CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 31, 2021December 31, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Mico – A USB microphone based on Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU

Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller has found its way into Mico, a compact USB microphone with a PDM microphone providing better quality than cheap USB microphones going for one or two dollars or even 5 cents shipped for new Aliexpress users. The project started when Mahesh Venkitachalam (Elecronut Labs) was doing audio experiments with Machine Learning on the Raspberry Pi, and found out USB microphone dongles were extremely noisy with poor (distance) sensitivity, so he completed the project with a high-quality I2S microphone instead. He then had the idea of making his own USB microphone and found out Sandeep Mistry had already developed a Microphone Library for Pico, so he mostly had to work on the hardware that’s how Mico Raspberry Pi RP2040 USB microphone came to be. Mico specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ up to 133 MHz with 264KB SRAM Storage – 128Mbit […]

December 30, 2021January 2, 2022 by Sponsored Post - 2 Comments

Indoor positioning BU01 development board can detect tiny body movements (Sponsored)

GPS is available for outdoor positioning, what about indoors? There is a positioning technology that is more accurate than GPS: UWB. The technology offers positioning accuracy within 10cm which greatly compensates for the shortcomings of the indoor RSSI positioning of past IoT products. UWB technology is a wireless carrier communication technology that uses a frequency bandwidth above 1 GHz. It does not use a sinusoidal carrier but uses nanosecond-level non-sinusoidal narrow pulses to transmit data and occupies a large frequency spectrum, hence the name “Ultra-Wideband”, or UWB for shorts. Besides positioning, UWB can also be used for data transmission with a rate of hundreds of megabits per second. BU01 development board features MCU – STMicro STM32F103 Arm Cortex-M3 microcontroller UWB module – Ai-Thinker BU01 module 50 I/O pins exposed for functions. Sensors – Onboard acceleration sensor, temperature, and humidity sensor Misc – User buttons and LED Power Supply – 5V […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

December 30, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Sipeed Lichee RV RISC-V module gets $5+ carrier board with HDMI and USB ports, optional WiFi

Sipeed introduced the Lichee RV Allwinner D1 Linux RISC-V board going for just $17 with 512MB RAM last month. While with a USB-C port it could be used as a standalone part, its dual M.2 connector makes it more like a module and we noted a tiny carrier board was in the works at the time. The baseboard is now available and known as the Lichee RV Dock adding HDMI and USB ports, as well as a 40-pin GPIO header for just $5, or $8 if you’d like to get Wi-Fi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity through a Realtek RTL8723DS module. Sipeed Lichee RV Dock specifications: Supported system-on-module (SoM) – Lichee RV module with Allwinner D1 RISC-V processor @ 1 GHz, 512MB DDR3, MicroSD card slot, and USB Type-C OTG port Storage – Optional SPI flash Display interfaces HDMI port up to 4Kp30 Optional RGB interface for up to 720p30 […]

December 30, 2021December 30, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

CH583 RISC-V microcontroller supports Bluetooth 5.3 LE

Following up on the CH572 RISC-V BLE microcontroller with 10KB SRAM, WCH has now introduced the CH583 RISC-V microcontroller with 32KB SRAM, 1 MB flash, and support for the latest Bluetooth 5.3 LE standard. The new microcontroller also offers a wide range of peripherals with two USB host/device interfaces, up to 40 GPIOs, four UART, two SPI, one I2C, up to 14 ADC interfaces, and more. WCH also offers CH581 and CH582 microcontrollers with a different minimum input voltage, less storage (256KB for CH581) and/or peripherals. CH581, CH582, CH583 specifications: MCU core – 32-bit RISC processor WCH RISC-V4A with RV32IMAC instruction set Memory – 32 KB SRAM Storage – 512KB non-volatile storage FlashROM: 448KB user application program memory area CodeFlash 32KB user non-volatile data memory area DataFlash 24KB system boot program memory area BootLoader 8KB system non-volatile configuration information memory area InfoFlash BLE Connectivity Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) v5.3 Integrated […]

December 29, 2021December 29, 2021 by Sponsored Post - 10 Comments

10,000 mAh Graphene power bank fully charges in 27 minutes (Sponsored)

Most power banks are made of Lithium batteries that charge in 3 to 4 hours and are good for around 500 charge cycles. But Elecjet Apollo Ultra is a different beast equipped with a 10,000 mAh Graphene battery that enables fast charging in just 27 minutes and offers a much longer lifespan with over 2,500 charge cycles. In other words that means Apollo Ultra power bank is 5x faster and lasts 5x longer than most lithium-based power banks. Another way to look at it is that this graphene-enhanced 10,000mAh power bank can gather enough power in just 7 minutes to fully charge your phone. It can fast-charge your phone up to three times, charge two devices at once, and passthrough charging lets you charge Apollo Ultra at the same time. Elecjet Apollo Ultra specifications: Battery Capacity – 10,000 mAh or 40 Wh Full Charge Time – 27 minutes USB ports […]

December 29, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Raspberry Pi UPS HAT takes two 18650 batteries (Crowdfunding)

Raspberry Pi UPS solutions have been available for years with products like PiJuice Zero, PiVoyager, or LiFePO4wered/Pi+. But the team at SB Components has designed another UPS HAT for Raspberry Pi with a holder for two 18650 batteries. The HAT is designed for 5V operation up to 2.5A, connects with the Raspberry Pi SBC through the I2C bus from the 40-pin GPIO header, and is equipped with a 0.91-inch OLED for information display. UPS HAT for Raspberry Pi specifications: Power Input – 8.4V/2A via DC jack Power Output – 5V up to 2.5A through LDO chip (GPIO header and 2x USB ports) Display – 0.91-inch OLED Host interface – I2C Misc – On/Off switch Battery support 18650 Lithium battery (not included) via holder for two batteries Battery reverse indicator Charging and voltage monitoring via TI INA219 I2C chip Battery voltage balancing with Hycon HY2213 Battery protection IC (Hycon HY2120) Dimensions […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

December 29, 2021December 31, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 22 Comments

OS and Memory Impact on Mini PC Gaming Performance

This article looks at what the effect of running a different operating system or having more memory has on similarly spec’d Intel and AMD mini PCs when gaming. Note: This article has been updated and corrected as a result of reader feedback and additional testing. It was inspired by having built and tested a pseudo ‘Steamdeck’ running Manjaro on an AMD-based mini PC with 16GB of memory, which made me wonder what the performance would be like using Windows 11. Initial results were surprising because Windows appeared much slower. As I’d previously heard of performance improvements when using 64GB of memory I swapped out the currently installed 16GB memory and immediately saw improved results. As I’d never observed such a dramatic performance increase on Intel mini PCs just through increasing the memory I decided to explore further by testing gaming performance on similar Intel and AMD mini PCs when using […]

December 28, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

NOVELDA UWB X4 sensor can detect submillimeter movements

We’ve just written about an ESP32 UWB board equipped with an ultra-wideband module designed for indoor positioning with about 10 centimeters accuracy, which should be good enough for many applications, but it turns out UWB sensors can be made to be much more accurate. NOVELDA has just announced the UWB X4/X4F103 sensor and development kit that can detect submillimeter micro-movements such as breathing for human presence detection and does so at a really low power consumption of under 2mW. NOVELDA UWB X4 (X4F103) highlights: High-precision ranging for accurate distance measurement and absolute range bounding based on patented impulse radar technology Low power consumption below 2mW, and no co-existence issues with other sensors Wide detection zone for accurate detection with up to 180-degree field of view Up to 5m range Works through plastic and glass or layers of clothing Package – 12 x 12mm sensor A big difference compares to Decawave […]