Sipeed LicheeRV – A $16.90 Allwinner D1 Linux RISC-V board

Finally! There’s now a much more affordable Allwinner D1 RISC-V Linux board thanks to Sipeed LicheeRV Nezha CM SBC sold for $16.90 and up on Aliexpress, that’s much cheaper than the $100 asked for Nezha SBC, although still not incredibly cheap as we’ll see from the specifications below.

Sipeed LicheeRV is actually both a board and a system-on-on-module with an edge connector, and is equipped with 512MB DDR3, a USB-C OTG port, a MicroSD card socket, and an SPI display interface. The dual M.2 edge connector can be plugged into a carrier board, and they will be a “86 Box” (86x86mm) for HMI display that can be used for home automation.

Sipeed LicheeRVSipeed Lichee RV specifications:

  • SoC – Allwinner D1 single-core XuanTie C906 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 1.0 GHz with HiFi4 DSP, G2D 2D graphics accelerators
  • Memory – 512MB DDR3 memory @ 792 MHz
  • Storage – MicroSD card slot
  • Video – SPI display interface for optional 1.14-inch magnetic display
  • USB – USB Type-C OTG port
  • Host connector – 2x M.2 B-key edge connector for I/Os such as HDMI, MIPI DSI, RGB, Ethernet, Audio, SDIO, GPIO, etc…
  • Debugging – 4-pin UART header, USB ADB debugging
  • Misc – Power LED, FEL button
  • Power Supply – 5V/0.5A via USB-C port
  • Dimensions – 43.2 x 25mm
Sipeed LicheeRV Suit
Sipeed LicheeRV with SPI display aka “Sipeed LicheeRV Suit”

The board will support the OpenWrt-based Tina Linux as well as Debian Desktop. With no networking connectivity nor HDMI output or easy access to I/Os, it will have limited use, but Sipeed says carrier boards are coming in December. The Aliexpress page also shows the LicheeRV-86 an “86 Box” with an integrated 480×480 touchscreen display, an XR829 WiFi and Bluetooth module, Ethernet via a USB port, dual microphone, a 2.54mm GPIO header, and support for WAFT (WebAssembly Framework for Things).

LicheeRV-86

I’m not sure why it’s on Aliexpress, since only LicheeRV and the Suit variant ($22) with the SPI display are for sale at this time. If you’d really like a RISC-V Linux board that’s more like a Raspberry Pi Zero W with HDMI, WiFi, and a GPIO header, Sipeed is also working on it.

RISC-V Raspberry Pi Zero Clone

It will not use one of Allwinner’s wireless chips, but instead the Ampak AP6210 module with WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0.

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22 Comments
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Sander
Sander
2 years ago

Very nice! The 512MB RAM means you can run a (headless) Linux distro.

And ordering via Ali, so not the ususual Sipeed 20 – 30 USD shipping cost.

GoodNews?
2 years ago

Isn’t this thing more symbolic than useful?

Wonder if this can even be par with the over 5 year old “orange pi one” (4core h3 + 512MB RAM) which cost $10 back in the days.

kcg
kcg
2 years ago

Well, market is currently without *ANY* risc-v developer board. Both SiFive Unleashed and Polar ICICLE-KIT are unavailable till half of ’22 and later. Basically we’re back to running Qemu risc-v on as fast CPU as possible to purchase. So any board, meaningful only a bit, is counted here. Well, this one is more about embedded though…

Jon Smirl
2 years ago

I have a dozen ESP32-C3 boards on my desk that I paid around $3.00 each for. They are RISC-V based.

Milkboy
Milkboy
2 years ago

yeah but small ram means ESP32-C3 boards means GP PC software porting & dev are limited.

512MB thou no much, can run more apps, like servers

Noloqoq
Noloqoq
2 years ago

Agree, this is perfect form low-power home web server. Could even be solar powered with its only 500mA max input. Some do that with AllWinner A20 (2*Cortex A7), that use far more energy that this kind of RISC-V. This is also interesting this way for solar or small cell powered appliance, with the screen.

tkaiser
tkaiser
2 years ago

> Some do that with AllWinner A20 (2*Cortex A7), that use far more energy that this kind of RISC-V

Why do you think the ISA would be important for this type of comparison?

Tsvetan
2 years ago

there are also GD32 RISCV chips for a quite some time, but not with external DDR memory

Noloqoq
Noloqoq
2 years ago

GD32V are microcontrollers. with very small RAM. You will not be able to run linux system on it. Linux system integrators and users wait for a good and affordable for everyone RISC-V solution for this :).

Sander
Sander
2 years ago

Exactly.

Sander
Sander
2 years ago

Yes, very symbolic: the start of (a bit more) open source CPU’s.

Sam
Sam
2 years ago

Very good news for anyone wanting to natively do RV64 stuff. There is nothing under 120USD on the market that can do native linux RISC-V gcc besides this. Insta buy for me!

David Willmore
David Willmore
2 years ago

Any update on how your D1s board is going, cnx-soft?

David Willmore
David Willmore
2 years ago

I’m crossing my fingers for you!

Frank Earl
Frank Earl
2 years ago

The only drawback to this stuff I see is the Crap XRadio WiFi on some of the Carriers.

WiFi’s going to be nerfed on this thing unless someone gets them to wise-up over at Allwinner and CO and gets better resources or rolls out a cleaner driver for these idiot things.

Tsvetan
2 years ago

Did they changed the prices? As when I open the Aliexpress page it says $20-26 + $7.50 shipping

Noloqoq
Noloqoq
2 years ago

€ can be used instead of $. This allow to not pay for money conversion (and them from $ to ¥). At least there are not on my account. This is currently 18,53€ + 4.26€. Looks like it vary day to day, probably due to RMB<=>Euro (or $+conversion?) parity.

Sander
Sander
2 years ago

There is no law Ali must include that. But it’s (probably) better for the EU buyer, otherwise VAT *plus* VAT handling (10-25 euro per package) will be added by the courier on behalf of the customs

kebab
kebab
2 years ago

This Supplier/Shipping Company does not deliver to your selected Country/Region.
Fantastic…
Any idea if he composite video output on these can be used as a high speed dac? Somehow bypassing sync and all that video stuff ?

Mati
Mati
2 years ago

Hey
you can attach a papers:
https://dl.sipeed.com/shareURL/LICHEE/D1

Khadas VIM4 SBC