CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 20, 2021July 20, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

PandaZhu – ESP32 powered 3D Printer controller board supports Marlin 2.0 & ESP3D WebUI

PandaZhu ESP32 3D Printer controller board

Around two years ago, we noted beta Marlin 2.0 support for ESP32 and some initiatives to create ESP32 powered 3D printer controller boards with built-in WiFi connectivity. Now Marlin 2.0 firmware officially supports ESP32 boards such as FYSETC E4, E4d@BOX, or MRR ESPA. Another ESP32 based 3D printer controller board has now been brought to my attention. PandaZhu supports up to eight motor drivers, up to three heaters, up to three thermistors, one external LCD display, and on the software-side, the board is compatible with Marlin 2.0 as well as ESP3D WebUI. PandaZhu board’s specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-WROOM-32 based on Espressif ESP32 dual-core Xtensa processor @ 240MHz with 520 KB SRAM, plus 4MB flash Connectivity – 802.11b/g/n up to 150 Mbps, Bluetooth 4.2 3D printer peripherals Up to 8x motor drivers Up to 3x heaters Up to 3x thermistors with 30°C to 250°C range, BLTouch auto-leveling sensor with a […]

July 20, 2021June 18, 2023 by Sponsored Post - Comments Off

NextPCB acquires KIKIPCB, celebrates with midsummer sale (Sponsored)

In the PCB manufacturing business, scale matters with larger companies being able to source materials at a cheaper price, and get discounts on shipping. In order to provide even more cost-effective services, a wider range of options, as well as shorter turnaround times, NextPCB has recently acquired KIKIPCB. This will allow the companies to share all services, factories, and talents they have such as PCB prototyping, small and medium volume production, PCB assembly service and PCB & SMT factories, let alone all component inventory, and hundreds of engineers. To celebrate their new acquisition, NextPCB is organizing a midsummer sale with up to 30% discount for PCB orders. and up to 20% off for PCBA orders. Specifically, the company offers a 30% discount when the PCB area is less than 3 m², and 20% for larger orders. For PCB manufacturing and assembly services, the price is reduced by 15% for orders […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

July 19, 2021July 19, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

AMD Athlon 300U powered AM02 Mini PC goes for $240 and up

It’s not that easy to find a relatively low-cost AMD mini PC, and there are more choices on Intel’s side. Most models around $250-$300 are barebone without memory or storage, but AM02 mini PC may be an interesting option as the AMD Athlon 300U powered computer sells for about $240 plus shipping with 8GB RAM and a 128GB SSD, which looks to be an even better option than the Maxtang MTN-FP50 mini PC we reported on last June. All AM02 models ship with Windows 10 by default, but you may be able to ask the seller to install Linux instead (TBC), and support up to 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Note that the seller apparently made a mistake with the 16GB/256GB model, as it is sold for just $232.89, instead of $332.89. It might still be worth a try 🙂 AM02 specifications: SoC – AMD Athlon 300U dual-core/quad-thread processor @ […]

July 19, 2021July 20, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 51 Comments

ROCK 3A SBC brings M.2 slots for NVMe SSD, WiFi 6 to Raspberry Pi form factor

Radxa ROCK 3A is a single board computer powered by Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor that closely follows Raspberry Pi 3 Model B form factor like the early Rock Pi 4 SBC, but with a twist. By switching from a Rockchip RK3399 to a Rockchip RK3568, the board loses some CPU and GPU performance, but gains extra I/Os with enabled the company to add an additional M.2 slot with PCIe to ROCK 3A board, meaning it’s now possible to attach one NVMe SSD and another M.2 module like a WiFi 6 M.2 card. ROCK 3A preliminary specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex A55 processor at up to 2GHz, with Mali G52 GPU, 0.8TOPS NPU System Memory – 2GB, 4GB, 8GB LPDDR4 3200MT/s, up to 1560MHz Storage Pluggable eMMC module MicroSD card slot M.2 M key socket for NVMe with PCIe 3.0 x2 lanes 4MB SPI flash with support for […]

July 19, 2021July 19, 2021 by Abhishek Jadhav - No Comments

WARP-V: A RISC-V CPU Core Generator Supporting MIPS ISA

If you have been working on open standard RISC-V ISA CPU cores, there is a high chance that you have come across WARP-V. For newbies, WARP-V is a RISC-V CPU core generator written in TL-Verilog (Transaction-Level Verilog) that supports not only RISC-V but also MIPS ISA. WARP-V has been in discussion for a while due to its unparalleled architectural scalability in a small amount of code. The famous proverb “Necessity is the mother of invention” applies to the invention of TL-Verilog and with that this WARP-V CPU core generator. For decades, hundreds of engineers have been working on designing a single CPU core that was more complex in the race to achieve higher single-core performance. But with recent developments in the semiconductor industry, developer and engineer Steve Hoover, with decades of experience in designing CPU cores, has come up with the idea of developing a WARP-V core in just 1.5 […]

July 18, 2021July 19, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Linux 5.0 shown to boot on ESP32 processor

ESP32 IoT processor supports up to 8MB PSRAM which makes it just enough to run a minimal version of Linux. There’s little practical application for it, but it may be fun to try, and one developer apparently managed to boot Linux 5.0.0 on a board with an ESP32 dual-core Xtensa processor connected to 8MB PSRAM and a 2MB SPI flash. The shortened boot log above shown the bootloader output with ESP32-D0WD dual-core Xtensa processor eventually booting Linux 5.0.0. But the boot process is somewhat convoluted as the bootloader jumps to “Juice Vm” described as a “small RISC-V virtual machine” which then calls OpenSBI RISC-V Open Source Supervisor Binary Interface which loads the Linux kernel and a small file system. The full boot log and binary images were shared on a Reddit thread and Whycan with the latter in Chinese. The total image size is around 1.5 MB that almost entirely […]

July 17, 2021September 16, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

The first Arm SystemReady IR certified platforms – NXP i.MX 8M Mini EVK & Compulab IOT-GATE-IMX8 gateway

A few months ago, we noted SolidRun HoneyComb LX2K became a certified Arm SystemReady ES platform. SystemReady is a certification program by Arm that ensures systems just work with generic operating systems like in the x86 world. When we looked at the details of the program in the article, we noted there were different categories including SystemReady ES for embedded servers and SystemReady IR for IoT Edge applications. The first SystemReady IR platform – NXP i.MX 8 Mini evaluation kit Arm has just announced the first SystemReady IR platform had just been certified. That device is the NXP i.MX 8M Mini EVK, and that means that anyone that uses the i.MX 8M family of devices with the associated Board Support Package (BSP) can build platforms that will pass the same certification process and boot compliant Linux distributions with minimal integration effort. We can see more details about the certifications on Arm developer’s website. NXP i.MX 8M Mini EVK achieved certification with NXP 2021 Q2 pre-release ﬁrmware, version LF […]

July 16, 2021July 16, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

$6 RAK3172 WisDuo LoRaWAN module features STMicro STM32WL LoRa SoC

RAK3172 WisDuo is a LoRaWAN module smaller than most coins with 15.5×15 mm dimensions made possible thanks to STMicro STM32WL Cortex-M4 LoRa SoC, which we previously found in Seeed Studio’s $10 LoRa-E5 module and corresponding development boards. But while Seeed Studio relies on STM32WLE5JC SoC with 256KB flash and 64KB RAM in a 73-pin UFBGA package, RAKwireless RAK3172 Wisduo is powered by STM32WLE5CC with the same amount of memory or storage, but in a 48-pin UFQFPN package, and an even lower price at just $5.99 in single units. RAK3172 Wisduo specifications: SoC – STMicro STM32WLE5CC55 Arm Cortex‐M4 MCU @ 48 MHz with 256 KB flash memory with ECC, 64 KB RAM, and a sub-GHz radio based on Semtech SX126x LoRaWAN 1.0.3 specification compliant Supported bands – EU433, CN470, IN865, EU868, AU915, US915, KR920, RU864, and AS923 LoRaWAN Activation by OTAA/ABP LoRa Point to Point (P2P) communication Range – Greater than […]