claims that PSoC 64 MCU family is one of “the first Arm Cortex-M processors to be certified as Level 1 compliant within the Arm Platform Security Architecture (PSA) certification scheme, PSA Certified, utilizing a secure Trusted Firmware-M (TF-M) implementation integrated into the Arm Mbed OS open-source embedded operating system”. PSoC 64 secure MCU key features and specifications: Arm Cortex-M4F core with 22‑µA/MHz active power consumption Optional Arm Cortex-M0+ core with 15‑µA/MHz power consumption System Memory – 160KB to 1MB SRAM Storage – 512KB to 2MB flash Security HW Cryptography – […]
Seco SBC-C43 SBC Features NXP i.MX 8 QuadMax Processor, 8GB RAM
When NXP unveiled their first 64-bit i.MX processors in 2016, we had three families: i.MX 8 Cortex-A72/A53 for high performance, i.MX 8M Cortex-A53 for audio/video application, and i.MX 8X Cortex-A53 for low power applications. Most of the designs we’ve seen so far are based on i.MX 8M family, and we’ve seen few hardware platforms based on the top of the line i.MX 8 QuadMax SoC with two Arm Cortex-A72 cores, four Cortex-A53 cores, two Cortex-M4F real-time cores, and two GC7000XS/VX GPUs. We did cover several modules based on i.MX 8 QuadMax processor including Advantech ROM-7720 Qseven 2.1 Computer-on-Module, Toradex Apalis i.MX 8 CoM, and Congatec conga-SMX8 SMARC 2.0 SoM among others, but AFAICR I had yet to see an i.MX 8 QuadMax single board computer. So Seco SBC-C43 appears to be the first SBC powered by NXP’s most powerful i.MX 8 processor, coupled with up to 8GB DDR4, 32GB eMMC […]
Samsung ARTIK Product Line Discontinued
Everyday I read hundreds of articles trying to find something interesting to write on CNX Software blog, and one way I keep track of news is to subscribe to RSS feeds using Thunderbird. From time to time, feeds get broken due to updates making them fail RSS validation, and today I noticed Samsung ARTIK feed had stopped working, so I went to the website, and… Wait… What closure of ARTIK business? It turns out Samsung Electronics decided to shutdown their ARTIK product line in December 2018 as reported by Business Korea: Samsung Electronics will pull the plug on its ARTIK project in four years after starting to develop the internet of things (IoT) platform. … IT industry experts say that Samsung decided to halt the ARTIK project because of its poor results. Samsung wanted to build an IoT ecosystem and lead the IoT market through the ARTIK project but it […]
GRiSP 2 Board Targets Embedded Erlang & Elixir Development (Crowdfunding)
Erlang is described as a programming language used to build massively scalable soft real-time systems with requirements on high availability, and used in telecoms, banking, e-commerce, computer telephony and instant messaging. Elixir is a dynamic, functional language designed for building scalable and maintainable applications that leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems. Elixir is used in many types of applications from higher-level web development to the embedded software domain, and Peer Stritzinger designed GRiSP board especially for the latter in 2017. He’s now back with GRiSP 2 featuring an NXP i.MX 6ULL SoM running Linux and RTEMS (Real-Time Executive for Multiprocessor Systems) RTOS. GRiSP 2 board is comprised of a system-on-module and baseboard with the following specifications: System on Module SoC – NXP iMX6UL Arm Cortex-A7 @ 696 MHz, 128 KB L2 cache, with TRNG, Crypto Engine (AES/TDES/SHA), Secure Boot Memory – 128 MB DDR3 […]
KODLIX GN41 Gemini Lake Ubuntu Mini PC Sells for $215
Most Intel mini PC ships with Windows 10, so when we see models shipping with a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu we like to point those out. Recently we covered MINIX NEO-Z83-4U Ubuntu 18.04 mini PC that comes in a well designed and passively cooled enclosure, but also a relatively underpowered Intel Atom x5 processor, and geared towards business use cases such as digital signage player or thin client. KODLIX GN41 is another Ubuntu mini PC that would make a decent entry-level desktop thanks to an Intel Celeron N4100 Gemini Lake processor, 8GB RAM, and 64GB eMMC flash that can be complemented with your own 2.5″ hard drive or SSD. KODLIX GN41 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N4100 quad core processor @ 1.10/2.40 GHz with Intel UHD Graphics 600; 6W TDP; 4.8W SDP System Memory – 8GB DDR4L RAM Storage – 64 GB eMMC flash flash; 2.5″ SATA slot for […]