Zhihe A210 octa-core RISC-V SoC with 12 TOPS NPU powers SoM-based development board

Last year, we noted three upcoming high-performance RISC-V SoCs to watch out for: Zhihe A210, SpacemiT K3, and UltraRISC UR-DP1000. The K3 has already been launched, and I’ll work on the K3-Pico-ITX SBC/mini PC review this coming weekend, while the UR-DP1000 is (still?) expected on the Milk-V Titan motherboard. However, we did not have that many details about the Zhihe A210 so far.

This has now changed since documentation has surfaced for the Zhihe A210 and a development kit (A210 SODIMM V2) based on a carrier board and a system-on-module itself powered by the octa-core RISC-V processor. Let’s have a look at both.

Zhihe A210 octa-core RISC-V SoC

Zhihe A210 specifications:

CPU – Octa-core RISC-V RV64GCV processor
- 4x 64-bit RISC-V C920 cores @ up to 2.3 GHz with 64 KB I Cache and 64 KB D Cache for each core, 1 MB L2 cache; note: 1.9 GHz is also shown for this cluster, depending on where we look in the docs.
- 4x 64-bit RISC-V C908 cores @ up to 1.9 GHz with 32 KB I Cache and 32 KB D Cache for each core, 512 KB L2 cache
- ~~RVA23 Profile compliant~~ [Apparently not, the previous announcement in Chinese was about the next-gen A600 getting RVA23 profile. See comments section]
GPU
- Unnamed 3D GPU, potentially IMG BXM-4-64
  - Up to 50.34 GFLOPS
  - 3D graphics acceleration engine: 3.14 GPixel @ 786MHz
  - Support for Vulkan 1.1/1.2, OpenCL 1.1/1.2/2.0, and OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1/3.2
- 2D graphics accelerator
VPU
- Decoding
  - Up to 4Kp120 H.265/HEVC, H.264/AVC, AV1
  - Up to 4Kp60 VP9, AVS2
  - Up to 1080p60 VP6/7/8/AVS/AVS+/VC1/MPEG4
  - (M)JPEG decoding up to 1080p @ 576 FPS
- Encoding
  - 4Kp60 H.265/HEC, H.264/AVC
  - (M)JPEG encoding up to 1080p @ 312 FPS
ISP – Up to 12MP resolution
AI accelerator
- 12 TOPS (INT8) neural processing unit with supports for INT4, INT8, INT16, FP8, FP16 and BF16
- DeepSeek-7B can reach 8 tokens/s; “4-die multi-chip cascading DeepSeek-7B can reach 25 tokens/s”
- Supported frameworks: TensorFlow, Caffe, HuggingFace, ONNX, etc.
Memory – Up to 16GB; 2x 32-bit LPDDR4/LPDDR4X up to 4266 MT/s
Storage
- eMMC 5.1
- SPI NOR/NAND flash
- SD 3.0
- NVMe or SATA interface via PCIe 3.1/SATA 3.0 combo interface (see PCIe section below for details)
Display Interfaces
- HDMI 1.4/2.0 up to 4Kp60 with HDCP 1.4 support
- 4-lane MIPI DSI up to 4Kp60
- DisplayPort up to 4Kp60 via USB3.1/DP 1.4/eDP1.5 combo interface (see USB section for details)
Camera Interface – 4-lane MIPI CSI2 D-PHY interface, with flexible lane configurations of 2x 4-lane, 4x 2-lane, 1x 4-lane + 2x 2-lane
Audio
- 8-lane I2S/PCM interface (Rx/Tx); up to 384kHz sample rate, 16-/24-/32-bit resolution
- 3x 2-lane I2S/PCM interface (Tx/Tx); up to 384kHz sample rate, 16-/24-/32-bit resolution
- PDM interface for up to 8 channels; up to 192kHz sample rate, 16-/24-bit resolution
- TDM/PCM interface up to 8 channels; up to 192kHz sample rate, 16-/24-/32-bit resolution
Networking – 2x GMAC ports with RGMII/RMII support
USB
- USB3.1/DP 1.4/eDP1.5 combo interface (host or device)
  - USB 3.1 output via a Type-C interface
  - USB 3.1 + 2-lane DP via a Type-C interface
  - USB 2.0 + 4-lane DP output via a Type-C interface
  - USB 3.1 output via a Type-A interface + 2-lane DP/eDP interface
  - USB 2.0 output via a Type-A/C interface +4-lane DP/eDP interface
- 2x USB 2.0 host/device interfaces
PCIe – PCIe 3.1/SATA 3.0 combo interface configurable as follows:
- 1x PCIe x4 RC/EP
- 1x PCIe x2 RC/EP+ 1x PCIe x1 RC
- 1x PCIe x2 RC/EP + 2x SATA
- 1x PCIe x1 RC/EP + 1x PCIe x1 RC + 2x SATA
Other Peripherals
- Analog I/O – 4-channel ADC
- 10x UART ports
- 10x I2C ports
- 2x QSPI ports and 2x SPI ports
- 3x 6-channel PWM ports
- 3x CAN interfaces, supporting CAN-FD
- Integrated JTAG, GPIO, etc.
Security
- Dual-layer security: TEE+REE
- Encryption algorithms
  - Symmetrical algorithms: AES, TDES, DES, SM4
  - Asymmetrical algorithms: RSA1024/2048/3072/4096, SM2
  - HASH algorithms: SHA-1/224/256/384/512, SM3, MD5
- Hardware random number generator (HRNG)
- Hardware-enforced isolation
- Secure boot
Power Management Unit – RISC-V E902 core @ 100 MHz with RTC, POR, Watchdog…
Operating voltage
- Voltage for core: 0.8V
- Voltage for IO: 1.8V
- Voltage for LPDDR4 IO: 1.1V
- Voltage for LPDDR4x IO: 0.6V
Package – 25×25 mm; 1373-ball FC-BGA

Zhihe A210 package dimensions — Dimensions

A210 SODIMM V2 Development Board

A210 SODIMM V2 board specifications:

Core board
- SoC – Zhihe A210 octa-core 64-bit RISC-V SoC as described above
- System Memory – 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB LPDDR4x up to 4266Mbps
- Storage – eMMC flash
- Networking – 2x Gigabit Ethernet PHY
- Host interface – 260-pin SO-DIMM edge connector exposing the A210’s I/Os
- Power
  - 5V DC input voltage
  - 2x PMIC chips
- Dimensions – 69.94 x 59.66mm
Carrier board (V2)
- Storage – M.2 Key-B SATA port (
- Video Output
  - HDMI 2.0 port
  - MIPI DSI connector
  - DisplayPort via USB-C port
- Camera
  - 2-lane MIPI-CSI Board-to-Board (B2B) connector
  - 4-lane MIPI-CSI Board-to-Board (B2B) connector
- Audio – 3.5mm audio jack
- Networking
  - 2x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports
  - Wi-Fi and Bluetooth V5.0 /4.2 support.
- USB
  - USB 3.1 Type-C port with DP Alt mode support
  - USB 2.0 Type-A port for flashing
  - USB 2.0 Type-A port
- Expansion
  - Mini PCIe socket (PCIe/USB)
  - M.2 Key-B SATA port
  - 20-pin 2.54mm pitch QSPI and GPIO header
  - 20-pin 2.54mm pitch UART and GPIO header
- Misc
  - Power, Reset, and Flash buttons
  - 4-pin Debug UART header
  - PCIe RC/EP mode switch
  - 5V fan header
- Power Supply – 12V DC
- Dimensions – TBD

The system-on-module and development board are supported by a Linux SDK with buildroot and Debian images. The documentation has many more details about the hardware and basic instructions to get started with the SDK using a Docker image, as well as multimedia (video decode/encode) tutorials, and steps to use the TORQ-Toolkit to perform model conversion and deploy the AI models to the chip.

The development kit is sold for $334.33 on AliExpress as the “Sipeed ZHIHE A210 RISC-V development platform” in 8GB/64GB configuration, but note that the seller (chipboard store) often marks up the price a fair bit. If it’s indeed from Sipeed, it could soon be sold for about $200 or less.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

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.