Rock Pi S mini SBC Now Available for $15 with 512MB RAM, 512MB SD NAND Flash, WiFi & Bluetooth

Rock Pi S SBC

Rock Pi S is a tiny single board computer powered by Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Cortex-A35 processor coupled with up to 512MB RAM, up to 1GB SD NAND flash, as well as a USB port, Fast Ethernet & optional WiFi & Bluetooth connectivity which was announced to sell for as low as $9.90 with 256MB RAM, 256MB flash and no wireless module. Seeed Studio has now started to take pre-orders for Rock Pi S with the board selling for $14.90 with 512 MB RAM, 512MB SD NAND flash, WiFi & Bluetooth. Shipping is scheduled to start on October 15th. [Update: Seeed Studio has also listed the 256MB RAM version of the board for $9.90] Rock Pi S specifications as currently sold on Seeed Studio: SoC – Rockchip RK3308 quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz with built-in VAD (Voice Activity Detector) System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – MicroSD […]

NanoPI NEO2 Black Allwinner H5 SBC Adds an eMMC flash Module, Up to 1GB RAM

NanoPi NEO2 Black

NanoPi NEO2, now called NanoPi NEO2 LTS, is a great little Allwinner H5 SBC designed for server/headless applications with Ethernet & USB ports, as well as I/O headers. FriendlyELEC is now about to launch a new variant called NanoPi NEO2 Black with the same form factor and Allwinenr H5 64-bit Arm SoC, but adding an eMMC flash module, supporting up to 1GB RAM, modifications to the I/O headers, and featuring a black PCB instead of the blue PCB found in NEO2-LTS. NanoPi NEO2 Black SBC specifications with changes in bold or stricken-through: SoC – Allwinner H5 quad-core Cortex A53 processor with an ARM Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 512 MB or 1GB DDR3 Storage – MicroSD card slot, eMMC flash module connector Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet (via RTL8211E-VB-CG chip) USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x micro USB OTG port, 2x 1x USB via headers Expansion headers 10-pin header […]

Wio Lite RISC-V WiFi Board with ESP8266 Module Launches for $6.9

Wio Lite RISC-V

Released this summer, GigaDevice GD32V generated a lot of buzz, as a cheap general-purpose 32-bit RISC-V MCU, and soon after the $5 Longan Nano development board with LCD display and enclosure was launched to the market. However, many applications benefit or require some network connectivity with WiFi. Espressif Systems is a founding member of the RISC-V Foundation, so RISC-V WiSoCs (Wireless SoCs) are coming, but AFAIK none of those are available yet. In the meantime, Seeed Studio has launched Wio Lite RISC-V board which brings WiFi connectivity to GD32V MCU through an ESP8266 WiFi module. Wio Lite specifications: MCU – Gigadevice GD32VF103CBT6 RISC-V (rv32imac) microcontroller @ 108 MHz with 128KB Flash, 32KB SRAM Wireless Module – ESP8266 WiFi Wio Core with 802.11b/g/n/ WiFi 4 connectivity Storage – MicroSD card slot USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Expansion – I/O headers for GD32 MCU, I/O header for […]

Rock Pi 4C SBC to Support Dual Display Setups via micro HDMI and mini DP Ports

rock pi 4 model C

Rockchip RK3399 powered Rock Pi 4 SBC was introduced at the end of 2018 and followed nearly exactly Raspberry Pi 3 Model B form factor just with a more powerful processor, GPU, as well as more memory depending on which model you purchase. But in June 2019, the Raspberry Pi foundation launched Raspberry Pi 4 SBC with a much faster processor and many of the same ports as its predecessor except for support for two HDMI displays via micro HDMI ports. Radxa has now followed suit with Rock Pi 4C which offers two modern video outputs, but with a twist as the upcoming SBC combines one micro HDMI port with one mini DP port. Rock Pi 4C was introduced at the XDC 2019 conference where open-source graphics developers meet, and Radxa was a “supporter”. The company explains Rock Pi 4B uses RK3399’s USB type-C controller for the two USB 3.0 […]

NanoPi M4V2 Metal Case Kit Review – Part 1: Unboxing and Assembly

NanoPi NEO M4V2 Metal Case Camera Mount

Earlier this month FriendlyELEC released two new products namely NanoPi M4 metal case with heatsink and optional NVMe SSD adapter, and NanoPi M4V2 SBC, a minor upgrade to the original Rockchip RK3399 powered NanoPi M4 board with faster LPDRR4 memory,  the addition of power & recovery buttons, and microphone input is now inside the audio jack instead of solder pads. I received both this weekend, in the first part of the review I’ll show the items part of the package and then show how to assemble the kit. In the second part, I’ll focus on the new features of the board like memory bandwidth, as well as the thermal performance of the complete solution in both Android and Linux. Unboxing Instead of one kit, I actually received two. One kit basically includes NanoPi M4V2 board with internal antennas (which we won’t use here), and the metal case which comes with […]

TechNexion XORE is a tiny NXP i.MX 8M Mini LGA System-on-Module

TechNexion XORE LGA System-on-Module

There are several ways to design a system-on-module to carrier board interface, and the most common solutions are edge connectors (e.g. SO-DIMM), board-to-board connectors (placed under the module), and castellated holes where the board is soldered directly to the baseboard. Another less common method is to design an LGA (Land Grid Array) module, which also have to be soldered straight unto the carrier board, but enables much more compact system-on-modules, and that’s exacty what TechNexion has done with their XORE family of LGA system-on-module currently powered by the 14-nm NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor. XORE-IMX8M-Mini Module TechNexion XORE module specifications: SoC (one of the other) NXP i.MX8M Mini Solo single Arm Cortex-A53  @ 1.8 GHz + M4 processor, Vivante GC7000Lite 3D GPU NXP i.MX8M Mini Dual 2x Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.8 GHz + M4 processor, Vivante GC7000Lite 3D GPU NXP i.MX8M Mini Quad 4x Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.8 GHz + M4 […]

NPi i.MX6ULL (Not So) Industrial-grade Linux SBC Starts at $39

NPi i.MX6ULL

[Update: I was initially informed the temperature range of the board was -40°C to +105°C, but Seeed Studio issues a correction explaining the Core module itself is rated -20℃ ~ 80℃ temperature range, and they haven’t tested the breakout board at all so we just don’t know. That means the board is not industrial-grade at all. I’ve left the rest of the post mostly unchanged] We’ve covered several NXP i.MX boards in recent days, but here’s another NXP board courtesy of Seeed Studio with NPi i.MX6ULL industrial-grade Linux SBC powered by a low power NXP i.MX6ULL Arm Cortex A7 processor. The board also comes with 512MB RAM, either an 8GB eMMC flash or 256MB NAND flash for storage, features two Fast Ethernet ports, and various I/Os including two 40-pin GPIO expansion headers. NPi i.MX6ULL board specifications: Core Module SoC – NXP MCIMX6Y2CVM08AB single Cortex-A7 core @ up to 800 MHz […]

MaaXBoard NXP i.MX 8M Raspberry Pi Compatible Board Runs Android 9.0 or Yocto Linux

MaaXBoard

When we looked for information about PICO-PI-IMX8M single board computer, we noticed another Raspberry Pi shaped board powered by NXP i.MX 8M processor: MaaXBoard by Embest, an AVNET company. The board comes with up to 4 GB DDR4 RAM, a MicroSD card slot or eMMC flash for storage, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi & Bluetooth, HDMI 2.0, USB 3.0 port, MIPI CSI & DSI ports, and of course a the 40-pin “Raspberry Pi” expansion header. MaaxBoard specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8MQ quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor, Cortex-M4F real-time core, and Vivante GPU with OpenGL/ES 3.1, OpenGL 3.0, Vulkan, OpenCL 1.2 System Memory – 2GB DDR4 SDRAM (up to 4GB) Storage – MicroSD card slot or optional eMMC flash up to 64GB Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60 Hz, MIPI DSI display connector Video Playback – 4Kp60 with High Dynamic Range (H.265, VP9), 4Kp30 (H.264), 1080p60 (MPEG2, MPEG4p2, VC1, […]

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