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BrainChip’s Neuromorphic Akida Edge AI Box is now available for pre-orders at $799

BrainChip has recently opened preorders for their Akida Edge AI Box, built in partnership with VVDN Technologies. This box features an NXP i.MX 8M Plus SoC and two Akida AKD1000 neuromorphic processors for low-latency, high-throughput AI processing at the edge. The system features USB 3.0 and micro-USB ports, HDMI, 4GB LPDDR4 memory, 32GB eMMC with up to 1TB micro-SDXC expansion, dual-band Wi-Fi, and two gigabit Ethernet ports for external camera connections, all within a compact, passively-cooled chassis, powered by 12V DC. BrainChip Akida Edge AI Box Specifications: Host CPU – NXP i.MX 8M Plus Quad SOC with 64-bit Arm Cortex-A53 processor running at up to 1.8GHz AI/ML Accelerator – Dual Brainchip AKD1000 (Akida Chip) over PCIe for efficient AI processing Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage 32GB eMMC flash MicroSD card slot for additional storage options Display Output – HDMI output supporting up to 3840 x 2160p30 resolutions with a pixel clock […]

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LibreVNA open-source USB vector network analyzer (VNA) works in the 100kHz to 6GHz range

Jan Käberich’s LibreVNA is an open-source hardware USB vector network analyzer (VNA) based on a Spartan-6 FPGA, an STM32 microcontroller, and RF circuitry with MAX2871 and Si5351C chips. The open-source VNA supports two channels and works in the 100kHz to 6GHz frequency range. Vector network analyzers are expensive pieces of electronic test equipment used to measure the magnitude and phase of high-frequency electrical networks costing several thousand dollars. They are commonly used in radio frequency (RF) and microwave engineering applications. Last year, we wrote that Pico Technology released PicoVNA 5 software for Linux, Raspberry Pi, and macOS instead of only providing a Windows program for their commercial PicoVNA devices. I thought it was already a good development even if it was closed-sourced, but LibreVNA goes all the way with an open-source hardware design with hardware design files, the FPGA code, STM32 firmware, and PC software (GUI) all open-source. LivreVNA hardware […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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Esp32_oscilloscope Arduino firmware turns your ESP32 board into a web-based oscilloscope

Bojan Jurca’s “Esp32_oscilloscope” is an open-source Arduino sketch that can transform an ESP32 board into a web-based oscilloscope that works over WiFi. We had also written about the Scoppy project to turn the Raspberry Pi Pico W into a 2-channel oscilloscope, but there’s no reason the more powerful ESP32-series microcontroller could not be used for the same purpose, and Bojan’s Esp32_oscilloscope project does just that and works with ESP32, ESP32-S2, ESP32-S3 and ESP32-C3 boards using the I2S interface for fast data sampling. The project was initially designed to demonstrate the multitasking abilities of the ESP32 microcontroller with Arduino, but this evolved into an ESP32 oscilloscope firmware. It works both with output/PWM and input signals, digital (0 or 1) and analog (0 to 4095) signals, and the web interface shows up to 736 samples per screen although the sampling rate may not be completely constant all the time. To install it […]

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Microchip announces the PolarFire SoC Discovery Kit, a low-cost devkit for Linux and real-time applications

The SoC Discovery Kit is the latest addition to Microchip’s list of development kits for the PolarFire series. The series is the first SoC FPGA family powered by a deterministic, coherent RISC-V CPU cluster. They provide low power consumption, thermal efficiency, and defense-grade security for smart, networked systems. They also support a deterministic L2 memory system for Linux and real-time applications. Microchip launched the Icicle Kit for the PolarFire SoC in 2020 and it was followed by the Video and Imaging Kit which was intended for mid-bandwidth imaging and video applications. Now, Microchip has announced the Discovery Kit which is billed as a low-cost alternative to the Icicle. The Discovery Kit retains the full range of features needed for testing concepts quickly, developing firmware applications, and programming/debugging user code. According to Microchip, the kit will bring “a low-cost RISC-V and FPGA development for learning and rapid innovation” to new and […]

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Comparing the latency of various wireless standards

If you’ve ever wondered which wireless standard may deliver the smallest lag (latency) when transmitting small packets, we’ve now gotten an answer thanks to Scott at Electric UI who benchmarked various wireless links in common MCU development boards. More specifically the following hardware and wireless standards were tested: SiliconLabs 10×0-GM RF+8051 microcontroller with 240–960 MHz EZRadioPRO transceiver running SiK firmware HopeRF RFM95W LoRa module (on an Adafruit Breakout board) connected to an STM32F429 MCU Nordic Semi nRF24L01 2.4GHz transceiver module ESP32 board for ESP-NOW and WiFi testing is shown as ESP32 WS (WebSockets) or ESP32 TCP in the chart below. Raspberry Pi boards were also used for comparison ESP32-C6 board for 802.15.4 transfers (Thread) ESP32 and HC-05 modules for Bluetooth SPP (Serial Port Profile) ESP32 board with NimBLE and Bluedroid stacks and nRF52 for Bluetooth LE testing Here are the results for 12 bytes, 128 bytes, and 1024 bytes data transfers. […]

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Waveshare RP2040-GEEK USB development board features RP2040 MCU, 1.14-inch color display, UART/I2C/SWD ports

Waveshare RP2040-GEEK is a development board that looks like a USB flash drive but is based on a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller with a 1.14-inch 65K color LCD and some expansion ports all housed in a white plastic case. The device comes with a 4MB flash to store the firmware, a microSD card slot for data storage, a BOOT button to enter bootloader mode, two 3-pin connectors for UART and SWD debug, and a 4-pin I2C port. Waveshare RP2040-GEEK specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller clocked up to 133 MHz with 264 kB SRAM Storage – 4MB flash (W25Q32JVSSIQ) and microSD card slot Display – 1.14-inch 240×135 pixel 65K color IPS LCD display USB – 1x USB Type-A female port for power and programming Debugging – 3-pin SWD port for connecting a target board; the standard CMSIS-DAP interface can be used to debug most Arm-based microcontrollers; […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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EmbedFire LubanCat 4 card computer – A Rockchip RK3588S dev board with a mini PCIe socket for WiFi or 4G LTE

Launched by Yehuo Electronic EmbedFire LubanCat 4 card computer or LubanCat 4 in short, is a Rockchip RK3588S SBC that packs quite a lot of features in an 85x56mm form factor with Ethernet, USB, mini PCIe, HDMI 2.1, SIM & microSD card holder, and more. The board comes with up to 16GB of RAM and 128GB of eMMC flash. It comes with a Gigabit Ethernet port, five USB ports (including one USB-C), a built-in microphone, multiple audio inputs and outputs, a 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible expansion header, and supports HDMI input through an adapter connected to a MIPI CSI port. EmbedFire LubanCat 4 card computer specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.2-2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU –  Arm Mali-G610 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2,  OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 support VPU – 8Kp60 video decoder […]

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NRFICE is a Bluetooth FPGA board in the Arduino UNO form factor (Crowdfunding)

The NRFICE FPGA is a Bluetooth FPGA board designed for edge computing and IoT applications. It is built upon a combination of the dual-core nRF5340 Bluetooth SoC and the Lattice ICE40UP5K FPGA. The ICE40 UltraPlus is a low-power, high-performance FPGA for edge computing and artificial intelligence projects and the nRF5340 is a Bluetooth 5.3 SoC that supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Bluetooth Mesh, Thread, NFC, and Zigbee. Through the Nordic nRF5340, NRFICE can load a project directly into the iCE40 FPGA, bypassing the usual extensive toolchain setup. This enables a new class of FPGA development, where bitstreams can be hosted in the cloud, selected by a user on their phone, and loaded wirelessly to the board. It features a built-in J-Link OB for easy debugging and programming without the need for emulator dongles and is similar to the previously covered Segger emPower evaluation board in this regard. This board supports […]

Boardcon Rockchip and Allwinner SoM and SBC products