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July 30, 2020February 21, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Espressif and Amazon Introduce ESP32-PICO-V3-ZERO Alexa Connect Kit Module

Espressif Systems & Amazon have recently announced ESP32-PICO-V3-ZERO Alexa Connect Kit (ACK) module providing out-of-box connectivity to ACK cloud services, support for features such as Alexa control, “Frustration-Free Setup” and Amazon Dash replenishment for connected devices. The tiny (23 x 16 x 2.3mm) module is based on the company’s ESP32-PICO-V3 System-in-Package (SiP) based on ESP32-V3 dual-core Xtensa LX6 WiFI and Bluetooth SoC, a 4 MB SPI flash, a crystal oscillator, filter capacitors, and an RF matching network. The module supports 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, and Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity and comes with a PCB antenna and a u.FL connector to plug in an external antenna [Update: That should be an RF test connector instead, see comments]. ESP32-PICO-V3-ZERO module interfaces to a host MCU through a UART interface, and to speed-up time-to-market the module comes pre-certified for regulatory certifications such as FCC, CE, SRRC, IC, and RCM. The module […]

March 19, 2020March 19, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Nordic nRF52820 Bluetooth 5.2 SoC Supports Thread, Zigbee and Full Speed USB 2.0

Nordic Semi has launched the sixth multi-protocol SoC part of their nRF52 family with nRF52820 Bluetooth 5.2 ultra low power System-on-Chip (SoC) supporting Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE), Bluetooth mesh, as well as Thread, Zigbee, and 2.4-GHz proprietary. nRF52820 can handle all Bluetooth 5/5.1/5.2 versions with features such as Long Range, 2 Mbps throughput, direction finding, LE power control, and LE isochronous channels. The SoC also happens to include a Full Speed (12 Mbps) USB 2.0 interface. nRF52820 key features and specifications: MCU Core – Arm Cortex-M4 @ 64 MHz Memory – 32 KB RAM Storage – 256 KB Flash Wireless Connectivity Bluetooth 2 Mbps, 1 Mbps, Long Range Bluetooth Low Energy Bluetooth Direction Finding Bluetooth mesh Thread, Zigbee 802.15.4/ANT/2.4 GHz proprietary Up to +8 dBm TX power Security – 128-bit AES encryption USB – Full Speed USB 2.0 Other Peripherals UART, 2x SPI/TWI, QDEC Analog comparator 4x 32-bit timer/counter, […]

March 14, 2020March 14, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Wio Terminal Features Microchip SAMD51 MCU, Dual-Band WiFI & Bluetooth WiFI, and 2.4″ LCD

Microchip SAM D5x Arm Cortex-M4 microcontrollers were introduced in 2017, and the next year we started to see Arduino or MicroPython compatible board brought to market including Adafruit Metro M4 or Tachyon boards. Seeed Studio has now introduced its own Arduino & MicroPython compatible SAMD51 platform with Wio Terminal also integrating an RTL8720DN dual-band WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 chip, and 2.4″ LCD display. There are also Grove connectors to add sensor modules, and a 40-pin header to use the device like a Raspberry Pi HAT. Wio Terminal features and specifications: MCU – Microchip SAMD51 (ATSAMD51P19) Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller @ 120 MHz (can be overclocked to 200 MHz) with 192KB RAM, 512KB flash Storage – 4MB external SPI flash, MicroSD card slot up to 16GB Display – 2.4″ LCD screen with 320×240 resolution (ILI9341 driver) Audio – Microphone and buzzer Connectivity – Dual-band WiFi 4 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 5.0 via […]

January 8, 2020January 9, 2020 by Ayo Ayibiowu - 6 Comments

ONiO.zero offers a RISC-V Microcontroller that runs without battery

Energy harvesting has been an exciting area people have tried to venture into mostly because of the possible applications that can arise from it. Newly invented energy-harvesting technologies accompanying low-power computing systems have pushed the boundaries of where embedded systems can be deployed. The demand for an increase in connected applications which require an underlying embedded system, and as we know, all electronic devices require a power source of some sort. This power source, batteries in most cases, comes with an accompanying buck regulator of some sort that will tend to increase the BOM. Aside from the BOM rise from the usage of batteries, there is also the shelf life and environmental aspects. The Norwegian specialist ONiO has introduced the ONiO.zero to address those issues. Having no battery means fewer components and a smaller design, which can easily be integrated into a wide range of solutions – be it fabrics, […]

January 8, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Silicon Labs BG22 Secure Bluetooth 5.2 SoC Promises 10-Year Coin-Cell Battery Life

Yesterday, we wrote about the new Bluetooth LE Audio standard which promises smaller Bluetooth audio devices, or longer battery life, as well as support for multi-stream and broadcast audio. But there has been some other Bluetooth developments with the release of Bluetooth 5.2 specification on December 31st, and the announcement of the first Bluetooth 5.2 SoC courtesy of Silicon Labs. Bluetooth 5.2 Main Changes Bluetooth 5.2 builds upon Bluetooth 5.1 with the following key changes: Enhanced Attribute Protocol (EATT) – Improved version of the Attribute Protocol (ATT), which supports concurrent transactions, allows the interleaving of L2CAP packets relating to ATT packets from different applications and allows the ATT Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) to be changed during a connection. This can reduce latency and improves the responsiveness of Bluetooth LE applications. LE Power Control – Devices can dynamically optimize the transmission power used in communication between connected devices with BLE receivers […]

January 7, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Bluetooth LE Audio Supports LC3 Codec, Multi-stream & Broadcast Audio, Nordic Semi Evaluation Kit Unveiled

I first heard about Bluetooth LE (Low Energy)- part of Bluetooth 4.0- in 2013 with RFDuino board, and it came to prominence once Android 4.3 added support later this year. Bluetooth LE is using to transmit messages using as little as energy as possible for example to synchronize data between a smartphone and a smartwatch. But if you ever had to transmit audio, you had to rely on Bluetooth Classic which, albeit considering low power, consumes more energy. But you should soon have much longer battery life on your Bluetooth headphone or battery-operated speaker, as the Bluetooth SIG has just announced Bluetooth LE Audio which adds a new codec and support for multi-stream and broadcast audio. The new high-quality, low-power audio codec used in the new Bluetooth standard is called the Low Complexity Communications Codec (LC3). The chart above shows the results of listening tests between LC3 and SBC codecs […]

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: […]

November 13, 2019February 19, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

GOWIN GW1NRF FPGA Comes with Bluetooth 5.0 LE Radio & 32-bit ARC MCU

I first heard about GOWIN Semiconductor last month when I found out about Sipeed Tang Nano FPGA board going for $5 and featuring GOWIN GW1N FPGA. The company has now announced what it claims is the first Bluetooth FPGA on the market with GW1NRF FPGA integrating a Bluetooth 5.0 LE radio and a 32-bit ARC microcontroller beside FPGA fabric. GOWIN GW1NRF-LV4N uSoC FPGA key features and specifications: FPGA Fabric – 4.6K LUTs, 180 Kb block SRAM, and 16 multipliers MCU – 32-bit ARC microcontroller with 48KB IRAM, 48KB DRAM 136KB block ROM, 128KB block OTG Security – AES-128, RNG, Key GEN Power Management – Wake-up timer, pin monitoring Wireless – Bluetooth LE (Low Energy) 5.0 Transceiver with PHY & MAC Power Supply – 3V or 1.5 V with battery support via on-chip LDO regulator and step-up/step-down DCDC regular Power Consumption – 5nA power disable mode Package – 6x6mm QFN48 package […]