CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

February 22, 2023July 18, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

CH32V003 RISC-V MCU gets $1.5 development board, open source GCC toolchain and flasher utility

When we first wrote about the 10-cent CH32V003 RISC-V MCU it was offered in a $7 development board and the closed-source MounRiver Studio IDE had to be used for programming. But things have improved since October 2022, and now, you can buy a CH32V003 board for as little as $1.5 plus shipping, and an open-source GCC toolchain and flasher/downloader are now available. Let’s have a look at the hardware first with the low-cost nanoCH32V003 development board featuring a 48 MHz CH32V003 RISC-V microcontroller with 2KB SRAM and 16KB flash, a USB Type-C port for power, a reset button, and two rows of headers for the GPIOs. MuseLab nanoCH32V003 specifications: MCU – WCH CH32V003F4U6 32-bit RISC-V2A microcontroller up to 48 MHz with 2KB SRAM, 16KB flash (QFN20 package) Expansion – 2x 11-pin headers with up to 18x GPIOs, 1x USART, 1x I2C, 1x SPI, 8-channel 10-bit ADC, 5V, 3.3V, GND Debugging […]

February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Badger 2040 W e-Paper display gets WiFi & Bluetooth with Raspberry Pi Pico W

Pimoroni Badger 2040 W wireless programmable e-Paper badge comes with a 2.9-inch black & white E-Ink display and a Raspberry Pi Pico W board for WiFi (and Bluetooth) connectivity. It is an update to the Pimoroni Badger 2040 with the exact same display, but instead of using a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, Pimoroni fitted a Raspberry Pi Pico W on the back of the board, probably to avoid going through FCC and CE certifications. Badger 2040 W specifications: MCU board – Raspberry Pi Pico W board with: Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Arm Cortex M0+ running at up to 133Mhz with 264kB of SRAM Storage – 2MB QSPI flash Wireless – 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth Classic+LE with ABRACON onboard antenna (Infineon CYW43439 connected over SPI) Display – 2.9-inch B&W E-Ink display with 296 x 128 pixels resolution, ultrawide viewing angles, ultra-low power consumption; Dot pitch – 0.227 x 0.226 mm […]

ArmSoM CM5 Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC

February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Auspicious Machine modular handheld Linux PC with keyboard takes various Arm-based SoMs

The “Auspicious Machine” may look like a Blackberry phone, but it’s actually a handheld Linux PC with a built-in QWERTY keyboard and a 3.5-inch display that can be powered by a range of system-on-modules (SoM). The computer, whose name can also be translated as the “Auspicious Phone”, can be used as a Linux terminal with GPIO control, and for gaming with Linux distributions such as Batotera or RetroBat with the D-Pad and ABXY buttons found on the device. Auspicious Machine specifications: Supported SoMs Bigtreetech CB1 with Allwinner H616 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor and 1GB DDR4 Raspberry Pi CM4 with Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor, up to 8GB LPDDR4, up to 32GB eMMC flash Radxa CM3 with Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor, up to 4GB LPDDR4, up to 64GB eMMC flash Banana Pi BPI-CM4 with Amlogic A311D octa-core Cortex-A73/A55 processor with 4GB LPDDR4 and 16GB eMMC flash Storage – MicroSD card socket […]

February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Raspberry Pi Debug Probe eases bare metal development for $12

The Raspberry Pi Debug Probe is a USB serial adapter based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller and designed to debug the Raspberry Pi Pico, third-party RP2040 boards, and pretty much any Arm board through SWD and/or UART interfaces. The main advantage over a typical USB-to-serial adapter is the presence of a Serial Wire Debug (SWD) bridge used for bare metal code development and debugging through tools such as OpenOCD. The Raspberry Pi Debug Probe specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz with 264KB SRAM Storage – 2MB SPI flash (W25Q16JVUXIQ) Debug interfaces 3.3V Serial Wire Debug (SWD) 3-pin JST connector conforming to the Raspberry Pi Debug Connector Specification and compatible with the CMSIS-DAP standard 3.3V serial (UART) 3-pin JST connector USB – Micro USB port to connect to the host Misc BOOTSEL button for flashing firmware to the debug board Unpopulated 3-pin header with […]

February 20, 2023February 21, 2023 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 16 Comments

ODROID-H3+ SBC review with “Unlimited Performance” mode and 2.5GbE Net Card

ODROID-H3+ Review with Net Card and Case Type 7

Hardkernel have added Intel Jasper Lake mini PCs to their ODROID-H series and they are known as the ODROID-H3 and ODROID-H3+. Like the discontinued ODROID-H2/H2+, this new series also supports the Net Card which will add four extra 2.5 gigabit Ethernet ports. Hardkernel kindly sent an ODROID-H3+ together with a selection of accessories for review and I’m going to look at the effect on performance when changing the Power Limit values in the UEFI (BIOS) together with the network performance of the Net Card. ODROID-H3+ hardware overview The ODROID-H3+ physically consists of a 110 x 110 mm (4.33 x 4.33-inch) motherboard complete with an Intel Pentium Silver Jasper Lake mobile N6005 processor which has 4 cores and 4 threads and can boost to 3.3 GHz and also includes Intel UHD Graphics. The processor, and nearly the entire motherboard, is covered by a large metal heat sink: The front of the […]

February 20, 2023February 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Linux 6.2 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.2 has just been released with Linus Torvalds making the announcement on LKML as usual: So here we are, right on (the extended) schedule, with 6.2 out. Nothing unexpected happened last week, with just a random selection of small fixes spread all over, with nothing really standing out. The shortlog is tiny and appended below, you can scroll through it if you’re bored. Wed have a couple of small things that Thorsten was tracking on the regression side, but I wasn’t going to apply any last-minute patches that weren’t actively pushed by maintainers, so they will have to show up for stable. Nothing seemed even remotely worth trying to delay things for. And this obviously means that the 6.3 merge window will open tomorrow, and I already have 30+ pull requests queued up, which I really appreciate. I like how people have started to take the whole “ready for […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs abd SoMs

February 20, 2023February 19, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Sparkfun NanoBeacon low power Bluetooth 5.3 beacon module supports Bosch BME280 and BMA400 sensors

Sparkfun NanoBeacon is a module equipped with InPlay IN100 NanoBeacon Bluetooth 5.3 beacon SoC, a Qwicc connector, and a few GPIOs designed to work with Bosch Sensortec BME280 3-in-1 humidity sensor, measuring humidity, air pressure, and ambient temperature, and the BMA400 ultra-low power accelerometer sensor. The IN100 NanoBeacon SoC consumes less than 650nA in sleep mode, supports proprietary, Bluetooth, Google Eddystone, and Apple iBeacon beacon modules, and offers a long range of up to several hundred meters. Sparkfun NanoBoard specifications: Bluetooth Beacon SoC – IN100 NanoBeacon SoC (See datasheet for details) Memory – 4 KB SRAM + 4 Kbit OTP memory Bluetooth 5.3 compliant Beacon Modes: Proprietary, BT, Google Eddystone, and Apple iBeacon compliant 2.4GHz RF frequency band, MedRadio band (2.36GHz) Programming-free and firmware-less design Long-range transmission: up to several hundred meters Security Authentication of beacon ID Privacy of advertising payload Power consumption Sub-uW power consumption for multi-year operation on […]

February 19, 2023February 25, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

URVE Board Pi RK3566 SBC comes with RTC, eMMC flash, and M.2 SSD socket

URVE Board Pi is a single board computer (SBC) powered by a Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor, 2GB RAM, 8GB eMMC flash, plus the same interfaces as the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B as well as an RTC with a coin-cell battery and an M.2 SSD socket. More specifically, the Rockchip RK3566 board comes with a 4Kp60 capable HDMI 2.0 port, a MIPI DSI/LVDS display interface, a MIPI CSI camera connector, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0/2.0 ports, a dual-band WiFi 5.0 and Bluetooth 4.2 wireless module, and the usual 40-pin GPIO header. URVE Board Pi specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 Quad Core Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 GPU, 0.8 TOPS NPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 (up to 8GB) Storage 8GB eMMC flash (up to 128GB) M.2 PCIe socket for 2242 NVMe SSD MicroSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 1.4/2.2, up to 4Kp60 4-lane […]