Luckfox Pico Mini is a tiny (28 x 21 mm) board based on the Rockchip RV1103 Cortex-A7 camera SoC with a built-in 0.5 TOPS NPU, 64MB on-chip DDR2 RAM, USB-C port for power and data, two rows of headers with up to seventeen GPIOs, and five castellated holes for Ethernet. Two versions are offered: the Pico Mini A with a microSD card slot or the Pico Mini B with an extra 128MB SPI NAND flash. Both boards are a shorter version of the Luckfox Pico with similar features but additional GPIOs and the Luckfox Pico Plus model also adds an RJ45 Ethernet port. Luckfox Pico Mini A and B specifications: SoC – Rockchip RV1103 SoC CPU – Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.2GHz + RISC-V core Memory – 64MB DDR2 NPU – 0.5 TOPS NPU with support for INT4, INT8, and INT16 ISP – 4M @ 30 fps ISP Storage MicroSD […]
Mixtile Edge 2 Kit review with Home Assistant, 2-in-1 Zigbee & Z-Wave mPCIe module
We received the Edge 2 Kit IoT gateway on the Rockchip RK3568-powered Edge2 single board computer (SBC) and a 2-in-1 Zigbee and Z-Wave mPCIe card from Mixtile which we will be reviewing from the perspective of smart home applications using Home Assistant open-source home automation framework. Let’s dive into the details. Unboxing Mixtile Edge 2 Kit CNX Software previously reported on the Mixtile Edge 2 Kit in 2022 and you can check the detailed specifications and block diagram in that earlier article. Since then, Mixtile has found a wider range of applications for the device and is also promoting it as an Edge AI Box that performs AI object detection using the Edge 2 Kit (or the more powerful Mixtile Blade 3) using the built-in NPU (Neural Processing Unit) with up to 1 TOPS of AI performance for tasks such as object detection. Let’s unbox it and take a closer […]
SparkFun Pro Micro – RP2350 development board comes with 16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM
The SparkFun Pro Micro – RP2350 is a compact and powerful development board built around the RP2350 chip from Raspberry Pi and equipped with 16MB flash and 8MB PSRAM. It follows the updated Pro Micro design and includes a USB-C connector, Qwiic connector, WS2812B RGB LED, Boot and Reset buttons, resettable PTC fuse, and both PTH and castellated solder pads. Last week, besides the Raspberry Pi Pico 2, we wrote about more boards with the Raspberry Pi RP2350, like the XIAO RP2350, Solder Party’s RP2350 Stamp, and Cytron MOTION 2350 Pro. Feel free to check them out if you are interested in these boards. SparkFun Pro Micro – RP2350 specification Microcontroller – Raspberry Pi RP2350A MCU CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @150MHz with Arm Trustzone for secure boot Dual-core 32-bit Hazard3 RISC-V @ 150MHz Up to two cores can be used at the same time Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM […]
XIAO RP2350 is a tiny USB-C board based on Raspberry Pi RP2350 MCU
The XIAO RP2350 is an upgrade to Seeed Studio’s XIAO RP2040 board with a more powerful Raspberry Pi RP2350 dual-core Cortex-M33 or dual-core RISC-V microcontroller found in the just-launched Raspberry Pi Pico 2 board. The new Raspberry Pi RP2350 USB-C board has the same form factor but adds eight more GPIOs on the bottom with pads for a total of 19 GPIOs, and we lose two LEDs for serial port connectivity. Most people will still be fine with the XIAO RP2040, but if you need a more powerful microcontroller, extra memory, a few extra GPIOs, and built-in security, then the XIAO RP2350 will be an improvement. XIAO RP2350 specifications: Microcontroller – Raspberry Pi RP2350 MCU CPU – Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 processor @ 150MHz (Note: again RISC-V is not mentioned at all by Seeed Studio, like for the Cytron MOTION 2350 Pro board) Memory – 520KB internal RAM 8KB OTP Storage […]
$5 Raspberry Pi Pico 2 launched with Raspberry Pi RP2350 dual-core RISC-V or Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller
The Raspberry Pi Pico 2 is an MCU development board based on the new Raspberry Pi RP2350 dual-core RISC-V or dual-core Cortex-M33 microcontroller with 520 KB on-chip SRAM, a 4MB flash, a micro USB port for power and programming and the same GPIO headers as the Raspberry Pi Pico board with an RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller with 264KB SRAM. The RP2350 embeds both an open-source Hazard3 RISC-V dual-core CPU and a dual-core Cortex-M33, but only one cluster can be used at a given time. Apart from the faster MCU cores and higher SRAM capacity, the RP2350 is about the same as the RP2040, albeit it also adds one extra PIO block bringing the total to three. One important new feature is built-in security when using Arm Cortex-M33 cores with Trustzone and other security features. Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller Let’s have a closer look at the RP2350 microcontroller, before checking out […]
STMicro EVLDRIVE101-HPD 1.9-inch motor driver board can drive 750W BLDC motors
STMicroelectronics has recently revealed the reference design for “EVLDRIVE101-HPD” their homegrown BLDC motor driver board that can drive up to a 750W BLDC motor. This compact 50 mm (1.9-inch) circular PCB combines STDRIVE101 3-phase, triple half-bridge gate-driver IC with an STM32G0 microcontroller, which is responsible for driving three-phase brushless motors. The driver board supports various motor-control strategies, including trapezoidal and field-oriented control (FOC), with both sensor’ed and sensorless rotor-position detection. Additionally, it has a wide operating voltage range of 5.5V to 75V and includes STL220N6F7 60V STripFET F7 MOSFETs, which have very low Rds(on) for high efficiency. Other features of the board include ultra-low power consumption in sleep mode, a single-wire debug interface, direct firmware update capability, and protection mechanisms such as under-voltage lockout, overtemperature protection, and cross-conduction prevention. All these features make this board suitable for applications like hairdryers, handheld vacuums, power tools, fans, drones, robots, and industrial equipment […]
Building a workstation with Radxa ROCK 5 ITX (Arm) or Milk-V Jupiter (RISC-V) mini-ITX motherboard – Part 1: The hardware
Radxa ROCK 5 ITX is a mini-ITX motherboard powered by a Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor, and the Shenzhen Milk-V Jupiter is another mini-ITX motherboard, but based on SpacemIT K1 octa-core 64-bit RISC-V processor instead. When Radxa contacted me about reviewing those, I thought it would be interesting to review a complete kit with a mini-ITX case since I had never built this type of system myself. Yesterday, I was surprised to receive two large packages and thought maybe a company sent me a 3D printer or laser engraver kit, but instead, I got one package with the two Arm and RISC-V mini-ITX motherboards and another with a mini-ITX NAS enclosure with 6x SATA bays. Radxa ROCK 5 ITX unboxing Let’s look at the ROCK 5 ITX motherboard and accessories first. The motherboard ships with a rear panel and two screws for the M.2 module. The motherboard features the Rorkchip […]
STMicro ST4SIM-300 eSIM complies with SGP.32 GSMA eSIM Standard for IoT
STMicroelectronics has recently released the ST4SIM-300 eSIM, the first embedded SIM (eSIM) IC that complies with the new GSMA eSIM IoT Technical Specification (SGP.32). The chip is fully compliant with remote SIM provisioning of the GSMA eSIM IoT standards, so it works with 2G, 3G, 4G (LTE), CDMA, NB-IoT, and Cat-M networks. It is designed for small IoT devices and allows system operators to remotely program device subscriber identities over the air (OTA), making it a plug-and-play solution for seamless integration and management. Previously, we have written about Hologram’s IoT eSIM Chip that provides global connectivity and comes with 2FF, 3FF, 4FF, and Mff2- M2M form factors. We have also written about the Conexio Stratus Pro battery-powered nRF9161 development kit that supports eSIM as an option. ST4SIM-300 eSIM specifications Microcontroller – ST33K1M5M 32-bit Arm Cortex-M35P MCU Designed based on eSIM + eSE (embedded Secure Element) I/O Asynchronous serial I/O port […]