LILYGO T-Halow is an ESP32-S3 board with long-range WiFi HaLow, OV2640/OV5640 camera support

LILYGO T-Halow is an ESP32-S3 board equipped with a WiFi HaLow module with up to 1.2km range, a connector compatible with OV2640 and OV5640 camera modules, and an 18650 battery holder for power, as well as several GPIOs for expansion. We first wrote about 802.11ah low-power long-range WiFi standard operating at 900 MHz in 2014, but adoption has been slow and we’ve seen a few 802.11ah (WiFi HaLow) chips from Newracom and Morse Micro over the years, as well as USB adapters, a Raspberry Pi HAT, a mini PCIe card, gateways, and some development boards. All those rely on a Linux host, but the LILYGO T-Halow features a TX-AH WiFI HaLow module from Taixin Semiconductor that’s controller by AT commands through an ESP32-S3 or a micro USB port. LILYGO T-Halow specifications: Wireless modules ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 wireless module SoC –  ESP32-S3 dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller @ up to 240 MHz with 2.4 […]

Lattice MachXO5D-NX FPGA family enables Hardware Security in Programmable FPGAs

Lattice Semiconductor has recently introduced the MachXO5D-NX FPGA family, which integrates a hardware root of trust (RoT) into low-power FPGAs. This addresses security challenges by combining on-chip Flash memory and hardware encryption to minimize code capture risks during load time. The MachXO5D-NX family includes three variants with logic cell counts of 27k (FMXO5-25), 53k (LFMXO5-55T), and 96k (LFMXO5-100T). These FPGAs feature built-in hardware encryption, a cryptographic engine supporting AES-256, ECDSA-384/521, SHA2-256/384/512, and RSA 3072/4096, and a unique secret identity (USID) for device identity protection. Built on a 28-nm fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) process, these FPGAs reduce power consumption by 75% and lower soft error rates by 100x(as the company mentions). They support interfaces such as MIPI D-PHY (CSI-2, DSI), LVDS, Gigabit Ethernet, and PCIe, making them suitable for secure edge applications. Lattice MachXO5D-NX FPGA family specifications FPGA – Lattice Semi MachXO5D-NX FPGA family (27k (FMXO5-25), 53k (LFMXO5-55T), and 96k (LFMXO5-100T)) Programmable […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

Waveshare Pi5 Module BOX is a configurable mini computer kit for the Raspberry Pi 5

Waveshare Pi5 Module BOX is a multi-functional mini-computer kit designed for the Raspberry Pi 5. The housing of this kit is made from aluminum alloy and Waveshare lists three variants of this kit, the first one is the Pi5 Module BOX-A (PCIe to Gigabit Ethernet), Pi5 Module BOX-B (PCIe to 4-ch USB3.2 Gen1), and Pi5 Module BOX-C (PCIe to M.2 interface). The kit looks very similar to the Waveshare Jetson Nano-powered mini-computer or the ODYSSEY-X86J4105 SBC with a case that we have reviewed previously, there was also this metal enclosure for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 that we have written about, feel free to check that out if you are interested in some similar products. Waveshare Pi5 Module BOX specifications Compatibility – Designed for Raspberry Pi 5 (not included) Case Material – Aluminum alloy PCIe Adapter Board Options: Pi5 Module BOX-A – PCIe to Gigabit Ethernet port Pi5 Module BOX-B […]

RK3568-based MYC-LR3568 system-on-module comes with up to 8GB RAM, 32GB storage for cost-sensitive Edge AI applications

MYIR Tech has announced the release of the Rockchip RK3568-based MYC-LR3568 Edge AI system-on-module (SoM) offered in a compact 381-pin expansion LGA package design. It features up to 8GB LPDDR4 RAM, 32GB eMMC flash storage, a power management integrated circuit, and various connectivity options. The base configuration of the MYC-LR3568 system-on-module offers only 2GB RAM and 16GB storage but the module supports up to 8GB RAM and 32GB eMMC storage. It supports several video codecs, including 4K 60fps H.265/H.264/VP9 decoding and 1080P 60fps H.265/H.264 encoding, for high-quality video playback and recording. The MYC-LR3568 SoM works with Debian and Linux operating systems. It is designed for cost-sensitive industrial applications including but not limited to IoT gateways, NVR storage, industrial control, human-machine interface (HMI), cloud terminals, and facial recognition systems. MYIR Tech’s MYC-LR3568 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 (B2 or J variant) CPU RK3568B2 – Quad-core processor with four Cortex-A55 cores @ 2.0 […]

Rockchip RKLLM toolkit released for NPU-accelerated large language models on RK3588, RK3588S, RK3576 SoCs

Rockchip RKLLM toolkit (also known as rknn-llm) is a software stack used to deploy generative AI models to Rockchip RK3588, RK3588S, or RK3576 SoC using the built-in NPU with 6 TOPS of AI performance. We previously tested LLM’s on Rockchip RK3588 SBC using the Mali G610 GPU, and expected NPU support to come soon. A post on X by Orange Pi notified us that the RKLLM software stack had been released and worked on Orange Pi 5 family of single board computers and the Orange Pi CM5 system-on-module. The Orange Pi 5 Pro‘s user manual provides instructions on page 433 of the 616-page document, but Radxa has similar instructions on their wiki explaining how to use RKLLM and deploy LLM to Rockchip RK3588(S) boards. The stable version of the RKNN-LLM was released in May 2024 and currently supports the following models: TinyLLAMA 1.1B Qwen 1.8B Qwen2 0.5B Phi-2 2.7B Phi-3 […]

ODROID-H3/H4 x86 SBCs get M.2 PCIe Gen 3 x4 expansion cards with two or four M.2 sockets

ODROID-H3 and ODROID-H4 x86 single board computers have gotten two affordable M.2 expansion cards with the M.2 2×2 card adding two PCIe Gen 3 x2 slots and the M.2 4×1 adding four PCIe Gen 3 x1 slots (ODROID-H4 only) to the Intel SBCs. We’ve seen plenty of PCIe HAT+ boards for the Raspberry Pi 5 since the launch of the Arm SBC last year, but it’s limited by its PCIe Gen2/Gen3 x1 interfaces, and Hardkernel now provides two new M.2 cards leveraging the M.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 socket of the ODROID-H3/H4 family allowing users to add up to four M.2 PCIe modules for storage, wired or wireless connectivity, and/or AI acceleration. M.2 2×2 card  for ODROID-H3 and H4 series The M.2 2×2 card also named “M.2 – NVME” adds two M.2 Key-M PCIe sockets for 2280 size modules with each having a PCIe 3.0 x2 interface supporting up to 16GT/s. […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

Microchip PIC64GX is a quad-core 64-bit RISC-V microprocessor for real-time processing

Microchip has introduced its first 64-bit RISC-V microprocessor family with the PIC64GX pin-to-pin compatible with the company’s PolarFire SoC FPGA devices and designed for edge designs for the industrial, automotive, communications, IoT, aerospace, and defense segments. The PIC6GX MPU supports asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP) to run Linux, real-time operating systems, and bare metal in a single processor cluster with secure boot capabilities. The company further claims the PIC64GX MPU is “the first RISC-V multi-core solution that is AMP capable for mixed-criticality systems”. The first member of the PIC64GX RISC-V family is the PIC64GX1000 microprocessor. Microchip PIC64GX1000 specifications: CPU Quad-core SiFive U54 64-bit five-stage, single-issue, in-order pipeline RISC-V (RV64GC) processor at up to 625 MHz with AMP and deterministic latencies, PMP and MMU units Single-core SiFive E51 64-bit RISC-V (RV64IMAC) monitor processor core at up to 625 MHZ with PMP unit Cache L1 memory subsystem with Single-Error Correct, Double-Error Detect (SECDED) Flexible […]

Waveshare PoE HAT (G) is a compact 25W PoE HAT+ for the Raspberry Pi 5

Waveshare PoE HAT (G) is a compact, easy-to-assemble “mini HAT” designed especially for the Raspberry Pi 5. The most unique thing about this PoE HAT+ is that Waveshare designed it so compact that it could fit in the stock Raspberry Pi case with the cooling fan attached. It supports the IEEE 802.3af/at network standard, delivering up to 5V/5A power output. Other features of the HAT+ include a 40-pin GPIO header, a non-isolated switched-mode power supply, and compatibility with 803.3af/at PoE routers or switches. This makes it ideal for remote monitoring, IoT applications, and networked devices. After the Raspberry Pi 5 was released in the last quarter of 2023, we saw Waveshare launch the PoE HAT (F), which also doubled as a cooling solution and followed the official Raspberry Pi PoE+ HAT introduced in 2021. Both modules are compatible with 802.3at (aka PoE+) and 802.3af standards and support up to 25.5 […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC