Geniatech DB3506 is a full-featured Rockchip RK3506 development board and 3.5-inch SBC designed for industrial control, human–machine interface (HMI) systems, IoT gateways, and other embedded applications.
The board combines the tri-core Arm Cortex-A7 SoC with 256 MB to 1 GB LPDDR3 RAM and 256 MB or 512 MB NAND flash options, offers HDMI and RGB touchscreen display interfaces, dual Fast Ethernet, dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0, optional 4G LTE via a mini PCIe slot, two USB 2.0 ports, and a range of headers for CAN bus, RS-232/RS-485, Audio, GPIOs, and more.
Geniatech DB3506 specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3506
- CPU
- 3x Arm Cortex-A7 cores
- Arm Cortex-M0 real-time core
- GPU – 2D GPU only with hardware-accelerated 2D rendering
- No VPU, no NPU
- CPU
- System Memory – 512MB LPDDR3 (option for 256MB or 1GB)
- Storage – 256MB NAND flash (option for 512MB)
- Video Output
- HDMI output
- 50-pin RGB display FPC interface up to 1280 × 1280 @ 60 fps + I2C (8-pin FPC) and USB (4-pin FPC) touch interfaces
- Audio – 2x 3-pin Audio headers
- Networking
- 2x 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet RJ45 ports
- Dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 with two IPEX antenna connectors
- Optional 4GB LTE cellular connectivity via mini PCIe slot and micro SIM socket
- USB – 2x USB 2.0 Type-A ports
- Serial
- 4x UART via 16-pin header
- RS-232/RS-485 via 8-pin header
- 2x CAN bus via 8-pin header
- 30-pin GPIO header
- Debugging – 4-pin debug header
- Misc
- Reboot and Recovery keys
- 2x LEDs (Power and System Status)
- CR2032 RTC battery holder
- Power Supply – 12V / 1.5A via 5.5/2.1mm DC jack or 2-pin lockable Phoenix terminal
- Dimensions – 146 × 102 mm (3.5-inch SBC)
- Weight – 105 grams
- Temperature Range
- Operating – Commercial: 0°C to +60°C; industrial: -40°C to +85°C
- Storage – Commercial: -20°C to +70°C; industrial: -40°C to +105°C
Geniatech provides support for Linux through the Yocto project and Buildroot. Public documentation is limited, and right now, only the datasheet is available, mostly with hardware details such as pinout diagrams for headers. I assume Geniatech relies on the official Rockchip SDK, but as a side note, Rockchip RK3506 SoC got some love in the just-released Linux 6.19 kernel with the addition of I2C, pintctrl, clock, MIPI DSI PHY, and Ethernet drivers.
It’s far from the first Rockchip RK3506 development board, SBC, or System-on-Module (SoM), but most other companies focus on smaller, low-cost designs with products such as ArmSoM CM1 module and SBC, Luckfox Lyra Zero W Pi Zero-sized SBC, and Banana Pi BPI-Forge1 credit card-sized industrial SBC, among others. The closest competitor to the Geniatech DB3506 is the Forlink OK3506J-C single board computer that offers many of the same features, with some differences like MIPI DSI instead of HDMI.
Geniatech has not provided pricing information, but states that the DB3506 development board is now available worldwide, and technical resources, datasheets, and software packages are available from the company. Check out the product page and the press release for a few additional details.
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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