Page 658 – Electronics-Lab.com

SGPC3 – Air Quality Sensor for Battery-Driven Applications

Posted on 6 April, 20186 April, 2018 by mixos

Sensirion, the expert in environmental sensing, now offers the ultra-lower power gas sensor SGPC3. The SGPC3 makes indoor air quality sensing available for mobile and battery-driven applications. With an average supply current of less than 0.07 mA the SGPC3 is able to provide indoor air quality measurements with several years of battery lifetime. Based on Sensirion’s SGP multi-pixel platform the SGPC3 offers a complete gas sensor system integrated into a very small 2.45 x 2.45 x 0.9 mm³ DFN package featuring I²C interface and a fully calibrated and humidity-compensated air quality output signal

Sensirion’s MOXSens® Technology provides the SGPC3 with an unmatched robustness against contamination by siloxanes resulting in outstanding long-term stability and accuracy. The combination of ultra-low power consumption and long-term stability makes the SGPC3 the perfect choice for indoor air quality monitoring in mobile and battery-driven smart home applications. Evaluation and testing is supported by application notes and example code; the SGP evaluation kits are also available through Sensirion’s distribution network.

Visit Sensirion’s website to see where you can order the SGPC3 gas sensor or to learn more about its specifications and features: www.sensirion.com

Discover more about the most relevant environmental parameters and Sensirion’s other innovative environmental sensor solutions at www.sensirion.com/environmental-sensing

LED BLE Matrix Heart Display

Posted on 5 April, 20185 April, 2018 by mixos

8*16 LED matrix display with bluetooth low energy to connect to any smart phone. By Nitesh:

This LED matrix is a heart shaped circuit which you can make/buy(from me) and gift to your valentine or crush and spread your love. It can be worn as a necklace or as a badge. It has got BLE so you can display any text message on the necklace using a smart phone.

LED BLE Matrix Heart Display – [Link]

Harmonic Function Generator using ATtiny85

Posted on 5 April, 20185 April, 2018 by mixos

David Johnson-Davies published another great and detailed project based on ATtiny85. It’s an harmonic function generator with an OLED display.

This article describes a simple function generator based on an ATtiny85 which allows you to generate a virtually unlimited number of waveforms using additive harmonic synthesis, by specifying the amplitude of each of the waveform’s harmonics.

It includes a volume control, audio amplifier, and loudspeaker so you can hear the waveforms. It’s not only a useful waveform generator, but also a good introduction to the composition of musical notes.

Harmonic Function Generator using ATtiny85 – [Link]

Connect Tech’s V7G System Is An AI-Targeted SBC with 5th Gen Xeon-D CPU And Nvidia Pascal Cards

Posted on 5 April, 2018 by Rik

Connect Tech Inc’s V7G System, which is also listed as the “COM Express Type 7 + GPU Embedded System”, is the first Xeon-D based SBC-like product. The V7G houses a 5th Gen “Broadwell” Xeon-D based COM Express Type 7 module and it can house three Nvidia Pascal-driven graphics boards. No OS support was listed yet, but it is expected to work with Linux or Windows.

This 216 x 164mm footprint system can drive 4x independent display outputs. Alternatively, it could also be used for headless GPGPU CUDA processing for Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence applications.

V7G - COM Express Type 7 + GPU Embedded System — V7G – COM Express Type 7 + GPU Embedded System

The V7G is the successor to its earlier, Xeon-E3 and Type 6-based “COM Express + GPU Embedded System”, which similarly offers the choice of Nvidia Quadro P3000 and P5000 boards. Instead of the V7G’s new Nvidia Tesla P6 option, the earlier model offers Nvidia Tesla M6 and GeForce GTX 1080 or 1050Ti graphics options. The V7G combines 10GbE and HDMI support, as well as new mini-PCIe and M.2 expansion slots.

The user can choose from a 12-core, 1.5GHz Xeon-D1559 or a 16-core, 1.3GHz Xeon-D1577, both with 45W TDP CPUs for the module. The module also comes with up to 48GB DDR4 (2400MT/s) ECC RAM. Both the 100W Quadro P5000 and more recent, 90W Tesla P6 (PDF) offer 2048 CUDA cores. The Quadro P3000, which launched last year, is limited to 1280 CUDA cores but has a lower power consumption of 75W.

The Tesla P6 is a GPU accelerator optimized for blade servers and designed originally for deep learning, visualization, and virtualization. As a drawback of this, the Tesla P6 equipped version of the V7G board lacks HDMI ports.

Storage department includes dual SATA interfaces and dual M.2 M-Key with the support of NVMe. The board implements 4x GbE and 2x 10GbE ports. The design is said to support a future upgrade path to 4x 10GbE ports.

There are also eight USB port, 4x USB 3.0 and 4x USB 2.0 ports, a micro-USB console port, and 8-bit GPIO. For expansion, there are dual mini-PCIe slots and two more M.2 slots with PCIe expansion. A heat spreader is included but the fan is optional.

The V7G (COM Express Type 7 + GPU Embedded System) is available now at an undisclosed price. More information may be found at Connect Tech’s V7G product page.

New Mini-ITX Form Factor Open-X 8M Development Kit Is Built Around i.MX8M Module

Posted on 5 April, 2018 by Rik

The Canada based company Intrinsyc has announced the Open-X 8M System on Module (SOM) a month ago. Now Open-X 8M is followed up with a Mini-ITX form factor Open-X 8M Development Kit build. The kit includes a GbE port, dual USB 3.0 ports, M2 expansion, and much more user-friendly features.

Open-X 8M SOM

The Open-X 8M SOM can run Linux and Android 8.0 on the high-end Quad model of the i.MX8M, the same model used by most of the other i.MX8M boards. The i.MX8M Quad has 4x Cortex-A53 cores, single 266MHz Cortex-M4F, VPU, and Vivante GC7000Lite GPU chips. These CPU cores can be clocked in the range of 1.3GHz to 1.5GHz.

The Open-X 8M SOM comes with 3GB LPDDR4 RAM and 16GB eMMC. It includes a wireless module with 2.4/5.0GHz 802.11a/b/g/n/ac with the support of 2×2 MU-MIMO and Bluetooth 4.1. A Gigabit Ethernet controller is also there for wired connectivity. Visual output is available with the help of the module’s 3x 100-pin connectors. There is also support for HDMI 2.0a for up to 4096 x 2160 at a 60Hz resolution and 4-lane MIPI-DSI for up to 1920 x 1080 at 60Hz. There are also dual 4-lane MIPI-CSI2 camera inputs.

The Open-X 8M SOM is moreover equipped with 2x debug UART, 2x USB 3.0, 4-bit SDIO, JTAG, and PCIe Gen2 additional I/O ports. This 3.3V module has an NXP PF4210 PMIC, and it can operate in 0 to 70°C temperature range.

Open-X 8M Development Kit

The Open-X 8M SOM is the heart of the new Open-X 8M Development Kit. It has a footprint of 170 x 170mm, which classifies as Mini-ITX form factor. The board has a MIPI-DSI connector and choice for mounting an optional, smartphone-sized Open-X LCD/Touchscreen is available.

The Open-X 8M Development Kit includes USB 3.0 host, USB 3.0 Type-C, and HDMI 2.0a ports, as well as a microSD slot. A GbE port is available as an alternative to the module’s WiFi. There’s also a 3.5mm audio output jack. Dual MIPI-CSI2 connectors support is available for optional camera module attachment.

The Open-X 8M SOM and Open-X 8M Development Kit are available now. Though, pricing information is not available yet. More information may be found at Intrinsyc’s Open-X 8M SOM and Open-X 8M Development Kit product page.

Introduction to DigiSpark – A Smaller, Cheaper and Powerful Arduino board

Posted on 4 April, 20185 April, 2018 by Ayo Ayibiowu

The Digispark board is one of the smallest Arduino boards ever produced and is copyrighted by Digistump LLC. Although it is tiny, it is also very powerful and powered by an ATTINY85 chip clocked up to 16.5Mhz (about the same speed as Arduino Uno boards). So Digispark is simply a microcontroller board based on an ATTINY85 MCU that can be programmed using the Arduino IDE. The Digispark is similar to the Arduino line mostly in regarding the programming way, it is cheaper, smaller, and quite powerful.

DigiSpark Development Board — DigiSpark Board

Just as most Arduino boards come with a USB port for programming and sometimes as source of power, Digispark comes with an onboard USB connector that can be plugged directly into a computer for programming of the device. The board can be powered via the USB port which will feed 5V to the board or from an external source via its VIN pin that can accept ~7 to 35V which will be regulated down to 5V through an onboard 78M05 voltage regulator.

Digispark is measured at 25mm by 18mm and comes with 6 GPIO pins for input and output. Three of those pins are capable of PWM and 4 of them capable of ADC. It also comes with 2 LED indicators, 1 for indicating power while the other is connected to either pin 0 or pin 1 depending on the type of board purchased. It comes with 8k Flash Memory and about 6k left after the addition of the bootloader, this is relatively small as compared to the 32K on the Arduino UNO but it’s fine for small to medium-sized projects.

One of the great advantages of using the Arduino boards and platform is the ability to use the inbuilt Serial to print out messages to the Arduino Serial monitor, a tool that is very handy for debugging. Unfortunately, the ATTINY85 which is found on the DigiSpark board cannot support the Serial library used in Arduino, but can technically support SoftwareSerial using some hack around. Anyway, engineers at Digispark devised another user interface option which aids as a serial monitor.

Getting Started With DigiSpark

The Digispark runs the “micronucleus tiny85” bootloader version 1.02, an open source project. Of course, you don’t need to worry about burning the bootloader since the Digispark already comes with the bootloader pre-installed, but you will have to burn the bootloader yourself if you want to build your own Attiny85 digispark clone.

Furthermore, DigiSpark uses USB to communicate with the computer, so you should install the DigiSpark USB driver. To do this, you must download Arduino for Digispark which come with USB driver and extract the file (DigisparkArduino-Win32-1.0.4-March29.zip) to any folder, then execute DigisparkArduino– Win32\DigisparkWindowsDriver\InstallDriver.exe to start installing the USB driver.

Digispark is highly recommended to be used with the Arduino IDE 1.6.5+ and the Arduino 1.6.6 or 1.6.7 are not recommended. Make sure you have the Arduino IDE already installed. If you don’t have it already you can download it from the Arduino Website.

To start programming and working with Digispark, watch the full video below. If you are stuck or need some help, you can visit the tutorial page from Digispark here.

Digispark is a great way to jump into electronics, or perfect for when an Arduino is too big or too much. DigiSpark is available for purchase on the DigiStump website at a price of $7.95 and currently sold out and restocking will begin from May 2018. If you are like me that don’t like waiting that long, you can get a DigiSpark board for a relatively lesser price than the $7.95 from Aliexpress at about $1.7 or can be purchased on eBay as well.

Program-O-Tron – SD Card Based Standalone AVR Programmer

Posted on 4 April, 2018 by mixos

An SD card based standalone AVR Programmer is live on kickstarter and has 24 days to go.

Here at proto-pic HQ we make kits, lots of kits, and that means lots of AVR programming. We found this a tedious task and wanted a solution to make the whole thing quick and easy. No more did we want to have to use AVRDude or Arduino as ISP to program a few hundred ATtiny85s with a bootloader.

We looked around and found a few stand-alone programmers. Great. However they cost over £100 each and could only store one file which wasn’t so great.

Program-O-Tron – SD Card Based Standalone AVR Programmer – [Link]

moRFeus – A field-configurable wideband frequency converter and signal generator

Posted on 3 April, 2018 by mixos

MoRFeus is a 30 MHz–6 GHz field-configurable Fractional-N wideband frequency converter and signal generator. Its LCD display and button interface enable dynamic field-level configuration – from switching between signal generator and other modes, to setting the local oscillator frequency and more. It was designed for wideband frequency up- and down-conversion – with an LO frequency range of 85 MHz–5.4 GHz and input/output frequency range of 30 MHz–6 GHz

MoRFeus is small, lightweight, and functional. It was designed for low spurious emissions and is packaged in a precision-milled aluminum enclosure.

General Specifications

Input voltage: 5 V
ESD protection (RF IN and OUT ports): IEC 61000-4-2 contact discharge, 8 KV
Bias voltage: 5 V
Active bias current protection: 425 mA
Mixer input/output isolation: see mixer performance
Input IP3: +23 dBm
RF/IF input absolute maximum power: +15 dBm
Operating temperature -40 to +85
Storage temperature range -65 to +150
Dimensions: 88 mm x 38 mm x 68 mm
Weight: 7.4 oz

moRFeusis live on crowdsupply.com and available for 149 USD.

moRFeus – A field-configurable wideband frequency converter and signal generator – [Link]

Microchip MC1409UK – MPU based system on module

Posted on 3 April, 20183 April, 2018 by mixos

Simplify industrial-grade Linux® designs with SAMA5D2 MPU-based system on module (SOM) with Microchip’s MC1409u.

There is a great deal of design effort and complexity associated with creating an industrial-grade microprocessor (MPU)-based system. The ATSAMA5D27-SOM1, which contains the ARM® Cortex®-A5 ATSAMA5D27C-D1G-CU System in Package (SiP), greatly simplifies design by integrating the power management, non-volatile boot memory, Ethernet PHY and high-speed lower power DDR2 memory onto a small, single-sided Printed Circuit Board (PCB). The SAMA5D27 SOM1 is built on a common set of proven Microchip components and limits the design rules of the main application board, reducing overall PCB complexity and cost.

ATSAMA5D27 SOM1

SAMA5D27 ARM Cortex-A5 processor
1Gb (128MB) DDR2 DRAM
On-board power management unit
Single 3.3V supply
Pre-programmed EUI-48 MAC address
Industrial temperature range (-40 to 85°C)
40 x 38 mm Module, 0.8 mm pitch

You can solder the SOM on a mother board and take it to production, or it can be used as a reference design along with the free schematics, design and Gerber files and complete bill of materials which are available online. You can also transition from the SOM to the SiP or the SAMA5D2 MPU itself, depending on your design needs. No matter which option you select, all products are backed by Microchip’s customer-driven obsolescence policy which ensures availability for as long as needed.

source: www.avnet.com

Phytec Develops Three PhyCore Modules – i.MX8, i.MX8M, and iMX8X, Driven By Linux

Posted on 3 April, 20185 February, 2019 by Rik

Phytec has updated their product pages for three new PhyCore modules, all of which support Linux. The three modules, which employ three different flavors of i.MX8 SOC is phyCORE-i.MX 8X, i.MX 8M, and i.MX 8 SBCs. The PhyCore COMs are based on NXP’s Cortex-A53 based i.MX8M, its -A53 and -A72 equipped i.MX8 Quad, and its -A35 based i.MX8X.

phyCore-i.MX 8X

The i.MX8X SoC found on the phyCORE-i.MX 8X module. This board focuses on industrial IoT applications. i.MX8X includes up to 4x cores that comply with Arm’s Cortex-A35.

The i.MX8X SoC is further equipped with a single Cortex-M4 microcontroller, a Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP, and a multi-format VPU that supports up to 4K playback and HD encoding.

There’s no onboard wireless support, but support for dual GbE controllers (1x onboard, 1x RGMII) are available. There are MIPI-CSI and parallel camera interfaces, as well as ESAI based audio.

phyCore-i.MX 8M

The phyCORE-i.MX 8M supports the NXP i.MX8M Quad and QuadLite, both with 4x Cortex-A53 cores, as well as the dual-core Dual. All are clocked to 1.5GHz. They all have 266MHz Cortex-M4F cores and Vivante GC7000Lite GPUs, but only the Quad and Dual models support 4Kp60, H.265, and VP9 video capabilities.

In addition to the i.MX8M SoC, which offers “128 KB + 32 KB” RAM, the module ships with the same memory features as the phyCore-i.MX 8X except that it lacks the SPI flash. Once again, you get 512MB to 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM and either 128MB to 1GB NAND flash or 4GB to 128GB eMMC. This 3.3V module supports an RTC, watchdog, and tamper protection.

phyCore-i.MX 8

The phyCORE-i.MX 8, is ideal for image and speech recognition. It is the third module to support NXP’s top-of-the-line, 64-bit i.MX8 series. The module supports all three flavors of i.MX8 while the other two COMs we’ve seen have been limited to the high-end QuadMax: Toradex’s Apalis iMX8 and iWave’s iW-RainboW-G27M.

i.MX8 QuadMax features dual high-end Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 1.6GHz plus four Cortex-A53 cores. The i.MX8 QuadPlus design is the same, but with only one Cortex-A72 core, and the quad has no -A72 cores.

The 73 x 45mm phyCORE-i.MX 8 supports up to 8GB LPDDR4 RAM. Like the phyCORE-i.MX 8X, the module provides 64MB to 256MB of Micron Octal SPI/DualSPI flash. There’s no NAND option, but you get 4GB to 128GB eMMC.

More information may be found in Phytec’s phyCORE-i.MX 8X, phyCORE-i.MX 8M, and phyCORE-i.MX 8 product pages as well as the phyBoard-Polaris SBC product page.