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DEBIX Model A – A Raspberry Pi-inspired NXP i.MX 8M Plus SBC for AI applications

DEBIX Model A is a single board computer powered by an NXP i.MX 8M Plus quad-core Cortex-A53 processor with a 2.3 TOPS AI accelerator in a form factor that combines Raspberry Pi 4 and 3 Model B designs. The SBC comes with up to 6GB RAM, a microSD card slot, an optional eMMC flash of up to 128GB capacity, HDMI 2.0a, LVDS, and MIPI DSI display interfaces, a MIPI CSI camera interface, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 5 connectivity, plus a 40-pin GPIO expansion header. DEBIX Model A specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Plus quad-core Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.6 GHz (industrial) or 1.8 GHz (commercial), with Arm Cortex-M7 @ up to 800 MHz, Vivante GC7000UL 3D GPU, Vivante GC520L 2D GPU, 2.3 TOPS NPU System  Memory – 2GB LPDDR4 (4GB/6GB optional) Storage – Default: Micro SD card; optional 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB eMMC flash Video Output HDMI […]

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can2040 project adds software CAN bus to Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller

The can2040 project is a software CAN bus implementation for the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller that leverages programmable I/Os (PIO) to achieve reading and writing CAN 2.0B data frames at rates up to 1Mbit per second. Kevin O’Connor, the developer of the project, further explains the implementation uses only one of the two RP2040 PIO hardware blocks, so it is possible for a single Raspberry Pi RP2040 chip to have two separate CAN bus interfaces. Some processing also happens on one of the Arm Cortex-M0+ cores of the microcontroller with the processing time dependent on the amount of bus traffic, and a fully saturated CAN bus at the fastest supported rate of 1Mbit/s may use up to around 30% of that core when clocked at 125MHz, so that should still leave plenty of room for other tasks that may run on the system. I could not find any information about […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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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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Benchmarks comparison between UP 4000, Raspberry Pi 4, UP board, and Jetson Nano

We wrote about the UP 4000 SBC with an Intel Apollo Lake processor and Raspberry Pi form factor yesterday.  But today, I noticed the UP community had put up a benchmarks comparison between the UP 4000 board, the original UP board (Atom x5-8350), the Raspberry Pi 4, and NVIDIA Jetson Nano. They used several of the Phoronix Test Suite benchmarks running on Ubuntu 20.04 (x86) or Ubuntu 18.04 (Arm) on all four boards. The UP 4000 board used featured an Intel Celeron N3350 dual-core processor @ 2.40GHz, the 2GB RAM version of the UP Board, an RPi 4 with 4GB RAM, and a Jetson Nano developer kit with 4GB RAM. As one would have expected, the UP 4000 is ahead in most tests, even though they did not select a model with a quad-core processor such as a Pentium N4200. Note that reading the table may be confusing as for […]

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Using Raspberry Pi Pico as a logic analyzer

MCU boards, including the $1.5 BluePill board, have been used as cheap logic analyzers for years, notably with Sigrok open-source software. So it should come as no surprise the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico board can also be used as a logic analyzer, with one developer claiming it can deliver 100 Msps, or the performance obtained with a 1.6 GHz CPU, thanks to the PIOs from the Raspberry Pi RP2040. Hackaday reported about a Sigrok driver for the Pico last March, but the topic was brought to our attention via a post on Hackster.io about an open-source Windows program developed from scratch to transform the Raspberry Pi Pico board into a logic analyzer capable of 100 Msps. Agustín Gimenez Bernad (aka gusmanb)’s LogicAnalyzer program offers up to 24 digital channels, pre, and post-trigger sampling, edge trigger and pattern trigger up to 16 bits. It can work with the Raspberry Pi Pico […]

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UP 4000 SBC is a Raspberry Pi lookalike with an Intel Apollo Lake processor

AAEON has unveiled the UP 4000 single board computer with a form factor and ports arrangement similar to Raspberry Pi 2/3, but powered by a choice of x86 processors, namely the Intel Atom E3900 series, Celeron N3350, or Pentium N4200 all parts of the Apollo Lake family. The first UP Board was introduced in 2015 as a device offering an x86 alternative to the Raspberry Pi 2 with an Intel Atom x5-Z8300/Z8350 “Cherry Trail” processor, but later “UP bridge the gap” boards from the company used larger “Squared” (85.6 x 90 mm) or “Xtreme” (122 x 120 mm) form factors. The UP 4000 SBC brings us back to the original business card form factor but with a boost in performance and various specifications improvements. UP 4000 vs UP Board specifications   AAEON says the new board is able to deliver 30% faster CPU performance and twice the 3D graphics performance […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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Getting started with WiFi on Raspberry Pi Pico W board

Raspberry Pi Trading announced the Raspberry Pi Pico W board basically based on the same design as the original Raspberry Pi Pico board with RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller but adding a wireless module with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE 5.2, although the latter is not enabled on the board at this time. The company sent me a sample for review/evaluation, and I’ll focus on the WiFi part since the Raspberry Pi Pico W supports the same MicroPython and C/C++ SDKs as for the Raspberry Pi Pico board plus additional APIs for wireless connectivity. Raspberry Pi Pico W unboxing The board I received was cut from a 480-unit reel, and I also got a one-meter long micro USB to USB cable, which should probably not be included by default for people ordering the $6 board. Just like its predecessor, the board is tiny, and The pinout is the same as the […]

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Raspberry Pi Pico W – A $6 Raspberry Pi Pico board with WiFi 4

I was expecting the next official Raspberry Pi board to be either an update of Raspberry Pico with WiFi and Bluetooth or with a machine learning accelerator and the new $6 Raspberry Pi Pico W delivers that wish through the addition of 2.4GHz WiFi 4. Having said that, I was actually expecting a competitor to ESP8266 or ESP32 with a new Raspberry Pi wireless microcontroller, but it did quite happen that way as the Raspberry Pi Pico W features the same Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller found in Raspberry Pi Pico board coupled with an Infineon CYW43439 chip that’s supposed to support both 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE 5.2. Bluetooth is not enabled right now, but may be at a later stage. Raspberry Pi Pico W specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz with 264KB SRAM Storage – 2MB QSPI flash Connectivity […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC