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Alliance Memory combines NAND flash and eMMC controller in FPGA package

Fri, Jul 07, 2023

Compliant With JEDEC eMMC v5.1, the ASFC16G31M-51BIN integrates NAND flash memory with an eMMC controller and flash transition layer (FTL) management software in a single 11.5 mm by 13 mm 153-ball FBGA package. The 16Gbyte industrial grade device is available from Alliance Memory.

The device for solid-state storage in consumer, industrial, and networking applications features boot operation, replay protected memory block (RPMB), device health report, field firmware updates, power-off notification, enhanced strobe features for faster and more reliable operation, write levelling, high-priority interrupt (HPI), secure trim / erase and high-speed HS200 and HS400 modes. The ASFC16G31M-51BIN is also backwards-compatible with eMMC v4.5 and v5.0.

The eMMC can be used in smart watches, tablets, digital TVs, set-top boxes, VR and AR headsets, digital cameras, CCTV, surveillance, automation, PoS systems and emerging embedded applications. According to Alliance Memory, the ASFC16G31M-51BIN simplifies designs for fast and easy system integration in these products, speeding up product development and time to market. It also saves valuable space by eliminating the need for an external controller. The FTL software provides high reliability and stable performance with wear levelling and bad block management, the company added.

The ASFC16G31M-51BIN operates over an industrial temperature range of -40 to +85 degrees C and offers programmable bus widths of x1, x4, and x8. The device’s NAND memory with internal LDO can be powered with a single 3V supply voltage, while the controller can be powered by 1.8 or 3V dual supply voltages.

Samples of the eMMC are available now. Production quantities are available with lead times of 8 to 10 weeks.

David Bagby, Alliance Memory’s president and CEO confirmed that eMMCs are a new focus product for the company. “We are making a significant investment in this product portfolio, and with further, higher-density additions we’ll be launching in Q3 2023, Alliance Memory is set to become one of the leading providers of eMMC technology,” he predicted.

http://www.alliancememory.com

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Impulse Embedded introduces Vecow’s workstation for rail and AIoT

Thu, Jul 06, 2023

The IVX-1000 is a rugged in-vehicle computing workstation by Vecow. It is designed for railway and AIoT (AI of things) / industry 4.0 applications and is available from Impulse Embedded.

The updated workstation is powered by the latest Intel 13th Gen Core i9, i7, i5, and i3 processors and has a wide, 16V to 160V DC input with 500V surge protection. The EN50155-compliant system can be used for AI-enabled in-vehicle applications such as ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems), public safety and mobile communications as well as AIoT / Industry 4.0 applications.

The IVX-1000 has an LGA1700 CPU socket that can support Intel’s 13th and 12th Gen Core processors, (code names Alder Lake and Raptor Lake) including the high-performance 24 Core i9-13900E processor. This is a mixed core CPU, with eight Performance (P) hyper-threaded cores and eight Efficient (E) cores. The E cores can focus on background tasks, whilst the P cores run the more demanding applications uninterrupted. The IVX-1000 also features two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 64Gbyte of 4800MHz DDR5 memory.

There is a variety of high speed I/O such as four 10Gbits per second USB3.2 Gen2 ports and nine 2.5G Network ports, supporting TSN (time sensitive networking), for high speed edge communication standards. This allows critical information to be transmitted and acted on in real time.

Eight of these ports feature X-coded M12 connectors to maintain and secure connection in high vibration areas. Four of the M12 ports offer PoE+, with 25.5W / 48V per port power for use with IP cameras and other PoE powered devices, advised Impulse Embedded.

There is also an M.2 3042 B-key socket, suitable for 5G modules, one M.2 2230 E-key for Wi-Fi, and one mini PCIe slot for expansion modules. Quad display output is also standard, via two DisplayPort outputs and two HDMI ports.

For storage, there are two SATA III ports, one mSATA connector, and one M.2. 2280 M-key (PCIe x4) socket. Some models offer removable storage via easy to access front mount caddies.

https://www.impulse-embedded.co.uk/

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Arduino Uno Wi-Fi variant is powered by 32bit microcontroller

Tue, Jun 27, 2023

Open source hardware and software provider, Arduino, has announced next generation Uno board, describing it as “a significant revision of its 8bit technology”. The Uno R4 is powered by a 32bit microcontroller and is available in a basic (Uno Ra4 Minima) and a comprehensive Uno R4 (WiFi) for different budget and creative levels of the maker community.

The Uno R4 has the same standard form factor, shield compatibility and 5V power supply of the Uno R3, with the addition of a 32bit microcontroller with up to 16x the clock speed, memory and flash storage with the integration of the RA4M1 processor from Renesas.

The RA4M1 microcontroller is based on an Arm Cortex-M4 core and features a clock speed of 48MHz for higher processing power. To accommodate more complex projects, the Uno R4 is fitted with 32kbyte of SRAM and 256kbyte of flash memory. The Arm Cortex-M4 core features a floating point unit (FPU), boosting performance for certain applications, said Arduino. Software scalability is also supported on the new board, allowing easy upgrades for projects made with Uno R3 or Leonardo.

In response to requests from the Arduino community, the USB port has been upgraded to USB-C and the maximum power supply voltage has been increased to 24V with an improved thermal design. The board provides a CAN bus, which allows users to minimise wiring and execute different tasks in parallel by connecting multiple shields as well as two SPI and two I2C serial ports. The board also includes a 12bit DAC and operational amplifier.

The pinout, voltage and form factor are the same as for the Uno R3 to ensure maximum hardware and electrical compatibility with existing shields and projects. This also ensures the Uno R4 is a drop-in replacement.

The Uno R4 WiFi version comes with an Espressif ESP32-S3 module for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity. The bright 12×8 red LED matrix is suitable for creative projects using animations or for plotting sensor data without the need for additional display hardware. The board has a variety of compatible modules that can be connected via the Qwiic I2C connector, combined with the large ecosystem of shields for Uno already in the market and allows the creation of projects without soldering, breadboards or manual wiring. For more advanced uses, there are also additional pins to turn off the microcontroller while keeping the RTC (real time clock) powered by an external buffer battery.

For makers seeking a boost in processing power without the additional features, the Uno R4 Minima is a cost-effective option. It has HID over USB capability for makers to simulate a mouse or a keyboard to create interfaces with minimal effort.

Production of the Uno R3 will continue, said Arduino. To offer a consistent developer experience between the 8-bit Uno R3 and 32-bit Uno R4, significant efforts are being made to ensure maximum backward compatibility with existing code examples and tutorials, the company continued.

https://store.arduino.cc/pages/unor4

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Segger starts to add STOP to Embedded Studio for Arm

Tue, Jun 20, 2023

The latest release of Segger’s Embedded Studio for Arm is supplied with STOP (stack overflow prevention) designed to reliably prevent stack overflows. With STOP ena-bled, the compiler adds a call to a stack limit-check routine wherever necessary, before adjusting the stack pointer.

The STOP option for the Segger Compiler can be easily switched on, without any change to application code. This way, all stack overflows are prevented. If a stack overflow has been prevented, the system can enter a safe state and recover.

STOP has a surprisingly low impact on size and speed. It adds only about two to five per cent to code size and execution time, which typically does not have a significant impact on the performance of the system.

A stack overflow can cause all kinds of failures in an embedded system, from hard-to-detect, seemingly random miscomputations to severe malfunctions or even crashes.

STOP protects all stacks in the system. It protects the process stack, as well as the main stack used for interrupts. It can be used with any real time operating system (RTOS), provided the RTOS updates the stack-limit variable on a context switch.

The technology is currently available for Thumb-2 architectures such as Cortex-M4, Cortex-M7, Cortex-A9, and Cortex-A15.

On ARMv7M architectures, STOP is ready to use in Embedded Studio with a single project option switch.

The STOP feature is recommended for all, but deemed essential for safety critical applications, said Segger, which believes it is the only company offering such technology today. It can be used by software engineers, students or hobbyists. “It takes less than 15 minutes, is easy and hassle-free,” said Rolf Segger, the company’s founder. It is also cost-free for evaluation, education, and non-commercial purposes.

Embedded Studio is Segger’s multi-platform IDE (integrated development environment). Characterised by its flexibility of use, it includes all the tools and features a developer needs for professional embedded C and C++ programming and development. It comes with Segger’s optimised emRun runtime and emFloat floating-point libraries, as well as Segger’s smart Linker, all of which have been developed from the ground up specifically for resource-constrained embedded systems. In combination with the Clang-based optimising C/C++ Segger compiler, extremely small yet efficient programs can be generated, putting every byte to work.

Embedded Studio is available on all platforms (Linux, macOS, and Windows) on Arm, Intel, and Apple Silicon.

http://www.segger.com

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Alliance Memory combines NAND flash and eMMC controller in FPGA package

Impulse Embedded introduces Vecow’s workstation for rail and AIoT

Arduino Uno Wi-Fi variant is powered by 32bit microcontroller

Segger starts to add STOP to Embedded Studio for Arm

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