CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 20, 2024July 23, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

The Blette Stick relies on Bluetooth 5.0 LE for off-grid messaging with up to 1.1km range

Blette Stick Bluetooth LE offgrid communication

The Blette Stick is a Bluetooth 5.0 LE USB-C dongle designed to be attached to an Android smartphone in order to provide off-grid messaging and GPS coordinates sharing capabilities with a range of up to 1.1km in case WiFi and cellular networks are down. CNX Software readers may also be familiar with Meshtastic devices relying on WiFi to connect to the smartphone with Bluetooth and to other nodes using LoRaWAN to enable off-grid messaging while trekking or during emergencies. The Blettle Stick does something similar to the Meshtastic project but with Bluetooth LE long-range communication instead of Bluetooth+LoRaWAN. While the range will be shorter and limited to around 1km (line-of-sight), the plug-and-play design will make it easier to use for typical users who are not technically savvy. Blettle Stick specifications: SoC – Nordic Semi nRF52 Bluetooth 5.0 LE microcontroller (exact part number not specified, possibly nRF52840) Wireless – Bluetooth 5.0 […]

July 19, 2024July 20, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Texas Instruments AM6232/AM6254-powered SBC and industrial IoT gateway offered with a 20-year lifespan

AAEON PICO-AM62 TI AM62x Sitara PIco ITX SBC

AAEON’s PICO-AM62 and SRG-AM62 are respectively a single board computer (SBC) and an industrial IoT gateway powered by Texas Instruments AM6232 or AM6254 Sitara Arm Cortex-A53/M4 SoC, designed to operate within the -40°C to 85°C temperature range, and offered with a 20-year lifespan. The SRG-AM62 gateway simply houses the PICO-AM62 pico-ITX SBC within a metal case so both offer dual gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 1.4 port, and two USB 2.0 as well as communication interfaces such as RS-232/422/485 and CAN Bus. Designed to be operated in industrial settings, the systems support a wide 9V to 36V input voltage range. PICO-AM62 SBC and SRG-AM62 gateway specifications: SoC – Texas Instruments AM623x either AM6232 Sitara with dual-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.4 GHz, Cortex-M4F real-time core @ 400 MHz, no 3D GPU AM6254 Sitara with quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.4 GHz, Cortex-M4F real-time core @ 400 MHz, Imagination […]

July 19, 2024July 19, 2024 by Tomisin Olujinmi - No Comments

Femtosense introduces the AI-ADAM-100 system-in-package for affordable, efficient AI-based voice processing on the edge

Femtosense’s newest release, the AI-ADAM-100, combines a low-power Arm Cortex M0+ microcontroller from ABOV Semiconductor with the Femtosense Sparse Processing Unit (SPU), an in-house neural processing unit. This combination powers AI voice processing and cleanup capabilities on edge devices. It leverages sparsity techniques to ensure that models can run on edge devices without intensive processing. Sparsity in AI refers to the presence of zeroes or non-zero values in the matrices and tensors used in machine learning models. No computation is required for these zero weights, heavily reducing processing requirements. The Femtosense AI-ADAM-100 aims to bring voice control to various devices such as home appliances, hearing aids, industrial headsets, and consumer earbuds. These appliances can implement voice user interfaces that allow users to talk naturally in their own words. On-device voice cleanup functionality would reduce infrastructure costs and improve the accuracy of the data sent to the cloud. The Femtosense SiP […]

July 19, 2024July 20, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 36 Comments

Radxa X4 low-cost, credit card-sized Intel N100 SBC goes for $60 and up

Radxa X4 is a credit card-sized Intel Processor N100 single board computer (SBC) that costs almost the same as a Raspberry Pi 5 with the 4GB RAM model going for about $60 and the 8GB RAM variant around $80. The x86 SBC offers many of the same features as the Raspberry Pi 5 including dual micro HDMI output, four USB 3.2/2.0 ports, Ethernet and WiFi networking, and the 40-pin GPIO header handled through a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller. Networking is better with 2.5GbE and WiFi 6, M.2 SSD support is built-in and four to eight times faster compared to PCIe HAT for the Pi 5, and the USB 3.2 ports are capable of 10 Gbps speed. So let’s little not too like, and the main downside is the lack of MIPI CSI and DSI connectors for projects requiring those camera and display interfaces. Radxa X4 specifications: SoC – Intel Processor […]

July 19, 2024July 19, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

How to easily enable MediaTek MT7922 Bluetooth on Ubuntu 24.04

MediaTek MT7922 WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 modules have recently been found in several mini PCs, but Bluetooth would not work in Linux due to a lack of drivers. In this post, we’ll show how to easily enable Bluetooth in MediaTek MT7922 modules when running Ubuntu 24.04. We previously noted that Ian Morrisson submitted a patch adding the IDs for the MT7922 module (Azurewave AW-XB591NF) used in recent GEEKOM mini PCs last March. In theory, you could have rebuilt the Linux kernel, but now that Linux 6.10 has been released, it’s much easier since Canonical has made the Linux 6.10 kernel available for Ubuntu, so we only need to install it and problem solved! Ubuntu 24.04 ships with Linux 6.8, we can see a Bluetooth opcode error in the kernel log.

July 18, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

$39 Acelink SM81 MediaTek Filogic 820 WiFi 6 system-on-module runs OpenWrt 23.05 or Debian 11

ACELINK SM81 MediaTek Filogic 820 system-on-module

Acelink SM81 is a compact (50x36mm) system-on-module based on the MediaTek Filogic 820 (MT7981A/B) processor with WiFi 6 and Ethernet connectivity designed for IoT applications such as routers, access points, and gateways. The wireless module ships with up to 1GB DDR4 memory, a 2MB NOR flash for the bootloader, a 32GB eMMC flash for Linux or an optional NAND flash, and exposes various I/Os such as gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, PCIe 2.1, UART, and more through castellated holes. Acelink SM81 specifications: SoC (one or the other) MediaTek MT7981AA (Filogic 820) dual-core processor @ 1.3 GHz MediaTek MT7981BA (Filogic 820) dual-core processor @ 1.3 GHz without PCIe interface System Memory – 1GB DDR4 @ 2133 Mbps Storage 2MB NOR flash for bootloader 16GB or 32GB eMMC flash for main OS (OpenWrt) Footprint for NAND flash Wireless Radio Mode – 2.4GHz 2×2 + 5GHz 3×3 MIMO via MT7976CN RF IC Radio Frequency […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

July 18, 2024July 18, 2024 by Debashis Das - No Comments

STMicro ST4SIM-300 eSIM complies with SGP.32 GSMA eSIM Standard for IoT

STMicroelectronics has recently released the ST4SIM-300 eSIM, the first embedded SIM (eSIM) IC that complies with the new GSMA eSIM IoT Technical Specification (SGP.32). The chip is fully compliant with remote SIM provisioning of the GSMA eSIM IoT standards, so it works with 2G, 3G, 4G (LTE), CDMA, NB-IoT, and Cat-M networks. It is designed for small IoT devices and allows system operators to remotely program device subscriber identities over the air (OTA), making it a plug-and-play solution for seamless integration and management. Previously, we have written about Hologram’s IoT eSIM Chip that provides global connectivity and comes with 2FF, 3FF, 4FF, and Mff2- M2M form factors. We have also written about the Conexio Stratus Pro battery-powered nRF9161 development kit that supports eSIM as an option. ST4SIM-300 eSIM specifications Microcontroller – ST33K1M5M 32-bit Arm Cortex-M35P MCU Designed based on eSIM + eSE (embedded Secure Element) I/O Asynchronous serial I/O port […]

July 18, 2024July 18, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

MW-100-NAS Intel N100 motherboard features six SATA ports, two M.2 PCIe sockets, 2.5GbE and 10GbE interfaces

The MW-100-NAS mini-ITX motherboard is powered by an Intel Processor N100 Alder Lake-N CPU and seems especially suited for NAS (networked-attached storage) applications with six SATA connectors, two M.2 Key-M sockets for NVMe drivers, one 10GbE port, and two 2.5GbE RJ45 jacks. The motherboard supports up to 32GB DDR5 memory, features HDMI and DisplayPort video output ports, a COM port header, and plenty of external and internal USB interfaces. It takes power from a standard ATX connector. NW-N100-NAS motherboard specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N processor @ up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel HD graphics @ up to 750 MHz; TDP: 6W System Memory – Up to 32GB DDR5-4800 via SO-DIMM socket Storage 2x M.2 sockets for NVMe SSDs onboard 6x SATA connectors MicroSD card slot Video Output – 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort Networking 2x 2.5GbE RJ45 ports via Intel i226-V controllers 1x […]