Zephyr OS Category - Page 5 of 8 - CNX Software

July 20, 2020August 8, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

PolarFire SoC Icicle 64-bit RISC-V and FPGA Development Board Runs Linux or FreeBSD (Crowdfunding)

We got some more details about PolarFire RISC-V FPGA SoC late last year, and we were promised a Linux capable 64-bit RISC-V & FPGA development board with PolarFire SoC Icicle kit in Q3 of 2020. We are already in July 2020. So where is the board? Oh, look! It’s right here on Crowd Supply where it is offered for $499, and shipping is expected to start in mid-September. PolarFire SoC Icicle specifications: SoC FPGA – PolarFire SoC MPFS250T-FCVG484EES penta–core RISC-V CPU subsystem (1xRV64IMAC, 4xRV64GC) with 254K LE non-volatile fabric, 784 18 × 18 math blocks, secure boot, 4x 12.7 Gbps SERDES, FCVG484 package (19 × 19 mm, 0.8 mm pitch) System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 x32 Storage – 1 GBit QSPI Flash, 8GB eMMC Flash or SD card slot (multiplexed) Video Output – HDMI 2.0 (removed from final board) Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth USB – 1x […]

July 7, 2020March 16, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

QuickFeather Board is Powered by QuickLogic EOS S3 Cortex-M4F MCU with embedded FPGA (Crowdfunding)

Yesterday, I wrote about what I felt what a pretty unique board: Evo M51 board following Adafruit Feather form factor, and equipped with an Atmel SAMD51 Cortex-M4F MCU and an Intel MAX 10 FPGA. But less than 24 hours later, I’ve come across another Adafruit Feather-sized Cortex-M4F board with FPGA fabric. But instead of using a two-chip solution, QuickLogic QuickFeather board leverages the company’s EOS S3 SoC with a low-power Cortex-M4F core and embedded FPGA fabric. QuickFeather board QuickFeather specifications: SoC – QuickLogic EOS S3 with Arm Cortex-M4F Microcontroller @ up to 80 MHz and 512 Kb SRAM, plus an embedded FPGA (eFPGA) with 2400 effective logic cells and 64Kb RAM Storage – 16Mbit SPI NOR flash USB – Micro USB port with data signals tied to eFPGA programmable logic Sensors – Accelerometer, pressure sensor, built-in PDM microphone Expansion I/Os – Breadboard-compatible 0.1″ (2.54 mm) pitch headers including 20 Feather-defined […]

December 11, 2019July 5, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

RISC-V based PolarFire SoC FPGA and Devkit Coming in Q3 2020

Microsemi unveiled PolarFire FPGA + RISC-V SoC about one year ago, but at the time, development was done on a $3,000 platform with SiFive U54 powered HiFive Unleashed board combined with an FPGA add-on board from Microsemi. I’ve now been informed that Microchip has announced its Linux-capable PolarFire FPGA+RISC-V SoC would start shipping in Q3 2020 at the RISC-V summit and that a development kit will be sold for a few hundred dollars. PolarFire SoC FPGA PolarFire SoC FPGA key features and specifications: Mid-Range FPGA optimized for Low Power High-speed serial connectivity with built-in multi-gigabit/multi-protocol transceivers from 250 Mbps to 12.7 Gbps Up to 461k logic elements consisting of a 4-input Look-Up Table (LUT) with a fracture-able D-type flip-flop Up to 31.6 Mb of RAM Power optimized transceivers Up to 1420 18 × 18 multiply-accumulate blocks with hardened pre-adders Integrated dual PCIe for up to ×4 Gen 2 Endpoint […]

November 17, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Nordic Semi nRF5340 Dual Arm Cortex-M33 SoC Supports Bluetooth 5.1/Mesh, NFC, Thread & Zigbee

After introducing nRF52833 WiSoC with Bluetooth 5.1 direction-finding support last month, Nordic Semiconductors has now launched another multi-protocol wireless SoC with nRF5340 featuring two Arm Cortex-M33 cores and supporting Bluetooth 5.1, Bluetooth Mesh, NFC, Thread & Zigbee. One of the Cortex-M33 is an application core incorporating 1 MB Flash and 512 KB RAM, as well as Arm CryptoCell-312, Arm TrustZone technology, and Secure Key Storage for the highest level of security, and the other Cortex-M33 core is used for networking functions. The company also announced nRF5340 PDK to get started with the new WiSoC. nRF5340 Dual-Core Multiprotocol SoC Key features and specifications: CPU Application core – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 128/64 MHz with 1 MB Flash + 512 KB RAM, 8 KB 2-way set associative cache; CoreMark: 510/255; CoreMark/mA: 65/76 Network core – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 64 MHz with 256 KB Flash + 64 KB RAM, 2 KB instruction cache; CoreMark: […]

September 27, 2019February 16, 2020 by Stephen Vicinanza - No Comments

Blip Nordic nRF52840 Dev Board Includes STM32 Black Magic Probe Programmer & Debugger (Crowdfunding)

The Latest Electronut Labs Nordic nRF52840 Based Dev Board Electronut Labs has started its Crowd Supply campaign for Blip, a Nordic nRF52840 based development board. With many onboard sensors and systems, the boards are aimed at prototyping and projects in a wide variety of BLE and 802.15.4, wireless application scenarios. It has a programmer and debugger built-in. Past Articles Electronut Labs has a series of Nordic Semiconductor SoC projects previously reported on including Papyr, a Bluetooth E-Paper Display and Bluey, a BLE Development board using the Nordic nRF52832, and CNXSoft also published an article comparing several of the Nordic SoC available in development boards for Bluetooth 5 (BLE5). The Features the Stand Out Blip has a Black magic Probe compatible programmer and debugger built-in, along with a temperature/humidity sensor, ambient light intensity sensor, and a three-axis accelerometer. The board is designed to prototype very low power devices and an ability […]

September 25, 2019September 25, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

PineTime Smartwatch Specifications Released, Availability Scheduled for H1 2020

PineTime Charging Cradle & Heart Monitor

A couple of weeks ago, we covered PineTime smartwatch for PinePhone Linux smartphone that should be launched next year for around $25. At the time we had limited information from a Tweet as well as information provided by TL Lim, founder of Pine64 community, such as the watch would be based on Nordic Semi nRF52832 or nRF52840 multi-protocol WiSoC. But we now have much more details about specs and other details can be found in the Wiki. PineTime specifications: SoC (undecided, one or the other. See differences between nRF52832 and nRF52840 for details) Nordic Semiconductor nRF52832 Arm Cortex-M4F MCU @ 64 MHz with 512KB Flash, 64KB SRAM, Bluetooth 5 (no long range) Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4F MCU with 1MB flash, 256KB flash, Bluetooth 5 (long range), 802.15.4 (e.g. for Zigbee), Arm Trustzone, etc… Storage – 8MB SPI NOR Flash (final product may use 16MB flash instead) Display – 1.3″ […]

August 28, 2019 by Ayo Ayibiowu - 3 Comments

Nordic Thingy:91 Cellular IoT Prototyping Platform Comes with 16 Sensors

Nordic Semiconductor launched the Nordic Thingy:52 back in mid-2017 in the hopes of bringing app and web developers into the hardware ecosystem as fast and easy as possible. The Nordic Thingy:52 was a Bluetooth 5 IoT sensor development kit based on the company’s nRF52832 WiSoC. Although the Nordic Thingy:52 kit is still very much available for purchase and support always available, Nordic Semiconductor has gone further launching a new development kit called the Nordic Thingy:91 targeting cellular IoT applications. The Nordic Thingy:91 is a cellular IoT prototyping platform with support for LTE-M, NB-IoT plus GPS option. Even though IoT connectivity standards like LoRaWAN, BLE, WiFi, ZigBee, and others are very much growing and expanding, Nordic Semi is fully backing cellular technology, something that has very much been available and most likely will still keep been available, and the adoption of 5G is another testimony to that. Cellular is here, and […]

August 15, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Embedded Linux Conference (ELC) Europe 2019 Schedule – October 28-30

Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2019 Schedule

I may have just written about Linaro Connect San Diego 2019 schedule, but there’s another interesting event that will also take place this fall: the Embedded Linux Conference Europe on October 28 -30, 2019 in Lyon, France. The full schedule was also published by the Linux Foundation a few days ago, so I’ll create a virtual schedule to see what interesting topics will be addressed during the 3-day event. Monday, October 28 11:30 – 12:05 – Debian and Yocto Project-Based Long-Term Maintenance Approaches for Embedded Products by Kazuhiro Hayashi, Toshiba & Jan Kiszka, Siemens AG In industrial products, 10+ years maintenance is required, including security fixes, reproducible builds, and continuous system updates. Selecting appropriate base systems and tools is necessary for efficient product development. Debian has been applied to industrial products because of its stability, long-term supports, and powerful tools for packages development. The CIP Project, which provides scalable and […]