Vecow unveils Intel Atom x6211E based fanless Box PC & Pico-ITX motherboard

Compact Fanless Embedded Box PC

Vecow EPBC-1000 2.5-inch/Pico-ITX single board computer powered by an Intel Atom x6211E Elkhart Lake processor, and found in the company’s PBC-1000 ultra-compact fanless embedded box PC, is designed for edge applications such as intelligent control, energy management, M2M, In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI), factory automation, and any AIoT or Industry 4.0 applications. Vecow EPBC-1000 Pico-ITX board and PBC-1000 embedded mini PC specifications: SoC – Intel Atom x6211E dual-core EIkhart Lake processor @ 1.20 GHz / 3.0 GHz (Turbo), with 16 EU Intel UHD graphics @ 350 MHz / 750 MHz, 1.5MB cache; 6W TDP System Memory – 1x DDR4 3200MHz SO-DIMM up to 32GB RAM Storage – 1x SATA III (6Gbps) port Video Output – 1x DisplayPort up to 4096 x 2160 @ 60Hz Audio 1x Mic-in, 1x Line-out Realtek ALC888S-VD, 7.1 Channel HD audio codec Networking 2x Gigabit Ethernet port via Realtek RTL8119I Ethernet Controllers Optional WiFi/Bluetooth or 4G LTE via […]

UP Connect Plus adds 5G support, 3 GbE ports to UP Core Plus, UP Xtreme SBCs

5G, triple Ethernet for UP Board

AAEON UP Connect Plus is a carrier board with three Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports, and an M.2 slot plus a micro SIM card socket adding support for 5G cellular connectivity to the company’s Appolo Lake-based UP Core Plus and Whiskey Lake-powered UP Xtreme single board computers. UP Connect Plus specifications: Connectivity 3 Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports in two configurations: 3x Intel Ethernet Controller I211-AT 3x Intel Ethernet Controller I210-IT with wide temperature and TSN (Time-sensitive Networking) 5G cellular – M.2 3042/3052 colay socket with micro-SIM card port to support 4G/5G modules USB – 1x USB 3.0 Type-A port for UP Core Plus only PCIe – 1x 2 channel PCIe switch SBC connectors – 2x 100-pin high-speed docking connectors Power Supply – 12V/5V from the main board Power Consumption – Approximately 36 to 40 Watts with UP Core Plus + UP Connect Plus Dimensions – 90 mm x 56 mm Temperature […]

ASRock Industrial announces Intel Elkhart Lake mini PCs and motherboards

Intel Atom x6000E Series, Celeron, and Pentium Elkhart Lake processors for IoT Edge applications were launched in September 2020, with many companies shortly introducing modules, single board computers, motherboards, and industrial, rugged mini PCs after the official announcement. ASRock Industrial took more time to announce their Elkhart Lake offerings, with three families of hardware platforms with NUC 6000 BOX Series and IBOX 6000 Series mini PCs, as well as NUC 6000 Motherboard series. We’ll have a look at the three families in detail below, mostly using information from products based on Celeron J6412, one of the more recent Elkhart Lake processors that was launched in Q1 2021. ASRock NUC 6000 Motherboard Series Specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Celeron J6412 quad-core processor @ 2.0/2.6 GHz (Turbo) with 1.5MB cache, 16 EU Intel UHD Graphics; 10W TDP Intel Celeron N6210 dual-core processor @ 1.2/2.6 GHz (Turbo) with 1.5MB cache, 16 […]

Arm/Intel Windows systems-on-module come with modular eMMC or/and RAM modules

am335x system-on-module replaceable emmc & ram

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about a Windows CE (WinCE) compatible module,  but apparently, those are still being developed with China-based UNERON offering eSOM335x Windows CE system-on-module based on Texas Instruments AM335x Arm Cortex-A8 processor, and eSOM3735z Windows 10 module equipped with an Intel Atom Z3735G processor. What’s even more intriguing is that the company relies on replaceable & upgradable eMMC flash and RAM modules for the Arm SoM, and while the 1GB RAM is soldered on the Intel module, it’s still possible to upgrade the eMMC flash that way. We’ve seen eMMC modules on several single board computers in the past including ODROID-C4  or Renegade SBC, but I think it’s the first time I see this option on a system-on-module. UNERON eSOM335x AM335x system-on-module Specifications: SoC – Texas Instrumentx Sitara AM3358BZCZA100 Arm Cortex-A8 up to 1GHz with PowerVR SGX530 3D GPU (optional AM3359, AM3354, or AM3352) […]

Crowdfunded “Mi Mini PC” Windows 10 Mobile PC remains undelivered after 3 years

Mi-Mini-PC-Fail

Crowdfunding can be fun, but also risky for backers, especially when backing projects from startups. There are many such examples of projects gone bad, and last year we noted TAIHE Gemini portable display was another crowdfunding campaign gone wrong despite raising over one million dollars. Today, I’d like to reiterate this warning with “Mi Mini PC“, a pocket-size Windows 10 Mobile PC that was introduced on Indiegogo and raised a cool 1.5 million dollars. Note that the “Mi” here is completely unrelated to Xiaomi, and the product was developed by a company with the now-unreachable  mipcworld.com website. There were early red flags shorting after the launch of the campaign with the developer making unrealistic claims about a free upgrade from Atom x7 to Core M3-7Y30, and no pictures of an actual prototype. But somebody just left a comment on the CNX Software article that there was still nothing. So I […]

The 5 best Intel & AMD single board computers for makers

Best Intel AMD single board computers for makers

A few weeks ago, we wrote a list of what we consider to be the top 5 most powerful Arm SBC’s and development kits, and this time around we’ll cover x86 SBC’s powered by Intel or AMD processors. But this time around, instead of focusing on the most powerful x86 single board computers which would lead to unaffordable, industrial Xeon SBC’s, we’ll be looking into the 5 best boards designed for makers. That means affordable pricing, I/O headers, and community support. The list is in no particular order. Rock Pi X – x86 on the cheap If you ever wanted the cheapest possible x86 board, Atomic Pi SBC $35 price tag was hard to beat, but it was only cheap because it was sourced from a failed robotics project, and not very convenient to use. But now in 2021, the cheapest x86 SBC that can run Windows is clearly Rock […]

UP Squared Pro SBC gets more I/Os, 3x M.2 sockets, TPM 2.0 security chip

UP Squared Pro SBC

UP Squared Apollo Lake SBC was launched in 2016 via a crowdfunding campaign with a price starting at just 89 Euros for the model with 2GB RAM 16GB storage, and a dual-core Intel Celeron N3350 processor. AAEON has now announced an update simply called UP Squared Pro with many of the same features, but greater expandability and I/O features, for example, to add 5G modules and AI accelerators through one of the three M.2 sockets, as well as improved security via a TPM 2.0 chip. UP Squared Pro (UPN-APL01) specifications with highlights in bold or strikethrough in comparison to the UP Squared specifications (in 2016): SoC (one or the other) Intel Celeron N3350 dual-core “Apollo Lake” processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.4 GHz with 12 EU Intel HD graphics 500 @ 200 MHz / 650 MHz (6W TDP) Intel Pentium N4200 quad-core “Apollo Lake” processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.5 […]

This mini-computer is set to outperform NVIDIA Xavier by eight times

Fast Sense X Robotics AI Platform

When it comes to high-end AI-edge computer boards, we have seen Hackboard 2 with support for Windows 10 operating system and optional 4G or 5G cellular connectivity. Fast Sense Studios is a Russian-based startup designing powerful on-board computers to bring edge AI capabilities to mobile robotics. At Embedded World 2021, the company has unveiled the Fast Sense X Robotics AI Platform that integrates the power of six computers into a single module. The company claims the newly launched edge AI computer outperforms the NVIDIA Xavier with over 8x higher performance in mobile robots thanks to the advanced DNN inference hardware. Apart from the Intel UHD GPU, the computer also integrates up to 3 Coral Edge TPU devices and up to 2 Myriad X devices allowing it to give optimum results even when on heavy workloads. “We believe in the future where reliable physical agents become relevant for routine tasks that […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design