Category: Internet of Things

VTree Solar Tree for squares and parks with WiFi and phone charging

Posted by – July 3, 2017

VTree is Creating Smart Cities building a solar future based on three powerful concepts: solar energy, internet and great design. Focused on solar powered, Smart Street Furniture, VTREE has bases in Sao Paulo, Bucharest and Lisbon and was born of online collaboration within this triangle. Their flagship product, the Fractal VTREE aims to activate brands and public initiatives through a tree-shaped solar powered meeting point with wi-fi, charging station for scooters and mobile phones and touch screen interaction. The tree is also capable of tracking human behaviour within a 250m radius of any network point, produce heatmaps and other data analysis whilst allows clients to engage with users in real time in many different ways. Filmed at the IDTechEx Show!

Microchip ARM, PIC and AVR Microcontrollers


Microchip acquired Atmel in 2016 for $3.56 Billion, this among other acquisitions by Microchip, grows their Microcontroller portfolio to include Atmel’s ARM based SAM Microcontrollers (which I have previously filmed here: SAM S70 and E70 ARM Cortex-M7, SAM L21 ARM Cortex-M0+, Atmel BTLC1000 Bluetooth ARM Cortex-M0, SMART SAM W25 Wi-Fi for IoT with ARM Cortex-M0+, together with Microchip’s own ARM cores, and their MIPS-based PIC-32 cores, a few older PIC cores, Atmel’s 8 and 32-bit AVR cores among other. Microchip Technology also provides Serial EEPROM devices, Serial SRAM devices, KEELOQ devices, radio frequency (RF) devices, thermal, power and battery management analog devices, as well as linear, interface and mixed signal devices. Some of the interface devices include USB, ZigBee/MiWi, Controller Area Network, LoRa, SIGFOX and Ethernet.

Socionext 24-core ARM Server SynQuacer SC2A11, 60% lower power than Intel at same performance

Posted by – June 27, 2017

Socionext presents SynQuacer SC2A11 cloud ARM server based on 24-core ARM Cortex-A53 highly integrated low-power server system suitable for edge computing which processes data at the edge of the cloud in the IoT era. Socionext develop high power efficiency processor chip, and it is 60% power reduction on same performance compare to conventional chip. Also it is very good performance in parallel processing, like hadoop. This high power efficiency processor chip will be suitable for various application in the IoT era.

Jenax J.Flex, Flexible Li-Ion Rechargeable Battery


Jenax J.Flex is an innovative flexbile battery freeing design limitations without sacrificing power enabling new form factors for flexible smartphones, flexible wearables and other ideas for flexible future devices based on Li-Ion Gel polymer electrolyte enabling rapid movement of lithium ion with no overheating, high energy density, low internal resistance and that can be stable even with bending fatigue. Filmed at the IDTechEx Show!

24-core Cavium Octeon TX for Networking, Base Stations, Security, NAS, Gateways

Posted by – June 18, 2017

Cavium Octeon-TX family of SoCs is configured from single core up to 24-cores 64bit ARMv8.1 cores designed with Cavium’s optimized implementation of the CPU core. Cavium Octeon TX is optimized to run multiple concurrent data and control planes simultaneously for applications such as UTM & Security, Appliances, IOT Gateways, NAS, Switch Control Plane, Mainstream Control Plane, NFV and SDN infrastructure, service provider CPE, Network Attached Printers, Enterprise Access Points, Service Provider Gateways, Industrial, Military/Aero and more enabling secure and intelligent processing for enterprise, data center, cloud, wired and wireless networking for control plane and data plane applications in networking, security, and storage.

TechNexion Factory Tour


TechNexion is a design and manufacturing company showing in this video its engineering team, that designs IoT smart devices, development boards for the needs of projects like the ARM powered Android Things ecosystem by Google or Amazon Alexa Voice-Recognition development platform and its advanced manufacturing capabilities. In the video, we get a direct glimpse of how ARM modules and systems are designed and how much automation is being utilized in a smart SMT factory. The video tour takes you through all production stages from the module design to SMT manufacturing to post production functional testing. The factory churns out up to 250K PCBA per month. Filmed on location at the TechNexion factory in Taipei, Taiwan in June 2017.

Silicon Labs Blue Gecko Development Kit for Bluetooth 5 and IoT


Silicon Labs Blue Gecko Bluetooth Smart Module Wireless Starter Kit for BGM121 and BGM123 SiP modules and BGM111 module are Silicon Labs development boards to start evaluation and development of Bluetooth Smart applications for IoT. The wireless starter kit comes with the Bluetooth Smart module radio board, a main board with coin-cell battery holder, USB and Ethernet connections, display and connections to all the modules peripheral interfaces as well an extension board with additional peripherals like an accelerometer. The solution now support up to Bluetooth 5.0.

Android Things Development Board by TechNexion


TechNexion shows the Android Things ARM Powered development platform designed to enable energy-efficient, secure and portable applications for Google’s Internet of Things ecosystem strategy. The development platforms provide hardware that developers need to speed up their IoT projects on the Android Things platform as well as onto other supported platforms such as Ubuntu, Debian, Yocto Project, regular Android and more. TechNexion also continues to build on its complete lineup of System on Modules designed for modular, versatile, scalable and low-power applications that can be easily integrated into other devices for all types of IoT development.

ARM Keynote: Rene Haas, ARM IP Group President at Computex 2017 CPX Conference

Posted by – June 4, 2017

Keynote at the Computex 2017 CPX Conference by Rene Haas, ARM President, Intellectual Property Group.

$0.01 Flexible Plastic ARM Processor by PragmatIC


Enabling Trillions of ARM processors to be made cheaply to be embedded everywhere as envisioned by ARM owner Masayoshi Son, PlasticARM is an implementation of an ARM Cortex-M0 based 32-bit microprocessor SoC in plastic. Using PragmatIC’s technology, the flexible integrated circuit (FlexIC) is implemented in thin film metal oxides on a polymer substrate, with a total thickness of less than 10um. The latest version uses a 1um cell library, delivering a 10x improvement in footprint over the last 2 years, and significantly advancing the state-of-the-art in printed logic. PlasticARM demonstrates the potential for PragmatIC’s ultra-thin and ultra-low-cost plastic electronics to extend from smart packaging into areas such as wearables and security. You can read more about PragmatIC at http://pragmaticprinting.com This video was filmed at the IDTechEx Show!

You can watch the Keynote presentation by PragmatIC at IDTechEx here:

TEGnology thermoelectric Energy Harvesting for self-powered Sensor Network

Posted by – May 21, 2017

TEGnology develops and commercializes new materials to be used in thermo electric generation, the material is cheaper and more heat-resistant than other materials on the market has developed costing less than 5% of the competition and is manufacturable in industrial quantities. With an ROI of less than two years, their two new materials exploit waste heat energy recovery very efficiently, useful for markets such as automotive, maritime, bio-fuel, Combined Heat & Power and the Sensor Industry. TEGnology replaces batteries, requires no maintenance, it’s Made in Denmark, it is Low cost and available, uses commonly available materials, no tellurium or lead enables Self-powered wireless IOT sensor for temperature, pressure, vibration and more, it’s high temperature energy harvesting for industry. Filmed at the IDTechEx show.

8Power self-powered Sensor Network (IoT with no batteries, no charging)


8Power presents the Track100, a 100% self-powered Energy Harvesting LoraWan LPWA GPS Tracker for creating Sensor Networks that run on vibrations and solar. These can be installed all over the place, never having to go back to change the batteries nor recharging the devices to power the Sensor Network IoT. 8Power Ltd received the Best Technical Development within Energy Harvesting Award at the IDTechEx Show. Filmed at the IDTechEx Show.

Android Things on TechNexion Pico i.MX7D, i.MX6UL and soon i.MX8M


Google Android Things launch partner, TechNexion Pico Pi SoM is an ARM Powered Google Android Things IoT development System on Module, the NXP Pico i.MX7D Dual Core ARM Cortex-A7 with ARM Cortex-M4, NXP Pico i.MX6UL and soon also it will be with 64bit i.MX8M Quad Core ARM Cortex-A53 and ARM Cortex-M4. These TechNexion Android Things System on Modules can dock into a Raspberry Pi form factor for development and expansion of advanced IoT projects using Android Things, you can read more about Android Things at http://iot.google.com and https://developer.android.com/things/hardware/developer-kits.html

you can see the TechNexion Android Things SoM at the Google I/O keynote about Android Things 19 minutes, 50 seconds into the video here:

Toradex at Microsoft Booth with Azure IoT Hub, Windows 10 IoT Core and Windows Embedded Compact

Posted by – May 19, 2017

At the Microsoft booth, Toradex demonstrated its multiplatform system connected to the Microsoft Azure IoT Hub – the Cloud Parking demo. Toradex System on Modules (SoMs) were employed in the access control, license plate recognition and the payment system, the communication between them made only through the internet, using only the Azure services. Linux, Windows 10 IoT Core, and Windows Embedded Compact are used as Operating Systems on the modules. Additionally, an interesting Toradex showcase included their new Heterogeneous Multicore Low Power demo featuring the Colibri iMX7D based on the NXP i.MX 7 Dual Core SoC.

Hololens at Microsoft Embedded World Booth Tour and Toradex, Azure Windows 10 IoT Core


My first time trying on the Microsoft Hololens headmounted augmented reality system running on an Intel cherrytrail system selling at $3000 on the Microsoft store. In this video I walk around the Microsoft booth at Embedded World, checking out some of Microsoft’s partners including Microtronics smart bicvcle running Silicon Labs ARM Cortex-M system through Windows Server. This video features Toradex at 4:13 into the video demonstrating its multiplatform system connected to the Microsoft Azure IoT Hub where Linux, Windows 10 IoT Core, and Windows Embedded Compact are used as Operating Systems on the modules featuring Heterogeneous Multicore Low Power Colibri iMX7D based on the NXP i.MX 7 Dual Core SoC.

Android Things (Brillo) explained by Karim Yaghmour and Chris Simmonds at Embedded World

Posted by – May 9, 2017

Karim Yaghmour (author of Embedded Android: Porting, Extending, and Customizing) and Chris Simmonds (author of Mastering Embedded Linux Programming) talk about the state of Android and Linux in the Embedded World.

ARM mbed OS 5.4 with med Cloud device management, bootloader and filesystem infrastructure

Posted by – May 9, 2017

The mbed OS 5.4 release incorporates functionality to prepare for mbed Cloud device management services including bootloader and filesystem infrastructure and the certified Thread 1.1 stack for developers with target platform support up to 74 targets. Since there’s been releases up to mbed OS 5.4.4 you can read more about it here.

Flex (Flextronics) Flexible electronics, wearables, augmented reality


Flex (formerly known as Flextronics) is the world’s second largest global electronics manufacturing services (EMS), original design manufacturer (ODM) company by revenue, after Foxconn to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Headquartered in Singapore and has manufacturing operations in over 40 countries, totaling approximately 200,000 employees.

TSCH (time synchronized channel hopping) by Dust Networks of Linear Technology

Posted by – May 9, 2017

Dust Networks of Linear Technology pioneered time synchronized channel hopping TSCH, in which all motes in the network are synchronized to within a few microseconds. Filmed at the IDTechEx show!

GPU for ARM Cortex-M, Think Silicon NEMA, 0.1mm2 @ 28nm

Posted by – May 8, 2017

Think Silicon NEMA GPU Series and NEMA dc are claimed to be the world’s smallest 2D/2.5D/3D GPU and display controller. They have been specifically designed for area constrained wearable devices, embedded systems and IoT platforms where power consumption and battery life is crucial while still maintaining vibrant graphics and fluid smartphone performance-like user interface performance. The NEMA GPU Series is what Think Silicon claims to be the only GPU which works with SoCs sporting a 32-bit MCU such as the ARM Cortex-M by utilizing the MCU by just 3-4%. Think Silicon’s GPU for Embedded silicon footprint can be of 0.1mm2 @ 28nm, has leakage power GPU consumption of 0.07mW. Implementing Think Silicon’s patented compression technologies (TSFBc and TSTXc) limits memory power consumption to just 0.03mW (in DDR-less systems). With Think Silicon’s proprietary graphics API NEMA|GFX and the GUI Developer Toolkit NEMA|GUI, developers can use these tools provided by Think Silicon to create their individual Graphical User Interface in a fraction of time. Tools and the GPU Bitstream (NEMA|Bits) are available for free to download at http://think-silicon.com