CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 28, 2023April 28, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Mixtile Core 3588E Rockchip RK3588 system-on-module works with NVIDIA Jetson TX2 NX carrier boards

Rockchip RK3588 SoM NVIDIA Jetson TX2 NX alternative

Mixtile Core 3588E is a system-on-module powered by a Rockchip RK3588 SoC and equipped with the 260-pin SO-DIMM connector found in the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 NX (and Jetson Nano, Xavier NX, Orin Nano modules). We’ve seen several companies make Raspberry Pi CM4 alternatives such as Radxa CM3 or Pine64 SoQuartz, and Mixtile even has its own Core 3568M SoM that can be used as a drop-in replacement for the Raspberry Pi CM4. But I had not seen companies try to make system-on-modules based on NVIDIA Jetson’s 260-pin SO-DIMM edge connector, and that’s exactly what the Mixtile Core 3588E has to offer. Mixtile Core 3588E specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A55 cores GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU with support for OpenGL ES3.2, OpenCL 2.2, Vulkan1.1 AI accelerator – 6 TOPS NPU with support for […]

April 28, 2023April 28, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Meet the $1,000 ESP32 board with 512 GPIOs (12V/24V)

KinCony IoT’s KC868-A566 is an ESP32 WiFi & BLE IoT board with a massive 512 GPIOs, more specifically with 256 12V/24V digital outputs and 256 digital inputs that should meet most people’s requirements, except for its price, as it is currently selling for $1,000 on Aliexpress. The board is based on ESP32-WROOM-32E, and besides the massive numbers of GPIOs, also adds four analog input ports, an Ethernet port, and an RS485 connector. The company also made sure it can run ESPHome open-source firmware and integrates well with Home Assistant open-source home automation framework. KinCony IoT KC868-A566 board specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-WROOM-32E with ESP32 dual-core microcontroller 4MB flash 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth LE connectivity, built-in PCB antenna, fully compatible with ESPHome firmware Ethernet – 100/10Mbps Ethernet via vertical RJ45 jack USB – 1x USB Type-C port Serial – RS485 interface I/Os 256x MOSFET outputs (12V/24V 5000mA per channel) with […]

ArmSoM CM5 Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC

April 27, 2023April 27, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra C 10.3-inch color E-Ink Android tablet comes with stylus support

Onyx Boox Tab Ultra C 10.3-inch color e-ink tablet

Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra C is an Android 11 tablet with a 10.3-inch E-Ink Kaleido 3 color display with 2480 x 1860 black & white resolution, 1240 x 930 color resolution, a capacitive touchscreen and support for a stylus with 4096 levels of pressure. The tablet is an evolution of the BOOX Tab Ultra black-and-white tablet with a 4096-color E-Ink display using the latest Kaleido 3 screen that increases color saturation by 30 percent and reduces blue light reflections compared to earlier Kaleido Plus displays. BOOX Tab Ultra C specifications: SoC – Unnamed “Qualcomm Advanced” octa-core processor (likely the 2.0 GHz Snapdragon 662 octa-core Cortex-A73/A53 processor like in its black-and-white predecessor) System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4X Storage – 128GB UFS 2.1 flash, microSD card slot Display 10.3-inch Kaleido 3 (4,096 colors) Carta 1200 glass screen with flat cover-lens Resolution: B/W: 2480 x 1860 (300 ppi); color: 1240 x 930 (150 […]

April 27, 2023July 26, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

UP Squared Pro 7000 SBC features up to Intel Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N processor, up to 16GB LPDDR5

AAEON UP Squared Pro 7000 is a single board computer (SBC) based on a choice of Alder Lake-N SoCs up to the Core i3-N305 octa-core processor, up to 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, and 64GB eMMC flash. The board supports up to three displays and comes with a MIPI CSI port, dual 2.5GbE networking, three USB 3.2 ports, two RS232/RS422/RS485 interfaces, as well as several M.2 sockets for storage and wireless expansion that makes it suitable for machine vision solutions for smart factories, robotics applications, and retail/digital signage. UP Squared Pro 7000 specifications: Alder Lake-N SoC (one or the other) Intel Core i3-N305 octa-core processor up to 3.8 GHz with 6MB cache, 32EU Intel UHD Graphics Gen 12 @ 1.25 GHz; TDP: 15W Intel Atom x7425E quad-core processor up to 3.4 GHz with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD Graphics Gen 12 @ 1.0 GHz; TDP: 12W Intel Processor N97 quad-core processor up […]

April 27, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

XCVR LoRa-based IoT development board & reference design features SX1261, SX1262, or LLCC68 chip

Semtech Corporation and “Connected Development” engineering firm have launched the XCVR development board and reference design based on Sentech SX1261, SX1262, or LLCC68 transceivers with the last one targeting Smart Home applications. The XCVR development board is actually an Arduino shield that’s been tested with Nordic nRF52840-DK board, but should work with most boards equipped with Arduino Uno headers. It can be used for the design of LPWAN IoT applications using SX1262x transceivers such as smart meters, industrial controllers, asset tracking, building automation, smart agriculture, etc… while the LLCC68 model is more useful for Smart Home applications and consumer devices. XCVR shield specifications and features: LoRa and FSK Modem Programmable bit rate up to 62.5 kbps LoRa and 300 kbps FSK External antenna Link budget 163 dB maximum for SX1261 170 dB maximum for SX1262 configurations. Tx Power +15 dBm high-efficiency PA for SX1261 +22 dBm or +15 dBm high-efficiency […]

April 27, 2023April 30, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Corsair MP600 Mini M.2 2230 NVMe SSD delivers up to 4800 MB/s read/write performance

Corsair MP600 Mini is a high-performance M.2 2230 SSD based on the Phison E21T controller that delivers up to 4800MB/s sequential read and write performance and designed to be used in Valve’s Steam Deck, Microsoft’s Surface Pro 8 and 9, and other products that won’t take a M.2 2280 SSD. We are seeing more and more single board computers and other electronics products use M.2 sockets for storage, but the smaller boards won’t take the traditional M.2 2280 SSDs that usually deliver better performance than smaller M.2 2230/2242/2260 drives, and so performance may be impacted on this type of hardware. But the Corsair MP600 Mini changes that with high sequential and random read/write performance. Corsair MP600 Mini specifications: SSD Unformatted Capacity – 1TB NAND Technology – 3D TLC NAND Host interface – PCIe Gen 4.0 x4 Performance Max Sequential Read – Up to 4,800MB/s tested with CrystalDiskMark (CDM) Max Sequential […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs abd SoMs

April 27, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

Use Kea DHCP server as ISC DHCP server (dhcpd) is being phased out

The ISC DHCP server (dhcpd) was traditionally used to set up a DHCP server in Linux, but the software is reaching end-of-life, and the Internet Systems Consortium is now recommending their own Kea DHCP server or alternatives such as Dnsmasq or udhcpd (as found in Busybox) as a replacement. I was unaware of this having just used the isc-dhcp-server package to set up a DHCP server in NanoPi R6C router/mini PC earlier this month. But a blog post on Ubuntu informed us dhcpd was going away, and Canonical plans to switch over the Kea DHCP server instead. The main difference from the user perspective is that Kea relies on JSON configuration files so all your dhcpd files will have to be rewritten. Other highlights for the Kea DHCP server include: Modular component design, extensible with hooks modules. Kea includes daemons for a DHCPv4 server, a DHCPv6 server, and a dynamic […]

April 26, 2023April 26, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 58 Comments

Orange Pi 5 SBC gets its own $20 low-profile ICE Tower cooling fan

A few years ago I reviewed the ICE Tower CPU cooling fan for Raspberry Pi 4 which is an oversized heatsink with a cooling fan and some RGB LEDs that obviously does its job at cooling the board, but the main benefit is really its aesthetics. 52Pi has now designed another ICE Tower cooling fan for the Orange Pi 5 SBC, and the new Orange Pi 5B, with the same concept except for its low-profile design. It’s probably not needed for the Orange Pi 5 which should do fine with a heatsink, but it may help for the Orange Pi 5B due to the extra heat from the WiFi 6 module. A company representative for 52Pi told us that: I have seen this Orange Pi 5B motherboard posted on your site, there are quite a lot of reviews and discussions, so far after our engineer’s test, this motherboard has quite […]