olimex News - Page 8 of 10 - CNX Software

December 3, 2014December 5, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Olimex Introduces Open Source Hardware ESP8266 Wi-Fi Modules, Evaluation Board Coming Soon

ESP8266 has become popular as module based on this SoC make it incredibly cheap to add Wi-Fi to all sort of things, the SDK available, and a community has gathered around the solution. Olimex has jumped on the bandwagon, and is now provided two open source hardware ESP8266 modules: MOD-WIFI-ESP8266 which makes it easy to interface to other Olimex boards thanks to its UEXT connector, and MOD-WIFI-ESP8266-DEV with two rows of 0.1″ connectors and an unsoldered UEXT pad, is better suited if you want to integrate it with your own baseboard, or experiment with a breadboard. An evaluation board called MOD-WIFI-ESP8266-EVB will be launched a little later. Both modules share most specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP8266 32-bit RISC processor with 802.11 b/g/n support(32-pin QFN package), Wi-Fi – 802.112 b/g/n with WEP, TKIP, AES, and WAPI engines, Wi-Fi direct (P2P), and soft-AP. On-board antenna and u.FL connector Expansion MOD-WIFI-ESP8266 – […]

August 1, 2014April 5, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

EasyEDA is a Web-based Schematics Capture, Simulation, and PCB Layout Tool

I recently watched a video showing AllWinner R&D, and I noticed although most (all?) software engineer run Ubuntu in the PC, the hardware engineers all relied on Windows based EDA tools for schematics capture and PCB Layout. There are already Linux-based tools such as Kicad, which appears to be good for new projects, but importing existing projects can be an issue. An alternative to operating system dependent EDA software suites are web-based tools. I’ve already tried Fritzing which allows to draw circuits on breadboard, convert these to schematics and PCB layouts, and order the PCBs. It looks pretty good for its purpose, but it’s limited to mostly simple designs, and AFAIK can’t be used to replace an EDA suite. That’s where EasyEDA comes into play. It’s a web-based tool where you can draw schematics, perform simulation, and create PCB layouts for your project, either keeping them private, or sharing them […]

July 9, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

33 Euros Olimex A20-OLinuXino-LIME Open Source Hardware Board Supports Linux and Android

Last year, Olimex launched A10-OLinuxXino-LIME powered by AllWinner A10, and it became quite popular due to its Linux and Android support, its open source hardware, and a price tag of just 30 Euros that made it cost competitive with BeagleBone Black and Raspberry Pi boards. The company has now designed an upgrade with A20-OLinuXino-LIME powered by AllWinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 processor, that sells for just 3 Euros more. A20-OLinuXino-LIME specifications: SoC – AllWinner A20 dual core ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1GHz with Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 512MB DDR3 Storage – microSD card slot, SATA, and optional 4GB NAND Flash Video Output – HDMI 1080p USB – USB-OTG + 2x USB Hosts Connectivity – 10/100Mbit Ethernet Expansions – 200 GPIOs on 0.05″ connectors Misc – Lipo battery management and connector, buttons Power – 5V Dimensions – 84 x 60 mm The specifications are exactly the same expect for the […]

May 15, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Olimex Showcases RK3188-SOM Module and RK3188-EVB Evaluation Board

After launching AllWinner and Texas Instruments SoMs earlier this month, Olimex appears to be on a roll, and the company showed some working prototypes of their upcoming Rockchip RK3188 quad core ARM Cortex A9 system-on-module, and corresponding evaluation board called RK3188-SOM-EVB including both a baseboard and a SoM. Preliminary specifications for RK3188-SOM: SoC – Rockchip RK3188 quad core ARM Cortex A9 @ 1.6Ghz with Mali-400 MP4 CPU System memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – micro SD card slot, and optional 4GB NAND flash Power Management IC Debugging – debug UART console Misc – 2x buttons, 3x status LEDs Connectors – 5 GPIO connectors 2×20 pins 0.05″ step There will be two models: RK3188-SOM and RK3188-SOM-4GB, the latter adding 4GB NAND Flash. Both will be available in June for respectively 40 and 45 Euros per piece for 1k orders. For development and evaluation purpose, the company will also provide an open source hardware base board, RK3188-SOM-EVB, […]

May 6, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Olimex Introduces Low Cost AllWinner A13, AllWinner A20 and TI Sitara AM3352 Systems-on-Module

About a year ago, Olimex reported working on an AllWinner A20 System-on-Module. But after some unexpected delays, Olimex A20-SOM is finally available, and they’ve even announced A13-SOM and AM3352-SOM, respectively based on AllWinner A13 and Texas Instruments Sitara AM3352 ARM Cortex A8 SoCs, with price starting at 12 Euros for 1K orders. Olimex A20-SOM and A20-SOM-4G There are actuall two versions of the SoM, A20-SOM-4G including 4GB NAND flash, and A20-SOM without. Here are the specifications: SoC – AllWinner A20 dual core ARM Cortex A7 processor with Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 memory Storage – 4GB NAND Flash (A20-SOM-4G only) + microSD slot Debugging – UART console connector (at the back) PMIC – AllWinner AXP209 PMU IC Misc – Status LEDs, RESET, RECOVERY buttons Connectors – 6x 2×20 pin 0.05″ female headers Dimensions – N/A The SoM is said to support Android and Debian, but you could also […]

February 17, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

AllWinner Linux-sunxi Community Presentation and Status Report – FOSDEM 2014

Oliver Schinagl, a member of linux-sunxi community working on open source kernel and bootloader for AllWinner SoCs, has given a presentation of the community at FOSDEM 2014 to give an overview, and show what progress has been made to date. I’ll write a summary in this post, but if you want to watch the video and/or access the slides scroll down at the bottom of the post. After explaining what sunxi is, and introducing himself, he gave some information about AllWinner and their SoCs: Founded in 2007 in Zhuhai, Chiang now with 550 employees including 450+ engineers 15% market share in 2013 for tablet SoCs, only behind Apple. Products: F-series SoC (2010), A10 (2011), A13, A10s (2012), and A20 (2013). (cnsoft He skipped A31(s) and A80 here as they are not really supported by the community). They list “Open Source Source” and “GPLv3” in their marketing materials although they clearly […]

February 16, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

How to Build and Run Tizen 2.0 on AllWinner Boards – FOSDEM 2014

Leon Anavi has spent some time building and running Tizen for Olimex A10s-OLinuXino-MICRO board based onAllWinner A10s cortex A8 processor, and gave a short presentation at FOSDEM 2014 showing the main steps involved in the project. The final result is basically a non-portable Tizen tablet with a main board connected to an LCD display. If you have an LCD screen, you could also use a monitor (VGA/HDMI) instead. After a short description of the hardware, and explaining it should also work on other AllWinner platforms such as Cubieboard, Leon gave a few no-nonsense recommendations he learned from his mistakes: Get a USB serial board for debugging Use recommended accessories from the manufacturer such as power supply or LCD display to make development easier Buy a board that can boot from micro SD or SD card, again for ease of development If something does not work… Restart the board! 🙂 In […]

December 21, 2013December 21, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

OLIMEXINO-85S Arduino Compatible Board is About the Size of a micro SD Card

Several Arduino boards have been designed to be as small as possible this year, including Microduino (25.40 x 27.94mm) and OLIMEXINO-NANO (30 x 30 mm). But Olimex has gone a step further, or should I say smaller, with OLIMEXINO-85S that just a little bit bigger than a micro SD card at 16.9 x 12.7 mm, and may currently claim the title of the smallest Arduino compatible board ever. A board that tiny comes with pretty short specifications: MCU – Atmel ATTiny85 @ 20MHz with 8 KB Flash, and 512B RAM. Misc – two LEDs one for power supply and one user programmable I/O – All 6 I/O pins (I2C, SPI, up to 4 ADC), as well as power pins, available via through holes Power – Via USB micro connector or by LiPo battery The board will be programmable by the Arduino IDE made by Digispark. OLIMEXINO-85S will be available at […]