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Cadence Neo NPU IP scales from 8 GOPS to 80 TOPS

Cadence Neo NPU (Neural Processing Unit) IP delivers 8 GOPS to 80 TOPS in single core configuration and can be scaled to multicore configuration for hundreds of TOPS. The company says the Neo NPUs deliver high AI performance and energy efficiency for optimal PPA (Power, Performance, Area) and cost points for next-generation AI SoCs for intelligent sensors, IoT, audio/vision, hearables/wearables, mobile vision/voice AI, AR/VR and ADAS. Some highlights of the new Neo NPU IP include: Scalability – Single-core solution is scalable from 8 GOPS to 80 TOPS, with further extension to hundreds of TOPS with multicore Supports 256 to 32K MACs per cycle to allow SoC architects to meet power, performance, and area (PPA) tradeoffs Works with DSPs, general-purpose microcontrollers, and application processors Support for Int4, Int8, Int16, and FP16 data types for CNN, RNN and transformer-based networks. Up to 20x higher performance than the first-generation Cadence AI IP, with […]

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Pico QwiicReset board adds Reset button and Qwiic connector to Raspberry Pi Pico

Pico QwiicReset is a tiny add-on board for the Raspberry Pi Pico that adds a Reset button as well as the Qwicc connector to more easily connect I2C modules to the popular MCU board. The lack of a Reset button on the Raspberry Pi Pico has always been an issue since the reset pin is used to flash the firmware, so people have tried various ways to add a Reset button to the Pi Pico board. The Pico QwiicReset is like an extension of the Pimoroni “Captain Resetti” button with an extra Qwiic connector. The Pico QwiicReset board is shown soldered to a Raspberry Pi Pico board above, but it’s also compatible with the Raspberry Pi Pico W and it works with or without headers soldered to the board. But you may noticed the Debug header is partially covered on Pico W, which means the add-on board cannot be used […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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$999 Librem 11 Linux tablet features Celeron N5100 processor, 1TB NVMe SSD, 2.5K AMOLED display

Purism Librem 11 is an 11.5-inch Linux tablet running the secure PureBoot bootloader and PureOS Linux distribution with a focus on privacy and respect for personal freedom. The tablet comes with what looks to be a decent 11.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen display with a 2560×1600 resolution, 8GB RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD, but the Intel Celeron N5100 quad-core Jasper Lake processor would be considered entry-level in 2023. The tablet also comes with a keyboard and stylus making a 2-in1 hybrid device. Purism Librem 11 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N5100 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 1.1GHz/2.89GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD Graphics System Memory – 8 GB LPDDR4 (soldered) Storage 1 TB NVMe SSD (Kingston KC3000) microSD card reader implemented with Genesys Logic GL823K Display – 11.5-inch AMOLED display with 2560×1600 resolution, 60Hz refresh rate, Goodix GXTP7380 multitouch digitizer, stylus support Stylus – 2x buttons, 4096 pressure levels, tilt support (XY), […]

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Thunderbolt 5 to deliver up to 120 Gbps bandwidth, support multiple 8K monitors

Intel has just announced Thunderbolt 5 and demonstrated it with a prototype laptop and dock (see the video embedded at the end of this post) with up to 120 Gbps bandwidth when using “Bandwidth Boost”. Thunderbolt 5 will deliver 80 gigabits per second (Gbps) of bi-directional bandwidth and the top 120 Gbps bandwidth is achieved through “Bandwidth Boost” to support multiple 8K monitors, which means three times the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4 topping at 40 Gbps. Thunderbolt 5 builds upon Thunderbolt 4 with several improvements and features: Two times the total bi-directional bandwidth, and up to three times (120 Gbps) for video-intensive usage Double the PCI Express data throughput for faster storage and external graphics. Compatible with USB4 V2, DisplayPort 2.1, and PCI Express Gen 4 Double the bandwidth of Thunderbolt Networking for high-speed PC-to-PC connections. PAM-3 signaling technology to deliver increases in performance with today’s printed circuit boards, connectors, […]

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SwiftIO Circuit Playground relies on Apple Swift programming for IoT projects (Crowdfunding)

A few years ago, Mad Machine introduced the SwiftIO board powered by an NXP i.MX RT1052 Arm Cortex-M7 crossover processor and programmable with Apple Swift programming language. The company has now launched a smaller version of the board named the SwiftIO Micro along with the SwiftIO Circuit Playground baseboard with plenty of modules to play with the SwiftIO Micro’s GPIO, and that reminds me of the Arduino Sensor Kit Base but with even more modules. SwiftIO Micro specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX RT1052 Arm Cortex-M7 crossover processor @ 600MHz System Memory – 32 MB SRAM Storage – 16MB flash, microSD card slot USB – 1x USB-C connector for power and programming Expansion – 3x 20-pin headers with up to 44 GPIOs, analog inputs, PWM, UART, SPI, I2C, I2S, CAN Bus, etc… See the pinout diagram below for details Misc – RGB LED, download and reset buttons Power Supply – 5V […]

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Sony energy harvesting module generates power from electromagnetic wave noise

Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation (SSS) has developed an energy harvesting module that uses electromagnetic wave noise energy to power IoT devices. The new module leverages Sony’s tuner development process to generate power from electromagnetic wave noise from robots inside factories, monitors and lighting in offices, monitors and TVs in stores and homes, etc. in order to provide a stable power supply needed to run low-power IoT sensors and communications equipment. The tiny 7×7 mm module uses the metal parts of electronic devices that serve as the source of electromagnetic wave noise as part of an antenna and employs a rectifier circuit in order to convert electromagnetic wave noise in a range of several Hz to 100 MHz into electrical energy and supply power to low-power consumption IoT sensors and communications equipment or to charge batteries. The module harvests energy from electronic equipment that generates a significant amount of electromagnetic wave […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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Rockchip RK3562-powered Android 13 tablets are starting to show up

Back in March, Rockchip showcased some tablets powered by the new 2.0 GHz Rockchip RK3562 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, and now commercial Android 13 tablets based on the SoC are starting to show up with models such as BMAX MaxPad I9 PLUS and UMIDIGI G1. Both tablets have pretty much the same specifications with a 10.1-inch IPS display with 1280×800 resolution, 8GB RAM, 64GB eMMC flash, front-facing and rear cameras, and a few ports such as USB-C and an audio jack. For reference, I’ll just go through BMAX MaxPad i9 PLUS tablet specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3562 CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 EE with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0 AI accelerator – 1 TOPS NPU VPU – 4Kp30 video decoding, 1080p60 video encoding Memory – 8GB RAM (4GB RAM + 4GB Expansion) – CNXSoft: I’m not sure […]

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SMLIGHT SLZB-06M Zigbee 3.0 PoE adapter gets Silabs EFR32MG21 microcontroller

SMLIGHT SLZB-06M is a Zigbee 3.0 to Ethernet, PoE, USB, or WiFi adapter designed to work with multi-vendor software systems such as Zigbee2MQTT and Home Assistant ZHA. This will let you integrate any supported Zigbee devices into smart home automation systems like Home Assistant, OpenHub, or HomeSeer. The SLZB-06M is a variant of the SLZB-06 Zigbee PoE adapter introduced last year with the main difference being the Zigbee chip as the new model is equipped with Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 microcontroller instead of Texas Instruments СС2652Р. An ESP32 WiFi and BLE chip is still used to work with peripherals such as the LAN8720 Ethernet chip and a CP2102N USB/UART converter chip. SMLIGHT SLZB-06M specifications: Wireless SoCs Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller @ 80 MHz with 352KB flash, 1024KB ROM for protocols and library functions,  96KB SRAM, integrated power amplifier, Bluetooth 5.2 Low Energy and 802.15.4 radios (Zigbee and Thread) Espressif […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC