FirePrime Board Features Rockchip RK3128 Quad Core Cortex A7 Processor

The team behind Firefly-RK3288 development board has designed a new board with the less powerful but cheaper and more power efficient Rockchip RK3128 quad core Cortex A7 processor. FirePrime comes with 1GB RAM, 8GB Flash, Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and various other ports and expansion headers.

FirePrimeAs with many other new development boards, Firefly team has gone with a baseboard + system-on-module design (mini PCI-e connector), and will certainly sell the module separately to companies who want to design their own baseboard.

Fireprime board specifications:

  • SoC – Rockchip RK3128 quad core ARM Cortex A7 @ 1.3 GHz with ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU
  • System Memory – 1 GB LPDDR2 @ 533 MHz
  • Storage – 8 GB NAND flash + micro SD slot
  • Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0 (AP6212 module)
  • Video Output – HDMI 1.4 output, CVBS (AV) as well as MIPI and LVDS via expansion headers
  • Audio Output – HDMI, optical S/PDIF, AV, Line-In
  • Video Codec
    • Decode – H.265, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.263, H.264, AVS, VC-1, RV, VP6/VP8, Sorenson Spark, MVC up to 1920×1080 @ 60fps
    • Encode – H.264, H.265, VP8, MVC (1080p)
  • USB – 4x USB 2.0 ports + 1 x micro USB OTG port
  • Misc – IR sensor, 2x  LEDs
  • Power Supply – 5V/2A
  • Dimensions – Baseboard: 117 x 85 mm; CPU module: 67.6 x 31 mm

RK3128_CPU_ModuleThe board will run Android 5.1 and Ubuntu 15.04. Some documentation is available on the Wiki, and Rockchip’s Android Lollipop SDK can be retrieved from bitbucket.

The company has not provided an availability date, nor released pricing information, but for reference F6 RK3128 media player sells for $50 including shipping, and it has similar specifications expect its lacks Gigabit Ethernet (Fast Ethernet only) and Bluetooth. So it’s unlikely FirePrime-RK3128 can match Raspberry Pi 2 or ODROID-C1 boards’ price, but it should still probably be below $50.

Thanks to Developer x, Nanik, and Harley.

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19 Replies to “FirePrime Board Features Rockchip RK3128 Quad Core Cortex A7 Processor”

  1. That’s cure but why is everyone launching boards to compete with the RPi2 that don’t really offer anything over what the RPi2 has ?
    I’d like to see something more original like one with a 64bit MTK SOC or some other 64bit chip …. instead we get “attack of the clones”.

  2. @Bruce
    Yep, didn’t want to go into that with Chinese SOCs and support. Rpi2 si getting mainline support, open source graphics and the works …
    It’s why I’m saying I see no need for this if you don’t have anything better to offer. I’m willing to pay more but give me something … octa core, arm64… not the 4 A7 cores I can get in the Rpi2 which I’ll get anyway because of the support and the community.

  3. @Sander
    I’d be OK with an even higher price at least at first but there’s not even a $200 one so … Your best bet today is probably the new nVidia shield console that has a 64 bit SOC at $200 but it’s not a real devel board.
    I’m hoping AMD will finally launch their Opteron 1100 soon but it’s been delayed for so long now …

  4. @Marius Cirsta

    $200? Wow! What would be the advantage for you of such an ARM64 board over a $179 HP Stream Mini Desktop with an X86_64?

    I can think of one thing: I use my Raspi’s GPIO to connect to electricty meter connected to my solar panel. That is something the HP Stream Mini can’t do easily.

  5. I was just looking and saw the FireFly there too but I’ve found it on Aliexpress for $170 ( with shipping ). That is quite expensive, it’s about how much I paid for my Jetson TK1 which is a vastly superior board ( has native SATA , mini PCIe , open source enabled GPU ).

    I’m still waiting for some ARM64 SOCs from Allwinner and Rockchip but they do seem to be taking their time.

  6. @m][sko
    OK but I’m not sure you can buy any of those and well to be quite honest for the asking price I’d expect more, like 2GB of RAM , 8 cores …

  7. Consider the Fireprime just a development board, it is too expensive to be anything else. All of the Linux/Android source (including 5.1) is at t-firefly for download. Check out RK3128 on 1688.com and you’ll see production STB PCBA for $14.

    The price change from $69 to $99 at Aliexpress is because it used to not include shipping and now it includes 5-day DHL. It used to be $69 + $30 ship.

    Be careful designing things with Qualcom or Broadcom CPUs, it is too difficult to get chips from them unless you have $1M in your pocket.

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