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Embedded Open Source Summit 2024 schedule – Embedded Linux, Zephyr OS, and Real-time Linux

The Embedded Open Source Summit 2024 (EOSS 2024) will take place on April 16-18 and the Linux Foundation has already announced the schedule with conference sessions, lightning talks, and birds of a feather (BoF) sessions covering embedded Linux, Zephyr OS, and real-time (RT) Linux. While I won’t be attending in person, I still find it interesting to check out the schedule as we may learn more about the current status of embedded Linux. So I’ve created my own little virtual schedule out of the available talks. Tuesday, April 16 – Day 1, Embedded Open Source Summit 2024 9:05 – 9:45 – No, It’s (Still) Never Too Late to Upstream Your Legacy Linux-Based Platforms by Neil Armstrong, Linaro Nearly 7 years ago, Neil already spoke about this subject in Berlin, and it’s still very true. Do you maintain or used to maintain a Linux-based board or SoC off-tree? Then there are […]

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Rockchip RK3568-powered ASUS Tinker Board 3N is now available in three variants

The ASUS Tinker board 3 was first unveiled in April 2023 before being renamed as Tinker Board 3N later that year, and the three variants of the Rockchip RK3568 single board computer (SBC) are now available. The standard configuration is the Tinker Board 3N in the commercial temperature range, while the Tinker Board 3N Plus has the same features, except it can operate in the industrial temperature range (-40°C to 85°C). The Tinker Board 3N Lite is a cost-down version in the same form factor, but with a single gigabit Ethernet port without PoE support, no M.2 B-key socket for an NVMe SSD or 4G/5G cellular connectivity, no 16MB SPI flash, fewer serial interfaces, and no CAN Bus. You’ll find a comparison of the specifications for the three variants in the table below. Note the prices above are from Amazon with a 10% discount when applicable. ASUS provides support for […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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Comparing the latency of various wireless standards

If you’ve ever wondered which wireless standard may deliver the smallest lag (latency) when transmitting small packets, we’ve now gotten an answer thanks to Scott at Electric UI who benchmarked various wireless links in common MCU development boards. More specifically the following hardware and wireless standards were tested: SiliconLabs 10×0-GM RF+8051 microcontroller with 240–960 MHz EZRadioPRO transceiver running SiK firmware HopeRF RFM95W LoRa module (on an Adafruit Breakout board) connected to an STM32F429 MCU Nordic Semi nRF24L01 2.4GHz transceiver module ESP32 board for ESP-NOW and WiFi testing is shown as ESP32 WS (WebSockets) or ESP32 TCP in the chart below. Raspberry Pi boards were also used for comparison ESP32-C6 board for 802.15.4 transfers (Thread) ESP32 and HC-05 modules for Bluetooth SPP (Serial Port Profile) ESP32 board with NimBLE and Bluedroid stacks and nRF52 for Bluetooth LE testing Here are the results for 12 bytes, 128 bytes, and 1024 bytes data transfers. […]

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EmbedFire LubanCat 4 card computer – A Rockchip RK3588S dev board with a mini PCIe socket for WiFi or 4G LTE

Launched by Yehuo Electronic EmbedFire LubanCat 4 card computer or LubanCat 4 in short, is a Rockchip RK3588S SBC that packs quite a lot of features in an 85x56mm form factor with Ethernet, USB, mini PCIe, HDMI 2.1, SIM & microSD card holder, and more. The board comes with up to 16GB of RAM and 128GB of eMMC flash. It comes with a Gigabit Ethernet port, five USB ports (including one USB-C), a built-in microphone, multiple audio inputs and outputs, a 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible expansion header, and supports HDMI input through an adapter connected to a MIPI CSI port. EmbedFire LubanCat 4 card computer specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.2-2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU –  Arm Mali-G610 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2,  OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 support VPU – 8Kp60 video decoder […]

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Linux 6.7 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.7, following Linux 6.6 LTS a little over two months ago: So we had a little bit more going on last week compared to the holiday week before that, but certainly not enough to make me think we’d want to delay this any further. End result: 6.7 is (in number of commits: over 17k non-merge commits, with 1k+ merges) one of the largest kernel releases we’ve ever had, but the extra rc8 week was purely due to timing with the holidays, not about any difficulties with the larger release. The main changes this last week were a few DRM updates (mainly fixes for new hw enablement in this version – both amd and nouveau), some more bcachefs fixes (and bcachefs is obviously new to 6.7 and one of the reasons for the large number of commits), and then a few random […]

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Radxa X2L Intel Celeron J4125 SBC goes for as low as $39

Radxa X2L is an inexpensive Intel Celeron J4125 Gemini Lake Refresh single board computer (SBC) that ships with 2GB to 8GB RAM, an M.2 socket for SSD storage, another M.2 socket for a wireless module, and offers a range of ports such as dual HDMI, gigabit Ethernet, four USB port, and a 40-pin GPIO header. The price starts at $39, a price point that reminds me of the Atomic Pi SBC introduced a few years ago with an Atom X5 Cherry Trail processor, but the Radxa X2L is easier to use, offers better performance and modern features, as well as a low-profile form factor that’s about the size of a smartphone, just a bit thicker. Radxa X2L specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron J4125 quad-core Gemini Lake Refresh processor @ 2.0 / 2.7 GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD Graphics 600 @ 250/750 MHz; 10W TDP MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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Tillitis Tkey is an open-source RISC-V security key in a USB-C case

Tillitis’ TKey is a small, simple security key in a USB-C form factor, and described as a “new type of flexible USB security token” that is inspired by DICE (Device Identifier Composition Engine) and measured boot powered by a simple 32-bit RISC-V core, the PicoRV32, in a Lattice iCE40 UP5K FPGA. While we have covered hardware security modules in the past, this is the first security key we have seen that is based on an FPGA running a RISC-V core. The security token lacks persistent, onboard storage, unlike alternatives such as Yubikey Neo. Apps need to be loaded onto the key every time it is connected to a host device. It uses measured boot to generate a unique identifier for each application and is more secure than the alternatives since private keys are not stored on the device. Also, the hardware and software for the TKey are completely open-source for […]

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Radxa CM3S Rockchip RK3566 SODIMM system-on-module supports up to 8GB RAM, 128GB flash, wireless module

Radxa CM3S (Compute Module 3 SODIMM), also called the ROCK3 Compute Module SODIMM, is a system-on-module with a 200-pin SO-DIMM edge connector powered by a Rockchip RK3566 processor with up to 8GB RAM, 128GB eMMC flash, and an optional wireless module with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2. It follows the company’s CM3 module with Raspberry Pi CM4 form factor based on the same Rockchip RK3566 SoC, but in a more compact SO-DIMM form factor with a 200-pin edge connector that’s compatible with the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3/3+, but not compatible with NVIDIA’s Jetson Nano, Xavier NX, and Orin NX 260-pin SO-DIMM modules, and you’d need to wait for the upcoming Radxa NX5 instead… Radxa CM3S specifications can be found below along with the ones for the Radxa CM3 and Rockchip RK3568-based Radxa CM3I system-on-modules. Note that some of the specifications differ depending on where you look on the Radxa […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC