Radxa Cubie A7Z is the little brother of the Cubie A7A SBC, still based on a powerful Allwinner A733 octa-core Arm Cortex-A76/A55 SoC, but offered in a more compact form factor inspired by the Raspberry Pi Zero.
The compact single board computer also comes with up to 16GB RAM, a microSD card slot, optional UFS flash, micro HDMI and USB-C DisplayPort video output, a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.x wireless module, a 4-lane MIPI CSI camera connector, a PCIe Gen3 FPC connector (at first for Pi Zero-sized board), and a 40-pin GPIO header.
Radxa Cubie A7Z specifications:
- SoC – Allwinner A733 (A733MX‑HN3)
- CPU
- Dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.00 GHz
- Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.79 GHz
- Single-core RISC-V E902 real-time core
- GPU – Imagination Technologies BXM-4-64 MC1 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.3, OpenCL 3.0
- VPU
- 8Kp24 H.265/VP9/AVS2 decoding
- 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 encoding
- AI accelerator – 3 TOPS NPU
- CPU
- System Memory – 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 12GB, or 16GB LPDDR4/4x
- Storage
- MicroSD card slot
- Footprint for optional 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB 2-lane UFS 3.0 module
- Video Output
- Micro HDMI 2.0b port up to 4Kp60 resolution
- USB-C port with DisplayPort Alt mode
- Camera interface – 4-lane MIPI CSI connector
- Networking – Dual-band WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 module (Quectel FCU760K) + IPEX antenna connector
- USB
- USB 2.0 OTG Type-C port (power and data)
- USB 3.1 OTG Type-C port with DisplayPort Alt. mode
- Expansion
- 40-pin color-coded GPIO header (soldered or not, depending on SKU)
- PCIe Gen3 x1 FPC connector
- Misc
- USB BOOT button
- Fan header
- Power Supply
- 5V/1A via USB-C connector or
- 5V via GPIO pins 2 & 4.
- Dimensions – 65 x 30 mm
So they’ve managed to integrate most features of the credit card-sized Radxa Cubie A7A SBC into a much smaller PCB. Not bad… The Allwinner A733 SBC is probably the most powerful Raspberry Pi Zero-sized board designed so far.
Software support includes Debian Linux, Android 13, and a hardware access/control library for both operating systems. The Cubie A7Z is not listed on the documentation website just yet, but it will be about the same as for the A7A. In the meantime, you can find the build script and Debian image on GitHub. They also highlight AI support with the documentation for the Vivante NPU and Cubie ACUITY SDK already available online.
Radxa says the 1GB RAM version will sell for $15, and the Cubie A7Z is listed on AliExpress and Arace, but out of stock in both. The company guarantees the availability of the Radxa Cubie A7Z until at least September 2034. More details may be found on the product page.
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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