Category: Embedded World

NXP i.MX RT106A Arm Cortex-M7 MCU for Alexa

Posted by Charbax – October 28, 2019
Category: Speakers, NXP, Embedded World

Turnkey, low cost i.MX RT solution speeds time to market. Cloud-based voice assistants, led by Amazon’s Alexa, have become common in many homes, embedded in smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo products. Soon, the newly emerging trend to build voice assistants directly into smart devices such as light switches, ceiling fans, appliances, smoke detectors, and thermostats, will make voice control ubiquitous throughout the home. Voice assistants conveniently and unobtrusively located throughout the home enable a family’s entire network of connected smart devices to be controlled by voice commands from any room. For example, “Alexa, turn off all the lights,” or even more powerful routines can be created such as, “Alexa, good morning,” which can turn on music, start the coffee pot, adjust the thermostat settings, and more.

Today, a few smart home device and appliance makers are introducing versions of their products with built-in voice assistants. Until now, the technology required to embed cloud voice assistants has required a powerful multicore microprocessor unit (MPU), similar to the application processor in smart phones, with large Flash and SDRAM memories, and complex power management. Such implementations have not been a fit for cost sensitive consumer devices, which has impeded the proliferation of smart home devices with built-in voice.

At Embedded World this week, NXP Semiconductors announced the first MCU based implementation of an Alexa client, based on a new member of NXP’s popular i.MX RT crossover processor family of devices. This new solution enables device makers to build Alexa into products using a low cost, low power microcontroller unit (MCU), a device that is typically already required in any connected smart home product, meaning that OEMs can now add voice to their products at very low incremental cost (not much more than the cost of the microphones). Running on Amazon FreeRTOS, NXP’s new MCU-based AVS solution leverages the power of AWS IoT Core to minimize the processing resources needed to build Alexa into a product. Compared to previous implementations running Linux with large memory footprints, requiring more than 50 MB RAM and several Giga-Bytes of Flash, NXP’s MCU solution needs less than 1 MB of on-chip RAM and fewer than 16 MB of Flash, significantly reducing cost and size.

The i.MX RT106A (“ten-sixty-a”), has a 600 MHz Arm™ Cortex-M7™ processor, 1 MB of on chip SRAM, an LCD display, camera interface, advanced security and flexible communication, combined with a complete turnkey AVS software solution and a production ready hardware design, to enable OEMs to quickly and easily add Alexa to their product designs.

With this solution, device makers realize further benefits of shorter time to market, lower development and lifetime costs. It brings together the Alexa Voice Service, AWS IoT Core, and Amazon FreeRTOS to provide complete and best-in-class security, deployment, and device monitoring.

NXP’s i.MX RT MCU-based AVS solution is available as a complete kit for evaluation, development and prototyping. The hardware consists of two small, 30 mm x 40 mm (1.2” x 1.6”) boards. The MCU system on module (SoM) carries the i.MX RT106A processor, 32 MB of HyperFlash memory, a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module and an optional NXP A71CH secure element. The audio board has three MEMS microphones and connects to a speaker driven by NXP’s TFA9894D smart audio amplifier. The hardware ships with software that includes everything necessary for a developer to, out-of-the-box, connect to the Alexa Voice Service and immediately start prototyping. This one-stop-shop software package includes far-field voice processing (echo cancellation, noise suppression, beam forming, barge-in), an Alexa wake word inference engine, an AVS client application, API and all necessary drivers.

Samples of the i.MX RT106A processor and the SLN-ALEXA-IOT solution kit are available to qualified early access customers now.

Renesas SOTB (silicon-on-thin-buried-oxide) Low Power ARM microcontrollers for energy harvesting

Posted by Charbax – October 28, 2019
Category: Renesas, Embedded World

Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723), a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today unveiled an innovative energy-harvesting embedded controller that can eliminate the need to use or replace batteries in IoT devices. Developed based on Renesas’ breakthrough SOTB™ (silicon-on-thin-buried-oxide) process technology, the new embedded controller achieves extreme reduction in both active and standby current consumption, a combination that was not previously possible to achieve in conventional microcontrollers (MCUs). These extreme low current levels of the SOTB-based embedded controller enables system manufacturers to take a step further and completely eliminate the need for batteries in some of their products through harvesting ambient energy sources such as light, vibration, and flow. The use of extreme low-power and energy harvesting gives rise to a new market of maintenance-free connected IoT sensing devices with endpoint intelligence for applications in industrial, business, residential, agricultural, healthcare, and public infrastructure, as well as health and fitness apparel, shoes, wearables, smart watches, and drones. Renesas has already begun supplying the new embedded controller to beta customer.

Renesas’ first commercial product using SOTB technology, the R7F0E embedded controller, is a 32-bit, Arm® Cortex®-based embedded controller capable of operating up to 64 MHz for rapid local processing of sensor data and execution of complex analysis and control functions. Consuming just 20 μA/MHz active current, and only 150 nA deep standby current, approximately one-tenth that of conventional low-power MCUs, these industry-leading characteristics make the R7F0E perfectly suited for extreme low-power and energy harvesting.

Geniatech Developer Board 8

Posted by juliusaugustus – August 21, 2019
Category: Qualcomm, Embedded World, Geniatech

The Geniatech Developer Board 8 is a Snapdragon 820e based development board designed for commercial and industrial applications. The product features a Qualcomm Snapdradon 820e, 4gb lpddr4 ram, 64GB UFS 2.0,
1x 96boards 40 pin, 1x 96boards 60 pin, full sized HDMI and SD 3.0. The product can run Linux Debian, Linux OpenEmbedded and Android. The Developer Board 8 sells for $350.

7layers #STPartnerProgram

Posted by Charbax – July 3, 2019
Category: STMicroelectronics, Embedded World

Cypherbridge #STPartnerProgram

Posted by Charbax – July 2, 2019
Category: STMicroelectronics, Embedded World

IoTize #STPartnerProgram

Posted by Charbax – July 1, 2019
Category: STMicroelectronics, Embedded World

Pathpartner #STPartnerProgram

Posted by Charbax – June 30, 2019
Category: STMicroelectronics, Embedded World

Percepio #STPartnerProgram

Posted by Charbax – June 28, 2019
Category: STMicroelectronics, Embedded World

Torizon industrial Linux software platform from Toradex

Posted by Charbax – June 2, 2019
Category: Internet of Things, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, NXP, Embedded World, Toradex

At Embedded World 2019, Toradex shows off its brand new Linux Platform called Torizon, for the first time. Torizon is an open source project based on the Yocto Project, it comes free with Toradex System on Modules (SoMs) including NXP i.MX 6, 7 and 8 SoCs. Torizon is ideal for developers who like to take advantage of the extensive Linux ecosystem, but don’t like to spend time on low-level Linux development. Torizon is built for the requirements of modern industrial embedded/IoT applications in mind. It uses Docker for software containerization, features an Automotive Grade Remote Update Client, supports real-time and has built-in security features. In the video, Samuel, CEO of Toradex, shows the integration with Visual Studio and highlights how it simplifies life for those moving from the Windows and Windows Embedded Compact ecosystem. In the second demo, you can see Debian running in Docker Containers. The last demo shows off the safe and secure over-the-air (OTA) updates and a possible backend to manage a fleet of devices. The update client is Uptane-compatible.

If you’d like to know more about Torizon, you can join Toradex’s Webinar:
https://www.toradex.com/webinars/introducing-torizon-easy-to-use-industrial-linux-platform

If you’d like to learn more about the AI Wall at the end, see my previous video here.

Qt with Toradex and KDAB at Embedded World 2019

Posted by Charbax – April 17, 2019
Category: Exclusive videos, Embedded World, Toradex

Qt’s (https://qt.io) partnership with Toradex (https://toradex.com) makes the deployment of Qt extremely easy, allowing deployment to a device from day one. The integration is realized with the Toradex Easy Installer (https://www.toradex.com/tools-libraries/toradex-easy-installer). KDAB (https://www.kdab.com/) shows that a Qt Touch UI can run smoothly even on hardware without a GPU, in this case a Toradex Colibri System on Module featuring a NXP i.MX 6ULL. Qt is a very popular C++ Framework for embedded devices, talking about the history of Qt and Qtopia an old application platform for phones and handhelds such as the Archos PMA430 which I filmed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoBHeXnAVhY Qt 3D Studio is shown on a Toradex SoM with the high end NXP i.MX8 QuadMax. In the booth walk with Santtu, you can see demos such as Qt on microcontrollers and get some insight into the new developer experience. In the KDAB area, you will see KUEAS a tool which simplifies the workflow for 3D content and GammaRay for debugging. KDAB is a partner of Qt and Toradex and can help with application development.

Collabora shows Radxa ROCK Pi 4 running Panfrost open source Mali GPU driver

Posted by Charbax – April 2, 2019
Category: Laptops, 4K UHD, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Rockchip, Embedded World, Android, Ubuntu

Collabora is at Embedded World 2019, showing their infrastructure for end-to-end, embedded software production, their work on software platforms with reproducible continuous builds, automate testing on hardware to increase productivity and quality control in embedded Linux. They demonstrate Debian-based platform creation with debos and testing on a Virtual Machine – for early identification of issues and regressions, Hardware automated testing of application development through video playing on a Rockchip platform (Chromebook Plus) with VPU decoding and GPU rendering using the Panfrost Open Source driver, Graphics stack development with automated testing, to show how Graphics enablement can be integrated on a Continous Integration pipeline. They also demonstrate two NEW Open Source GPU drivers, etnaviv for Vivante GPU running on an RDU2 Inflight Multimedia Entertainment Device (based on the i.MX6 series SOCs), provided by Zodiac Inflight Innovations, and Panfrost for ARM Mali Midgard & Bifrost GPU, running on a ROCK Pi 4 SBC, provided by Radxa.

Foundries.io Zephyr microPlatform (ZmP) at Embedded World 2019

Posted by Charbax – March 29, 2019
Category: Internet of Things, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, NXP, Nordic Semiconductor, Embedded World, Zephyr

Foundries.io demonstrates OpenThread on Zephyr with Blockchain data publishing controlling Smart Lights and Candy Dispenser – Foundries.io showcases their Zephyr microPlatform (ZmP) using OpenThread and 802.15.4. Providing an OpenThread gateway which acts as a smart speaker enabling users to issue voice commands like “Hey Google, turn it on” to turn on a light, or “Hey Google, start it” to dispense candy. The connected lights will be running ZmP with OpenThread, and the candy dispenser will using 6lowpan over BLE.

The Zephyr Project at Embedded World 2019

Posted by Charbax – March 29, 2019
Category: Internet of Things, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, NXP, Nordic Semiconductor, Intel, Embedded World, Zephyr

The Zephyr Project joins some 1,000 exhibitors at Embedded World in Nurnberg, Germany, with Zephyr Project members including Antmicro, Foundries.io, Intel, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP and SiFive, with offer interactive IoT demos powered by the Zephyr RTOS, which supports multiple hardware architectures and is built with safety and security in mind.

The Antmicro and Renode demo showcases how the open source Renode simulation framework that can be used to test multi-node Zephyr setups, including ARM and RISC-V based platforms. Using human-readable scripts and configuration, Renode allows you to easily create complex CI installations, enabling better testability of real products. You will see how to test production-ready code without the hassle of connecting multiple pieces of hardware together against corner-case conditions unachievable in testing rigs.

NXP i.MX 6SoloX (UDOO Neo) with RPMsg Protocol, a Multicore demo with Linux running on A9, Zephyr running on M4 – This demonstration shows how to leverage asymmetric co-processors of modern SoCs on the example of i.MX6SoloX and Udoo Neo board. The embedded Cortex-M4 core is running Zephyr RTOS which implements various low speed serial peripherals (UART, SPI, I2C) in software using GPIO. Cortex-M4 communicates with the embedded Cortex-A9 core running Linux Kernel using the RPMsg protocol. On the Linux side a kernel module is used to present implemented serial peripherals to the user space as regular serial, SPI or I2C interface (e.g. /dev/ttySx). The benefits of such approach consist in the possibility of extending existing set of peripherals without any additional hardware cost and the possibility to place selected peripheral at virtually any available GPIO pin. Thanks to exporting the interfaces to the user space, it can be accessed for example by a Python script.

Intel S1000 Speech Kit showcases basic Alexa functionality

Nordic Semiconductor Gaming Mouse, Zephyr on an nRF52-based low-latency, high report rate gaming mouse prototype

Zephyr on the Nordic nRF91 Development Kit, including a BLE to LTE gateway

SiFive Demo, Zephyr Running on a SiFive HiFive1 Development Board

Zephyr running as a guest on ACRN Hypervisor

Nuvoton ARM Cortex-M23 NuMicro M2351

Posted by Charbax – March 26, 2019
Category: Internet of Things, Exclusive videos, Embedded World, Nuvoton

Nuvoton Technology Corporation presents three major themes of reference applications incorporating newly launched microcontrollers with ARM Cortex-M0/ M4/ M23, and ARM9 cores. The three themes are: Industrial Control, IoT Security, and Smart Home Appliances. Industrial Control includes factory remote data collecting, environment monitoring, smart number recognition, and interactive Human Machine Interface (HMI) Solution. IoT Security includes USB FIDO key for identity security and fingerprint secure IoT door lock. Smart Home Appliances include intelligent power outlet. Industrial Control – incorporating NuMicro NUC980, N9H20, M480, NDA102 microcontrollers Nuvoton Industrial Control reference applications include: Remote Terminal Unit, Smart Number Recognition, Interactive HMI Solution, and DALI-2 Digital Lighting Control. Industrial Remote Terminal Unit adopts ARM9 based NuMicro NUC980 series microcontroller. The NUC980 series operates up to 300 MHz and has internal crypto accelerators as well as Ethernet. It could be used for factory monitoring and automation control with Wi-Fi/ 4G LTE/ NB-IoT modules. Smart Number Recognition adopts Arm Cortex-M4 based NuMicro M480 series microcontroller. This demo captures water, electricity, and gas meter numbers, using machine learning neural network algorithms to identify. The information can be transmitted to the cloud through Wi-Fi or NB-IoT to realize the auto meter reader function after the identification. Based on the experience with clients, the demand for interactive HMI is increasing. Therefore, Nuvoton released N9H20/30, M480 series microcontrollers, and free emWin graphics software tool. Nuvoton provides HMI solution to help clients save development time and complete interactive graphics interface with high quality and efficiency. DALI-2 Digital Lighting Control adopts Arm® Cortex-M0 based NuMicro NDA102 series microcontroller. The solution is based on Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) technology. This solution includes certified DALI-2 library built by Nuvoton. IoT Security – incorporating PSA Certified Level 1 Arm Cortex-M23 Based NuMicro M2351 microcontroller Nuvoton IoT Security includes: Arm Pelion Secure IoT Device Management supported by M2351, USB FIDO Key for Identity Security, and Fingerprint Secure IoT Door Lock. The NuMicro M2351 series is one of the first Arm Cortex-M23 based MCUs that has been Platform Security Architecture (PSA) Certified Level 1. The Platform Security Architecture keeps the system secure from booting to operating, also keeping data and codes secure. The Pelion IoT Platform is a flexible, secure, and efficient foundation spanning connectivity, device, and data management. It accelerates the time to value of your IoT deployments by helping you easily connect trusted IoT devices on global networks, invisibly administer them, and extract real-time data from them to drive competitive advantages. The Fast Identification Online (FIDO) Identity supported USB Flash memory drive with dual security features of the NuMicro M2351 microcontroller and SunASIC fingerprint sensor module, compliant with the Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) protocol. It could be applied to identity identification applications and more.

Nordic Semiconductor nRF9160 ARM Cortex-M33 SiP with LTE-M/NB-IoT

Posted by Charbax – March 26, 2019
Category: Internet of Things, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Nordic Semiconductor, Embedded World, Zephyr

The Nordic Semiconductor nRF9160 is a compact, highly-integrated Low power System-in-Package with integrated LTE-M/NB-IoT modem and GPS for cellular IoT (cIoT) designs, featuring ARMv8-M Arm Cortex-M33 application processor solely for applications, a full LTE modem, RF Front End (RFFE) and power management system. Nordic Semiconductor claims that the nRF9160 is the most compact, complete and energy-efficient cellular IoT solution on the market. The integrated modem supports both LTE-M and NB-IoT and can operate globally removing any need for regional variants. All power saving features including eDRX and PSM are supported as is with IPv4/IPv6 support up to transport and security (TCP/TLS) level. The modem firmware is upgradable via secure, encrypted Firmware Over The Air (FOTA) updates. The Arm Cortex-M33 application processor is supported by 1MB of flash and 256kB RAM making advanced application development possible in a single device solution. A GPS receiver is integrated into the radio offering various modes of operation to suit a wide selection of applications that employ location-tracking functionality. A broad selection of general interfaces and peripherals and are included on nRF9160 including 12-bit ADC, RTC, SPI, I²C, I²S, UARTE, PDM and PWM. Security is best-in-class with Arm TrustZone technology for isolation and protection of normal and secure zones for firmware and elements of hardware including memory and peripherals. Arm TrustZone helps build solid and secure ioT applications that feature secure boot, trusted firmware updates and root of trust implementations without performance compromise. Arm CryptoCell enhances security still further by offering cryptographic and security resources to help to protect your IoT applications from various attack threats. CryptoCell is designed for high performance cryptography solutions optimized for energy-constrained devices. The nRF9160 supports both SIM and eSIM for connection and authentication with mobile network operators. The nRF9160 hardware and development kits are now in production and is suitable for full end-to-end sensor to cloud development.

4Kopen: Open Source 4K Set-top-box by MathEmbedded at Embedded World 2019

Posted by Charbax – March 26, 2019
Category: Set-top-boxes, 4K UHD, Exclusive videos, STMicroelectronics, Embedded World

https://4kopen.com presents their open source 4K TV Box project featuring the STMicroelectronics STiH418 SoC with Complete Open Source Drivers, Quad Core ARM Cortex A9 @ 1.2 GHz, Quad Core GPU Mali 400, 4 ST231 DSP (Each Core Quad issue) @ 650 MHz, 2 GBytes DDR3 @ 2133 MHz, Ultra HD Decoding, up to 2160p60, Full HD Encoding, up to 1080p60, HDMI 2.0 Tx (2160p60) and HDMI 1.4 Rx (2160p30), Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, Mini PCIe slot (802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi module included), MicroSD, eSATA, 40 pin GPIO header and more.

Toradex shows Deep Learning Accelerators, Edge AI with Gyrfalcon, Xnor.ai, Movidius and More

Posted by Charbax – March 14, 2019
Category: Cameras, Internet of Things, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Nvidia, NXP, Intel, Embedded World, Toradex

Toradex shows their deep learning inference solutions at Embedded World 2019, using power-efficient, Arm-based System on Modules, as machine learning and deep learning using neural networks progress is accelerating with successful new applications in computer vision for the embedded world. Toradex simplifies the integration of these technologies into products with its System on Modules, training deep learning models on high-performance computers with frameworks like TensorFlow, with optimizations needed to improve performance on low-power embedded Linux devices such as the ones Toradex partners with Au-Zone, Xnor.ai and Antmicro and others to bring to the embedded market. Implementing these dedicated neural network accelerators can boost the performance of embedded devices while keeping power consumption low, as shown in Toradex’s solutions with Intel Movidius Myriad and Gryfalcon Lightspeeur. Toradex partners with Allied Vision to showcase the brand-new Alvium industrial MIPI CSI-2 camera as a crucial component in the pasta detection demo which uses an Apalis System on Module featuring the NXP i.MX 8 QuadMax SoC with Cortex-A72, Cortex-A53 and dual OpenCL-capable GPU. To learn more about the demo, see CNX-Software’s blog post. A real-world application example of deep learning is Manta, a camera-based drowning detection system from Coral Detection Systems which is solar-powered, and the video analytics are done on a Toradex Apalis module featuring a Nvidia TK1 SoC with a CUDA-enabled GPU. If a person is at risk of drowning, the system can alert its user acoustically or via smartphone.

TechNexion shows i.MX8M Mini, Intel Apollo Lake, Qualcomm QCA9377, QCA6174 at Embedded World 2019

Posted by Charbax – March 11, 2019
Category: Tablets, Internet of Things, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Qualcomm, NXP, Intel, Embedded World, TechNexion, Android, Ubuntu

TechNexion shows their lineup of new devices based on the ultra low-power NXP i.MX8M Mini in their ultra-small PICO form factor combining ARM Cortex-A53 and an M4 microcontroller at embedded world 2019, it supports Android, Linux, Yocto, Ubuntu OS is only 37 x 40 mm and at a low cost. The SoM integrates a fully certified wireless module PIXI-9377 based on Qualcomm QCA9377. They also show their Qualcomm QCA9377, QCA6174 devices and more. TechNexion announces two new SoM families: AXON and FLEX. AXON is a product family of small form factor (58 x 37 mm) modules designed for specialized embedded applications requiring another dimension of I/O flexibility. AXON-IMX8M-MINI is also based on NXP i.MX8M Mini applications processor and features AXON Fabric programmable logic, a specialized IC that provides additional functions including nearly infinite pinmuxing, allowing for true pin-to-pin compatibility between SoC versions. FLEX series, on the other hand, is a low-cost family making use of low-cost LPDDR4 SO-DIMM connector. FLEX-IMX8M-MINI (69.6 x 35 mm) offers HD multimedia streaming and integrated 3D graphics at a price point for the cost sensitive market. TechNexion launches several products based on Intel Apollo Lake processor family (Intel Atom x5-E3930, x5-E3940 or x7-E3950) that can be easily deployed in diverse industrial applications ranging from manufacturing robots and machinery, to radar and sensors on ships, trains and automobiles, to in-vehicle experience, video systems and more. TC-1010-APL and TC-1560-APL Multi Touch HMIs come in 10.1” and 15.6” sizes. On the other hand, TCK3-APL is a ruggedized box PC fully customizable to handle your projects with IoT integration. TechNexion also shows their expanded lineup of fully certified (CE / ETSI / FCC / IC / RCM / TELEC) PIXI and STIX series combo wireless communication modules based on Qualcomm QCA9377 and QCA6174 solutions. The modules are available in several M.2 and in the mini-PCIe form factor.

Microchip Mi-V RISC-V CPU with Microsemi FPGA

Posted by Charbax – March 11, 2019
Category: Development Boards, FPGA, Exclusive videos, Embedded World, Microchip

Microchip acquired Microsemi, and with it comes their new Mi-V RISC-V ecosystem, a suite of tools and design resources developed by Microsemi and third parties to support RISC-V designs using RISC-V Soft IP Cores available for RTG4, IGLOO2 and PolarFire FPGAs, introducing the industry’s first RISC-V SoC FPGA Architecture, PolarFire SoC which brings deterministic real-time performance to Linux in a coherent multi-core RISC-V CPU. The RISC-V Mi-V Ecosystem consists of various design tools such as the Libero SoC FPGA Design Suite, Eclipse based IDE SoftConsole enabling quick C and C++ development, a Firmware Catalog consisting of numerous drivers, and third party platforms for development, simulation and debug.

$449 Qualcomm Robotics RB3 Platform Snapdragon 845 Development Board, Embedded World 2019 booth tour

Posted by Charbax – March 3, 2019
Category: Robots, Internet of Things, Development Boards, Exclusive videos, Qualcomm, Embedded World, Geniatech, Android, Ubuntu, Windows

Qualcomm and Thundercomm launches the Robotics RB3 Platform 96Boards development board (available for $449 at Thundercomm), supports the development of smart, power-efficient, and cost-effective robots, uses heterogeneous computing and Qualcomm Artificial (AI) Engine to support on-device machine learning, computer vision, robust security, multimedia, Wi-Fi, and cellular connectivity capabilities, based on the Qualcomm SDA845/Qualcomm SDM845 SoC. It includes hardware, software, and development tools, the Qualcomm Robotics RB3 platform is designed to help manufacturers and developers create robotic products, ranging from large industrial and enterprise robots to small battery-operated ones with challenging power. This video also features a tour of the Qualcomm booth at Embedded World 2019, featuring all the LTE for IoT modems such as the MDM9206 and the MDM9205 LTE IoT modem, and development boards available from Qualcomm’s partners including Geniatech, Intrinsyc, eInfoChips, Altek, Inforce Computing, Keith and Koep, Shiratech, Basler and more.