Hardware

RS has had its environmental sensor development kit (ESDK) certified by the Open-Source Hardware Association (OSHWA), which means the kit can now carry the OSHW logo. “The aims of the OSHWA are to foster technological knowledge and encourage research that is accessible, collaborative and respects user freedom,” according to RS. “OSHWA certification recognises that the kit meets a uniform and ...

RISC-V simulation company Imperas Software has announced a partnership with Breker Verification Systems, a provider of test content synthesis for verification environments, to develop interfaces and standards to unify functional verification design flows. “RISC-V represents an inflection point for semiconductor verification as the design freedoms provided by the open instruction set architecture means an assumption of the responsibility of the ...

Facebook has open-sourced the precision PCIe timing card it created for its servers. It combines frequencies from a miniature atomic clock and GPS receiver, both on the card, with FPGA-based qualification that combines the two. The local clock is there for when satellite signals are not available, or are unreliable – for example during a spoofing attack. With it, “anyone ...

SBC development kits available from Farnell now include the OrangeCrab r0.2 open-source FPGA development board from Good Stuff Department, the company responsible for open-source hardware, including the ArticKoala and ButterStick boards. This latest SBC is a xlim, compact Adafruit Feather form factor, measuring 22.86mm x 50.8mm. Despite its size, says the company, it can be used as to prototype custom SoC designs. It ...

German national standards body DIN (Deutsche Institut für Normung) has defined exactly what ‘open-source hardware’ is, and what it isn’t. This should mean an end to ‘open-washing’ – marketing partially or completely closed-source hardware as ‘open-source’. The definition is laid down in document ‘DIN Spec 3105 Open source hardware’, which has been written in English. Its creation builds on ‘Open ...

A starter kit for the Arduino Uno open-source prototyping board which can be used by professional embedded system engineers and students is available from RS Components, writes Richard Wilson.

Fans of the BeagleBone single board computer, little brother to BeagleBoard, now have access to 20 plug-in boards to add a camera, LCDs, weather sensors, and other I/O, writes Steve Bush.

An add-on prototyping kit forRaspberry Pi is available from US-based hobbyists website Adafruit.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation, which intends to sell its educational computers directly, auctioned 10 of its beta production board on eBay.

The RaspberryPi Foundation, which aims to put computers in front of children for £15, has taken delivery of 50 engineering prototypes, and intends to get the final version to customers by the end of the year, writes Steve Bush.