CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 9, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Mekotronics R58X-4G – A Rockchip RK3588 mini PC with 4G LTE and PoE support

Mekotronics R58X-4G is an update to the company’s R58X Rockchip RK3588 mini PC with support for 4G LTE mini PCIe modules and PoE power. The computer is sold with up to 16GB RAM, up to 128 GB eMMC flash, support SATA and NVMe storage, offers two 8K capable HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs, one 4K HDMI input, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module, a few USB ports, and a terminal block with RS232 and RS485 interfaces. Mekotronics R58X-4G specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with four Cortex-A76 cores @ 2.4 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz, an Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU, a 6TOPS NPU, 8K 10-bit decoder, 8K encoder System Memory – 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB LPDDR4x Storage 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB eMMC 5.1 flash 1x SATA 3.0 connector + SATA power connector M.2 2280 (PCIe 3.0) socket for NVMe SSD Video Output […]

December 9, 2022December 10, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Lattice Avant mid-range FPGA platform features up to 500K logic cells, 25 Gbps SERDES, Hard PCIe Gen4

Lattice Avant is a new low-power and small form factor mid-range FPGA platform, manufactured with a 16nm FinFET process, and equipped with 25 Gb/s SERDES, hardened PCI Express, external memory PHY interfaces, a high DSP count, and a security engine. Lattice Semi is better known for its entry-level FPGAs such as the iCE40 which is popular in the community thanks to low-cost hardware and support for open-source tools, but the Avant platform marks the company’s entry into the mid-range FPGA market, defined by chips with 100k to 500k logic cells (LCs). Lattice Avant highlights: FPGA fabric – 200K to 500K logic cells up to 350 MHz DSP – 700 to 1,8000 18×18 multipliers @ up to 650 MHz to support the latest AI algorithms Memory 14-36 Mbit embedded memory up to 650 MHz DDR3L/DDR4/LPDDR4 and DDR5 support I/Os 4x to 28x 25 Gbps multi-protocol SERDES Hard PCIe Gen4 200 to […]

December 9, 2022December 9, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Bee Motion S3 – An ESP32-S3 board with a PIR motion sensor (Crowdfunding)

The Bee Motion S3 is an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth IoT board with a PIR motion sensor beside the more usual I/Os, Qwiic connector, USB-C port, and LiPo battery support. It is at least the third PIR motion wireless board from Smart Bee Designs, as the company previously introduced the ESP32-S2 powered Bee Motion board and the ultra-small Bee Motion Mini with an ESP32-C3 SoC. The new Bee Motion S3 adds a few more I/Os, a light sensor, and the ESP32-S3’s AI vector extensions could potentially be used for faster and/or lower-power TinyML processing. Bee Motion S3 specifications: Wireless module – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3-MINI-1 module (PDF datasheet) based on ESP32-S3 dual-core Xtensa LX7 microcontroller with 512KB SRAM, 384KB ROM, WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, and equipped with 8MB of QSPI flash and a PCB antenna USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Sensors PIR sensor S16-L221D […]

December 8, 2022January 23, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Gowin R86S mini PC offers 2.5GbE and 10GbE networking for $310 and up

Gowin R86S (aka GW-R86S) is an affordable Intel Celeron N5100 or Pentium N6005 Jasper Lake mini PC, router, and firewall appliance with 2.5GbE and 10GbE networking that sells for $310 and up on Aliexpress. 10GbE used to be reserved for the enterprise market due to the cost of hardware, but costs have gone down a lot as illustrated by the Gowin R86S system with up to three 2.5GbE ports, two 10GbE SFP+ cages, as well as ports that you would typically find a mini PC such as HDMI 2.0 video output, M.2 socket for NVMe SSD, two USB 3.0 ports, and a WiFi module. Gowin R86S specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 2.9GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD graphics 605; 10W TDP Intel Pentium N6005 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 3.3GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD graphics @ up to […]

December 8, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Arduino PLC IDE released for the Portenta Machine Control unit, and soon Opta micro PLC

The newly released Arduino PLC IDE supports the five languages defined by the IEC 61131-3 standard: Ladder Diagram, Functional Block Diagram, Structured Text, Sequential Function Chart, and Instruction List. With Arduino focusing more and more on the industrial side with its Arduino Pro family, the company unveiled the Arduino Opta Micro PLC for industrial application last month and said it could be programmed with traditional PLC languages such as Ladder and FCB as well as the Arduino 2.0.0 IDE. The company now seems to have created an all-in-one integrated development environment for such hardware with the Arduino PLC IDE supporting PLC languages with Arduino Sketches. The program now supports the Portenta Machine Control unit, but the upcoming Opta micro PLC will be added soon. The IDE integrates no-code Fieldbus configurators that allow users to manage CanOpen, Modbus RTU, and Modbus TCP communication easily, and Arduino also mentions “advanced monitoring and […]

December 7, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Hand Gesture Recognition on ESP32-S3 with the ESP-DL library

Ali Hassan Shah has deployed a deep learning model for hand gesture recognition on the ESP32-S3-EYE board using the ESP-DL library and achieved AI-powered hand recognition with a 0.7-second latency on the ESP32-S3 camera board. Last year, Espressif released the ESP-DL library for the ESP32-S3 microcontroller with AI vector extensions, as well as ESP32 and ESP32-S2, along with a face detection demo that ran much faster on the ESP32-S3. Ali rolled out his own solution for AI gesture recognition and provided a step-by-step tutorial along the way. The main steps to deploying a custom model with the ESP-DL library include: Model Development that involves Getting or creating datasets. In this case, downloaded from Kaggle with 6 gestures namely Palm, I, Thumb, Index, Ok, and C. Testing, training, and calibrating the datasets Building a (CNN) Model Training a Model Saving a Model to the Hierarchical Data format (.h5) Converting the H.5 […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Add an ePaper display to Raspberry Pi Pico W with EnkPi 2.9-inch to 7.5-inch displays (Crowdfunding)

EnkPi Raspberry Pi Pico W ePaper Display

SB Components is running another crowdfunding campaign with the EnkPi ePaper display powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico W board and offered in four different sizes namely 2.9-inch, 4.2-inch 5.83-inch, and 7.5-inch. Each mainboard also comes with a USB Type-C port, a microSD card socket, an RTC with a backup battery holder, a buzzer, six user buttons, and a JST connector for expansion with GPIO, I2C, UART, and ADC signals. EnkPi specifications: MCU board – Raspberry Pi Pico W with Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller, 2MB QSPI flash, WiFi 4 module. Storage – MicroSD card socket Display connected over SPI to the Pico W board 2.9-inch tricolor ePaper display with 296×128 resolution 4.2-inch tricolor ePaper display with 400×300 resolution 5.83-inch tricolor ePaper display with 648×480 resolution 7.5-inch tricolor ePaper display with 800×480 resolution Partial refresh support with up to 170 degrees wide viewing angle USB – 1x USB Type-C […]

December 7, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

UP Xtreme i12 Alder Lake SBC supports up to four 4K displays @ 60 Hz, Raspberry Pi HATs

AAEON has just introduced the UP Xtreme i12 single board computer (SBC) with Intel 12th generation Alder Lake-P hybrid SoC with up to 12 cores/16 threads, up to 32GB LPDDR5 memory, support for four 4Kp60 displays, and equipped with high-speed interfaces such as USB 4.0 and 2.5 GbE. The board also features four M.2 sockets for NVMe storage, Wi-Fi 6 and 5G cellular connectivity, a SATA III port, several USB 3.2/2.0 Type-A ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header and mounting thread for Raspberry Pi HATs, which should make it especially suitable for IoT, robotics, and smart retail applications, as well as smart manufacturing with a 12 to 36V wide supply voltage range. UP Xtreme i12 specifications: Alder Lake-P SoC (One or the other) Intel Core i7-1270PE 12-core/16-thread processor @ 3.30GHz / 4.50GHz (Turbo) with 96EU Intel Xe graphics – PBP: 28W, up to 64W MTP Intel Core i5-1250PE 12-core/16-thread processor […]