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Microchip Announces MGC3130 3D Gesture Controller Featuring GestIC Technology

Microchip Technology has recently announced the MGC3130, the world’s first electrical-field (E-field)-based 3D gesture controller based on Microchip’s patented GestIC. This technology allows you to use hand gestures to control a computer with the accuracy of a mouse. The end result looks somewhat similar to what is done with the Leap Motion controller but the range is shorter as you need to be within 15cm of the surface with the electrodes. However, I would suspect this technology to be cheaper and consume less power. The picture above is the development kit with MGC3130 chipset at the top center of the board. With a power consumption as low as 150 microwatts in active sensing state, the MGC3130 enables always-on 3D gesture recognition (even for battery powered devices). The power consumption is up to 90% lower than camera-based gesture systems. Here are MGC3130 key features: 0 (touch) to 15 cm detection range […]

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Infineon Unveils Low Cost XMC4500 Relax & Relax Lite Kits For Cortex M4 XMC4500 MCUs

Infineon XMC4500 micro-controller family is based on ARM Cortex-M4 core @ 120 MHz, comes with 128 to 160 KB SRAM, 512 KB to 1 MB “Program Memory” as well as interfaces & peripherals, such as DMA, Ethernet, USB, ADC, DAC, SPI, I2C, I2S, UART and more. They are specifically designed for industrial applications supporting temperatures up to 125°C. The family was announced at Embedded World 2012 in February, and mass production started in May. This week at Electronica 2012, the company announced two low cost development kits for XMC4500 MCU: XMC4500 Relax Lite Kit (10 Euros): XMC4500 Microcontroller (ARM® Cortex™-M4F based) Detachable on-board debugger Power over USB ESD and reverse current protection 2 x user button and 2 x user LED 4 x SPI-Master, 3x I2C, 3 x I2S, 3 x UART, 2 x CAN, 17 x ADC (12 bit), 2 x DAC, 31x PMW mapped on 2 Pin Headers […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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Kontron ULP-COM-sAMX6i – Freescale i.MX6 Solo, Dual and Quad Computers on Module

Freescale i.MX6 series was first announced in January 2011, and there have been delays due to problem with the silicon, but now the i.MX6 processors are finally in mass production, and lots of different products are using this SoC. The latest product I found is ULP-COM-sAMX6i by Kontron which is a series of computers on module based on ULP-COM (Ultra Low Power) standard featuring Freescale i.MX6 solo, dual and quad processors. Those commercial and industrial grade modules target markets such as transportation, medical and military. Here are the technical specifications of the modules: CPU – Freescale i.MX 6 Single, Dual and Quad Core ARM Cortex-A9 @ 800 MHz (Industrial grade), 1 GHz and 1.2 GHz System Memory – Up to 2 GB DDR3 Storage – Optional onBoard NAND/eMMC up to 64GB Graphics / Video – Dual Display, HD 1080p Decode/Encode and 2D/3D acceleration Video Output Resolution Parallel LCD 18/24 bit […]

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Texas Instruments OMAP 5 Cortex A15 Systems-on-Module Galore

Today Texas Instruments published a press release to announce partners 6 company had worked to design and manufactures systems-on-module based on the dual core Cortex A15 OMAP 5 SoC and that those would be on display at Electronica Trade Faire this week (13-16 October) in Munich. Embedded++ EPP-Pico-OMAP5430 This solution is actually a Pico-ITX board based on OMAP5430 with 2 GB LP-DDR2, USB 3.0 SuperSpeed connectivity (1x USB 3.0, 3x USB 2.0),  up to 16 GB eMMC storage, a SATA port, a 100Mb Ethernet port , UART, RS-323 & SPI ports, GPIOs, DVI and LVDS outputs, a serial camera input port, a micro SD card socket, Murata WiLink 8.0 connectivity solution (Wi-Fi, GNSS, Bluetooth®, Bluetooth v4.0 and FM technologies) and a built-in battery charger (1-cell Li-Ion). The company provides Linux and Android 4.1 BSP. Check the product page for a few more details. GreenBase GK-5432 GK-5432 is a computer on […]

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$17.50 STMicroelectronics M24LR Discovery Kit For NFC/RFID Batteryless Applications

STMicroelectronics has announced the M24LR Discovery Kit, a low cost development platform for  NFC or RFID applications with energy-harvesting capabilities. This devkit is aimed at accelerating the design and development of batterlyless applications such as phone and tablet accessories, computer peripherals, electronic shelf labels, home appliances, industrial automation, sensing and monitoring systems, and personal healthcare products. The M24LR Discovery Kit consists of two boards: an RF transceiver board with a 13.56MHz multi-protocol RFID/NFC transceiver driven by an STM32 32-bit microcontroller A battery-less board that includes ST’s dual-interface EEPROM memory IC, an ultra-low-power 8-bit microcontroller (STM8L) and a temperature sensor. Here are the key features of the boards: M24LR board M24LR04E-RMN6T/2 Dual Interface EEPROM with I2C and ISO/IEC 15693 RF interfaces, 4 Kbits of EEPROM and password protection in SO8N package STM8L152C6T6 8-bit microcontroller, with 8 Kbytes of Flash memory STTS751-0WB3F, low-voltage digital temperature sensor 20 x 40 mm inductive antenna […]

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XBMC for Linux on AllWinner A10 Devices? It Works! (Sort of)

Following the lack of support by AllWinner for the video engine libraries (CedarX), I had more or less given up on hope XBMC for Linux would ever run properly on AllWinner A10/A13 hardware. But recently, I found out some progress had been made using existing libs, and saw the Pengpod Tablet video showing XBMC running in Linux fairly smoothly. So I decided to cross-compile XBMC by following the instructions available at http://linux-sunxi.org/XBMC and trying to run it in Linaro ALIP 12.04 rootfs in my Mele A1000. Finally, I managed to cross-compile XBMC, but the performance was very poor in the GUI (6 to 12 fps) and I was unable to play videos and my serial console was flooded with messages like:

[Update: I managed to have XBMC Linux running & playing videos on Mele A1000 by using j1nx image (rootfs + kernel). I would first exhibit the exact same […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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FRAM (Ferroelectric Random Access Memory) and Texas Instruments MSP430FR57xx MCUs

I’ve recently received a complementary book entitled “Texas Instruments FRAM MCUs for DUMMIES” sent by Mouser, that provides technical and practical information about FRAM (Ferroelectric Random Access Memory) – pronounced F-RAM – and Texas Instruments MSP430FR57xx MCU series which makes use of this relatively new type of memory. FRAM is a non-volatile memory with power and write speed & endurance characteristics that almost matches SRAM capabilities, and leave traditional Flash and EEPROM memory in the dust in terms of performance, as you can see from the table and diagram below. At constant speed, FRAM consumes 250x less than Flash/EEPROM. Please note the FRAM write speed also depends on the MCU used, and a MCU @ 8MHz can write the FRAM @ 1400 kBps (Source: TI). However, you won’t see this type of memory in devices like smartphones anytime soon because the maximum size currently manufactured is 1MB, density is higher […]

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Ugoos UG007 Android 4.1 HDMI TV Stick Features Bluetooth and Rockchip RK3066 Processor

There are many low cost Android mini-PCs on the market today, but most of them can only support 2.4 GHz wireless connection (e.g. for keyboard, mouse or “fly mouse”) via an external USB dongle, and very few have built-in Bluetooth support. If you want the performance of UG802 mini PC and use your existing Bluetooth keyboard, game controller, headset…, Ugoos UG007 mini PC might be a good option since it features Rockchip RK3066 dual core processor and comes with Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR support. Here are the specs of Ugoos UG007: SoC – Rockchip RK3066 Dual ARM Cortex-A9 processor clocked @ up to 1.2 GHZ with Mali-400MP4 Quad-core GPU, System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM Storage – 8GB NAND Flash + micro SD card slot (Up to 32 GB) Connectivity: Wifi – 802.11 b/g/n Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Mediatek MT6622) 3G support via external 3G USB dongle USB – 1x […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications