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$5.5 Banana Pi BPI-PicoW-S3 ESP32-S3 board follows Raspberry Pi Pico W form factor

Banana Pi’s BPI-PicoW-S3 is a development board following the Raspberry Pi Pico W form factor, but based on Espressif System ESP32-S3 dual-core microcontroller offering both WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE connectivity. The Raspberry Pi SBCs have inspired many designs, but the Raspberry Pi Pico MCU boards less so. So far, I had only seen the WeAct RP2040 board with the same layout except for a USB Type-C port and a 16MB flash. But the Banana Pi BPI-PicoW-S3 provides a direct alternative to the Raspberry Pi Pico W with a more powerful microcontroller, vector instructions for AI acceleration, BLE, and about the same price at $5.5 plus shipping. Let’s see how the BPI-PicoW-S3 specifications compare to the ones of the Raspberry Pi Pico W in the table below. While the power signal (5V, 3.3V, GND) and GPIO numbers are the same on both boards, there are a few variations here and […]

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MangoPi MQ Quad SBC – Allwinner H616 meets Raspberry Pi Zero W form factor

MangoPi MQ Quad is an Allwinner H616 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 SBC following Raspberry Pi Zero W form factor, and the company’s earlier MangoPi MQ Pro RISC-V SBC featuring the Allwinner D1 processor. The MangoPi MQ Quad also comes with 1GB RAM, a mini HDMI output, two USB Type-C ports, WiFI 4 and Bluetooth connectivity, a microSD card, as well a 40-pin Raspberry Pi-compatible GPIO header and an FPC connector with USB, Ethernet, and more GPIOs for expansion. MangoPi MQ Quad specifications: SoC – Allwinner H616 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz with Mali-G31 MP2 GPU with OpenGL 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0 API support System Memory – 1GB DDR3L Storage – MicroSD card slot, a footprint for SPI flash (on the bottom of the board) Video Output – Mini HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2 via RTL8723DS; ceramic and u.FL antennas included USB […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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Compact3566 – A Rockchip RK3566 SBC that closely follows Raspberry Pi 3 form factor

We’ve very recently written about Geniatech XPI-3566 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3566 CPU that somewhat follows the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B form factor. Boardcon Compact3566 offers similar features, but it appears to keep exactly the same port assignment as the Raspberry Pi SBC, so it should be compatible with more accessories. The Compact3566 SBC ships with up to 8GB LPDDR4 and 128GB eMMC flash, features Gigabit Ethernet & WiFi 5, four USB 3.0/2.0 ports,  HDMI 2.0 output, MIPI DSI and CSI interfaces, the 40-pin GPIO header, as well as extra built-in features such as an M.2 socket for storage, RTC with battery, and a built-in microphone. Compact3566 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.8 GHz with ARM Mali-G52 2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2. OpenCL 2.0. Vulkan 1.1, 0.8 TOPS NPU System Memory – 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4/LPDDR4X Storage 8GB, 16GB, […]

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WeAct RP2040 board adds 16MB flash, USB-C port to Raspberry Pi Pico form factor

If the Raspberry Pi Pico’s 2MB of QSPI flash is not quite sufficient for your needs, and you’d not quite a fan of micro USB ports, the WeAct RP2040 “clone” comes with up to 16MB flash and a USB Type-C port for power and programming. Another improvement is the addition of a reset button, which can be convenient for flashing UF2 firmware, and the pinout remains mostly the same. The price is not quite as low as the original Raspberry Pi Pico, but the board sells for an affordable $5.99 with 2MB flash, while the 16MB flash variant goes for $8.99 with shipping included in both cases. WeAct RP2040 specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz (overclockable to 250+ MHz) with 264KB SRAM Storage – 2MB to 16MB QSPI flash USB – 1x USB 1.1 Type-C port used for power and programming Expansion 2x 20-pin […]

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StackyPi – A Raspberry Pi RP2040 board with Raspberry Pi Zero form factor (Crowdfunding)

SB Components’ StackyPi is a development board based on Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU that happens to follow the Raspberry Pi Zero form factor. The board is equipped with 8MB SPI flash for the firmware, a MicroSD card socket, a micro SB port, two buttons, and a 40-pin GPIO header that makes it compatible with some Raspberry Pi uHAT and HAT expansion boards. StackyPi specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ up to 133 MHz with 264KB SRAM Storage – 8MB (64Mbit) SPI flash, MicroSD card socket USB – 1x Micro USB port Expansion – 40-pin GPIO header with GPIO, I2C, UART, SPI, etc… mostly compatible with Raspberry Pi header (3.3V I/Os) Misc – Reset and Boot buttons Power Supply- 5V via Micro USB port Dimensions – 65 x 30 mm (Raspberry Pi Zero form factor) The main advantage of such as board is that it can support […]

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Piunora has the guts of a Raspberry Pi 4 with Arduino form factor, M.2 PCIe socket (Crowdfunding)

The Raspberry Pi 4 is a pretty cool board, but if you wished it was just a bit smaller, and you could use the PCIe interface exposed by the Broadcom BCM2711 processor more easily, Timon has designed Piunora carrier board for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. The solution provides a board with the guts of Raspberry Pi 4 SBC but using the Arduino form factor including access to the six ADC pins, and an M.2 socket with the PCIe signal from the Broadcom SoC. Piunora carrier board specifications: SoM compatibility – Raspberry Pi CM4 module with Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor @ 1.5 GHz, 1 to 8GB RAM, optional 4GB to 32GB eMMC flash, optional wireless module with 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 Storage – 1x MicroSD card socket (for the OS when using Raspberry Pi CM4Lite system-on-module) Video Output – 1x HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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ZynqBerryZero Brings Xilinx Zynq-7010 FPGA SoC to Raspberry Pi Zero Form Factor

Trenz Electronic introduced ZynqBerry in 2017 as a Xilinx Zynq FPGA board following Raspberry Pi 2/3 Model B form factor, and the company has now just launched another Raspberry Pi inspired FPGA board with ZynqBerryZero following Raspberry Pi Zero form factor. ZynqberryZero is equipped with a Xilinx Zynq-7000 series FPGA & Arm Cortex-A9 SoC combined with 512 MB RAM and 16MB flash, and offers all Raspberry Pi Zero ports namely a 40-pin GPIO header, two micro USB ports, a mini HDMI connector, a CSI connector, and micro SD card slot. ZynqBerryZero specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq XC7Z010-1CLG225C with dual-core Cortex-A9 clocked up to 667 MHz, FPGA fabric with 28K logic cells,  2.1Mbit block RAM, and 80x DSP slices System Memory – 512 MB DDR3L SDRAM Storage – 16 MB Flash memory, MicroSD card slot Video Output – Mini HDMI connector, type C Camera – CSI-2 connector USB – 1x Micro […]

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HealthyPi v4 Wearable WiFi Vital Signs Monitor Follows Raspberry Pi HAT Form Factor

HealthyPi v4 Campaign Starts ProtoCentral has started a Crowd Supply campaign for the HealthyPi v4, its latest vital signs monitoring dev kit. The HealthyPi v4 is wearable, wireless, and can be mounted on a Raspberry Pi. The units are all open source and stand-alone made for end-users, students as well as researchers and developers.  An Improvement on HealthyPi v3 The recent increase in health-related tech has fueled ProtoCentral’s desire to bring its HealthyPi v3 up to current usability and development standards. The retail versions of the HealthyPi v4 are made specifically to work in conjunction with the Android OS for ease of use and mobility.  Also, the Raspberry Pi HAT form factor is also supported in this version of the device. Articles On Health-Related Development The articles that have touched on health-related issues and topics from our archives, as well as very recently include HEGduino a neurofeedback monitor and […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC