RePhone Kit Create is a DIY Phone and Cellular Development Kit (Crowdfunding)

Seeed Studio has design a modular and open source phone it calls RePhone Kit Create. The kit allows you, or/and your kid(s), to assemble their own phone based on building blocks including a 2G or 3G core module, a touchscreen display module, an audio module, and pre-cut, seawable, washable, and easily drawable Kraft paper to make the case. The kit can also be used for IoT applications using cellular and Bluetooth connectivity, and extra Xadow modules GPS, NFC, motion sensors, camera and more.. Two cellular “core” module can be used: RePhone GSM + BLE module with the “world’s smallest System-on-Chip (SOC) for Wearables and Internet Of Things”, GSM, GPRS and Bluetooth 2.1 and 4.0 support. RePhone Core Module 3G with a “powerful microcontroller”,a standard Xadow interface (USB, GPIO, I2C, SPI, UART, EINT), support for speaker, two microphones and a headset, a Nano SIM, and support for HSPA/WCDMA:850/1900 and GPRS/EDGE:850/1900. Voltage: […]

Ingenic X1000 MIPS Processor and X1000 Phoenix Board Target IoT and Embedded Applications

Ingenic is a Chinese SoC vendor that makes processors featuring their X-Burst cores based on MIPS architecture. Their JZ47 series can be found in tablets and development boards such a MIPS Creator CI20, while their M series, including Ingenic M200, are dedicated to wearables & IoT applications. The company has now launched X series starting with X1000 processor which include an audio codec, a Voice Trigger Engine (VTE) and 32MB RAM in package. Ingenic X1000 features: CPU Core – Ingenic MIPS XBurst 32-bit core up to 1.0 GHz, Double precision hardware float point unit, L1 cache 16KB/16KB, and L2 cache 128KB Security Core – On-chip security ROM and RAM, hardware AES and RSA, supports security boot and user customization Memory 32MB LPDDR in package Support 16-bit DDR2, DDR3 and LPDDR up to 512MB Support Quad-SPI NOR/NAND, eMMC, SDHC Display –  8-bit, 9-bit, 16-bit parallel interface SLCD up to 640×480@60Hz, 24 […]

HummingBoard Gate Boards Add a mikroBUS Socket to Support MikroElektronika Click Boards

SolidRun already released HummingBoard-Base, HummingBoard-Pro, and HummingBoard Edge previously, but the company has now launched another version of their Freescale i.MX6 based boards with HummingBoard Gate that adds a mikroBUS socket to support over 150 add-on boards – called Click Boards – made by MikroElektronika. HummingBoard Gate specifications: SoC – Freescale i.MX6 Solo, Dual Lite, Dual, or Quad with Cortex-A9 cores @ 1 to 1.2 GHz System Memory – Up to 4GB DDR3 Storage – Micro SD slot Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet (limited to 470Mbps), optional WiFi/Bt module Video Output – HDMI output, MIPI-DSI connector Camera – MIPI CSI-4, parallel camera USB – 4x USB 2.0 ports Expansion mPCIe slot with SIM card holder 36-pin GPIO header mikroBUS click interface Misc – Reset button, RTC with battery Power – 7-36V, 5.5mm jack Dimensions – 102 x 69 mm As usual, the board is comprised of a baseboard and a microSOM, […]

Atmel Introduces SAMA5D2 Cortex A5 SoC with Extended Temperature Range, Lower Power Consumption

Today, the news broke out that Atmel will be bought by Dialog Semiconductor for about $4.6 billion. The Anglo-German company is little known as their main products are PMIC, audio and connectivity chips, but they’ve still managed to get the financing to purchase Atmel. But that’s not the purpose of the post today, and instead I’ll cover a new SAMA5 Cortex A5 SoC recently announced by the company, targeting industrial Internet of Things, wearables and point of sale applications. SAMA5D2 key features and benefits: ARM Cortex-A5 core running at 500MHz (785DMIPS). Floating point unit (FPU) for high-precision computing and accelerated data processing. 128KB of L2 cache for system performance Low power consumption Less than 150mW in active mode at 500MHz with all peripherals activated Less than 0.5mW in low power mode with SRAM and registers retention Sub 200µA in retention mode with context preserved New backup mode with DDR in […]

Comparison Table of Low Power WAN Standards for Industrial Applications

WiFi, Bluetooth and Zigbee are commonly found in consumer devices part of the “IoT ecosystem”, but the range, cost, power consumption, and/or scalability of these wireless standards are not suitable. For example, agricultural and forestry applications normally require long distance, and smart parking or city lighting may requires scalability to a great number of nodes, so alternatives are needed. EDN wrote a thorough article comparing 10 alternative wireless standards: Weightless-W, Weightless-N, Weightless-P, SigFox, LoRaWAN, LTE-Cat M, IEEE P802.11ah, Dash7, Ingenu RPMA, and nWave. The table includes the frequency band, channel width, range, transmit power, packet size (minimal or maximal), downlink and uplink data rates, maximum number of connected devices, topology, roaming capability, and status. If you had to implement something today, four to five solutions are “in deployment”: SigFox, Ingenu RPMA, nWave, LoRa, and possibly Dash7, while the other are only starting to get deployed, or will be finalized in […]

Allo SPARKY Board Supports Raspberry Pi HATs for Multimedia, IoT and VoIP Applications

Allo is a company based in Bangalore, India specializing in VoIP hardware solutions, but they’ve recently developed a single board board powered by Actions Semi S500 quad core processor that supports various Raspberry Pi HATs and can be used for multimedia, IoT, and Telecom application such as Asterix or Freeswitch PBX. Allo SPARKY board specifications: SoC – Actions Semi S500 quad core Cortex A9r4 processor with PowerVR SGX544 GPU @ 500 MHz Memory – 1 or 2GB RAM Storage – Socket for 8, 16, 32 or 64GB pluggable eMMC modules,  micro SD slot up to 32GB, optional NAND flash Video Output – HDMI,  34-pin LCD connector Audio – HDMI, Headphone jack, built-in microphone Video Codec – H.265 (HEVC) and Ultra HD (4K*2K) video playback. Encoding up to 1080p@60fps. Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x USB 3.0 (OTG) port Camera –  24-pin camera interface (Up […]

LimiFrog is a Bluetooth 4.1 Wearables Devkit Based on STM32L4 with Lots of Sensors (Crowdfunding)

LimitFrog is a tiny board powered by STMicro STM32-L4 microcontroller with Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity, plenty of sensors, and that can run code bare metal as well as RiOT real-time operating system. LimiFrog specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32-L4 ARM Cortex M4 micro-controller @ 80 MHz with DSP, 512KB flash, 128KB RAM External storage – 8MB serial flash for data that supports FAT32 file system Display – 160×128 RGB565 OLED display Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.1 (Panasonic PAN1740) Sensors (Follow this link for datasheets of most components) Pressure, altitude & temperature (LPS25H) 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope (LSM6DS3) 3-axis magnetometer (LIS3MDL) Ambient light, proximity and distance (VL6180X) Ambient sound (SPU0414H5H) USB – micro USB port for power and programming Expansions – 11-pin (through holes) providing access to SPI, I2C, CAN, PWM, GPIOs, ADC, DAC, Analog out, and power signals (3V out GND) Battery – 500 mAh (hours to weeks of battery life depending on […]

TESPA Hawk IoT Board Combines ESP8266 with STM32 MCU in an Arduino Nano Form Factor (Crowdfunding)

TESPA Hawk is an IoT board designed by three companies based in Thailand and Singapore: Deaware delivers the embedded software for the board, Gravitech handles hardware design and manufacturing, and MakerAsia provides the IoT cloud platform. At first glance, it looks like yet another board based on the popular ESP8266 WiSoC, but it also includes an STM32 micro-controller, and its pinout is the same as Arduino Nano. There are also various add-on boards (WINGs) to easily and quickly prototype IoT projects. TESPA Hawk specifications: WiSoC – Espressif ESP8266 @ 80MHz with 8MB Flash MCU – ST Micro STM32F042G6 ARM Cortex-M0 MCU @ 48MHz with 32KByte Flash, 6KB SRAM Connectivity – WiFI 802.11 b/g/n/ with on-board antenna and u.FL socket for external antenna USB – micro USB port for power and programming Expansion – 2x 16-pin headers (mostly) compatible Arduino Nano pinout including 5-channel full range 3.3V ADC (4x 12-bit, 1x 10-bit), […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design