Rockchip RK3399Pro processor is based on the popular Rockchip RK3399Pro hexa-core Arm Cortex-A72/A53 processor plus an embedded neural processing unit (NPU) delivering up to 3 TOPS for AI acceleration.
So far you had to spend over $200 to get either Toybrick RK3399Pro board or 96Boards RK3399Pro development kit to get started with the processor. Some other companies announced their own RK3399Pro SBC such as Pine64 RockPro64-AI, or Khadas Edge board, but those are not available yet.
But there’s now a more affordable Rockchip RK3399Pro SBC courtesy of Radxa’s Rock Pi N10 available on Seeed Studio in three variants:
- $99 model A with 4GB RAM (3GB for CPU/GPU + 1GB for NPU), 16GB eMMC flash
- $129 model B with 6GB RAM (4GB for CPU/GPU + 2GB for NPU), 32GB eMMC flash
- $169 model C with 8GB RAM (4GB for CPU/GPU + 4GB for NPU), 64GB eMMC flash
Rock Pi N10 specifications:
- SoC – Rochchip RK3399Pro hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Cortex A72 cores up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.4 GHz, and an Arm Mali-T860 MP4 GPU with OpenGL ES 1.1 to 3.2, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL 1.2 and DX 11 support, and 8-/16-bit NPU delivering up to 3 TOPS
- System Memory – 4 to 8 GB LPDDR3 memory shared between Arm Cores and NPU
- Storage – 16 to 64 GB eMMC 5.1 flash, MicroSD card slot up to 128 GB, and M.2 NVMe SSD connector up to 2TB
- Video Output & Display I/F
- HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60 Hz
- 2-lane MIPI DSI via FPC connector
- eDP (embedded DisplayPort) header
- Dual independent display support (and maybe triple, TBC)
- Camera – 2-lane MIPI CSI supporting up to 8MP camera
- Audio
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- 2-pin Microphone header
- 24-bit/96 kHz HD audio codec
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet with optional PoE support, optional Rock Pi wireless module
- USB – 1x USB 3.0 OTG port with switch for host/device switch, and 2x USB 2.0 host ports
- Expansion
- M.2 socket for NVMe SSD
- M.2 socket for WiFi card
- 40-pin color-coded I/O expansion header with 1x UART, 2x SPI, 2x I2C, 1x PCM/I2S, 1x SPDIF, 1x PWM, 1x ADC, 6x GPIO, 2x 5V DC power in, 2x 3.3V power pin
- RS232 header
- Debugging – 1x micro USB port for access to the serial console
- Misc – Power, Reset and Recovery keys, IR receiver, RTC battery connector
- Power Supply – USB Type-C port supporting USB PD and
Qualcomm Quick Charge (QC3.0/2.0) - Dimensions – 100mm x 100mm
ROCK Pi N10 supports Debian 9 Desktop, Ubuntu 18.04 server, Fedora Desktop, and Android 8.1, as well as AI development tools such as Rock-X set of rapid AI components, RKNN-API C API, and RKNN-Toolkit Python API of RKNN (Rockchip Neural Network). You’ll find all the information to get started and hardware documentation on the wiki.
Competitors to Rock Pi N10 include NVIDIA Jetson Nano ($99) and Orange Pi 4B ($70) all of which are capable of hardware AI acceleration, and we previously reported that RK3399Pro board was slightly faster than Jetson Nano when using MobileNetV2 model. Orange Pi 4B is the cheapest of the lot, but some people have had issues getting access to Gyrfalcon SDK and even forums…
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Using M.2 key E for WiFi/BT only carrying SDIO/UART signals seems like a smart idea. But I wonder how many M.2 cards are using this today?
You’d be surprised, but there are more of those than you’d think.
The answer is none. The existing M.2 wifi module(E key) on the market is PCIe mostly. We make the wifi module because we can provide different wireless choice for the users, such as the WIFI 6 module requested by some users.
https://wiki.radxa.com/ROCKPI_wireless_module
None? I guess you didn’t try hard then. Worth the asking price is a different matter.
https://www.embeddedartists.com/m2/
https://techship.com/products/azurewave-aw-cm389ma/
https://www.lairdconnect.com/wireless-modules/wi-fi-bt-modules/60-2230c-wifi-module
http://www.wi2wi.com/wireless-connectivity/maximum-performance-series/multi-protocol-combo/wm828cc6
I mean, you can even pick one up on Amazon…
https://www.amazon.com/Azurewave-AW-NB136NF-Bluetooth-Broadcom-BCM43142/dp/B00MHYQFE2
Thanks for all the links. We will buy some and test the compatibilities.
I like ROCK PI N10 and would order two right now, but there is no case. Will you provide case for this board in the future?
The ROCK Pi N series follows exactly the Intel NUC form factor(4 inch). We will provide the universal case for the whole N series with replaceable front and rear panel.
> We will provide the universal case for the whole N series with replaceable front and rear panel.
Is there ETA?
Does anyone really use those AI accelerators for something beyond samples in documentation? I’d like to read about using SBC with some funky AI.
Not using AI accelerator, but an example of GPU accelerated image classification that could be used for sorting:
https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/02/05/adding-machine-learning-image-processing-embedded-product/
I have a client that uses it for various advertising/digital signage related implementations. Nothing funky, mostly boring to be honest, as they just count stuff with it…