risc-v News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 20, 2026May 19, 2026 by Debashis Das - No Comments

Firefly CSC2-N48SPK3 – A 2880 TOPS RISC-V AI server with 48 SpacemiT K3 Nodes, 48 NVMe SSDs

After SpacemiT officially launched the K3 Pico-ITX SBC, and the K3 chip entered volume production, an Edge AI mini PC, and a laptop motherboard (for Framework 13) have been released. To add to the list, Firefly has recently launched the CSC2-N48SPK3, a massive 2U rack-mounted server based on multiple SpacemiT K3 SoCs designed to bring RISC-V computing power to enterprise racks. While consumer devices and modular laptops are great for developers, large-scale server-side AI workloads require more powerful hardware. The CSC2-N48SPK3 addresses this with up to 48 SpacemiT K3 RISC-V compute nodes, each with an octa-core X100 SoC delivering up to 60 TOPS (Sparse) AI performance, up to 32GB LPDDR5 RAM, 128 GB UFS storage, and an optional NVMe SSD. To manage all of these nodes, Firefly relies on a Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Arm processor as the central control node. Firefly CSC2-N48SPK3 specifications: Server Form Factor – 2U rack-mounted 48 Node high-density […]

May 18, 2026May 18, 2026 by Debashis Das - 3 Comments

$13 Qualcomm QCC74xM EVK offers Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and 802.15.4 connectivity (Bouffalo Lab BL618 inside)

Back in November 2024, we wrote about Qualcomm’s QCC730M and QCC74xM modules for low-power IoT devices, but at the time, there was no evaluation board EVK for those SoCs. Fast forward to today, and the official development boards for the QCC74x series have finally been released, complete with a surprisingly affordable price tag. The Qualcomm QCC74xM EVK is a tri-radio evaluation board with Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and IEEE 802.15.4 (Thread/Zigbee) with a price tag of just over $13. But what is interesting is that, while it carries the Qualcomm brand, documentation from the Zephyr Project clearly shows that the QCC74x series is actually based on and mostly equivalent to the Bouffalo Lab BL61x series, specifically the BL618. Qualcomm QCC74xM EVK specifications: Wireless Module – Qualcomm QCC74xM LGA Module (QCC743M, QCC744M, or QCC748M depending on the board variant) CPU – 32-bit RISC-V processor (RV32IMAFCP) @ up to 325 MHz with FPU […]

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Start9 RISC-V Router features SpacemiT K1 SoC, runs StartWRT OpenWrt fork (Crowdfunding)

Start9’s “RISC-V Router” is powered by a SpacemiT K1 octa-core RISC-V processor paired with 4GB RAM and 16GB eMMC flash, and offers dual GbE networking, as well as an AsiaRF AW7915-NP1 WiFi 6 4T4R module enabling up to 2401 Mbps combined data link. It’s not exactly a high-end router, but Start9 claims it is the “most open router on the market” thanks to its RISC-V processor, OpenSBI open-source boot stack, and StartWrt operating system, a fork of OpenWrt. Start9 router specifications: SoC – SpacemiT K1 CPU – 8-core X60 RISC-V processor with single-core performance equivalent to about 1.3x the performance of an Arm Cortex-A55 GPU – Imagination IMG BXE-2-32 with support for OpenCL 3.0, OpenGL ES3.2, Vulkan 1.2 VPU – H.265, H.264, VP9, VP8 4K encoding/encoding NPU – 2.0 TOPS AI accelerator System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage 16GB eMMC flash MicroSD card slot Networking 2x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports […]

May 13, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

SpacemiT K3-powered DC-ROMA RISC-V motherboard III is made for the Framework Laptop 13

Framework Laptop 13 SpacemiT K3 mainboard

Another day, another SpacemiT K3 device is released, namely Deep Computing DC-ROMA RISC-V Mainboard III for Framework Laptop 13, following the K3 Pico-ITX SBC and K3-CoM260 (and related Jupiter 2 and Banana Pi BPI-SM10) on Monday, and the Firefly AIBOX-K3 on Tuesday. Initially launched with Intel processors, the Framework Laptop 13 repairable and modular laptop had already got a RISC-V motherboard with the StarFive JH7110-based “DC-ROMA RISC-V Mainboard” in 2024, followed by an ESWIN EIC7702X variant the next year. The third RISC-V mainboard features the octa-core K3 64-bit RISC-V SoC with up to 60 TOPS (Sparse) of AI performance, up to 32GB RAM, and an optional 1TB NVMe SSD. Specifications of the Framework Laptop 13 with DC-ROMA RISC-V Mainboard III: SoC – SpacemiT K3 CPU 8x 64-bit RISC-V X100 “big” cores clocked up to 2.4 GHz, RVA23 compliance; 130 KDMIPS performance (similar to RK3588) 8x RISC-V A100 AI Cores with […]

May 12, 2026May 12, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SiFive introduces RVA23-compliant Performance P570 Gen3 RISC-V core for consumer and AIoT applications

SiFive Performance P570 Gen3 Core Complex

SiFive has just launched the SiFive Performance P570 Gen 3 out-of-order RISC-V processor core, compliant with the RVA23 ISA profile, and designed for edge AI, high-end consumer, and commercial IoT applications running Android or enterprise-grade OS. Besides the CPU core, SiFive also provides system IP, such as the RISC-V standard-compliant advanced interrupt architecture (AIA), WorldGuard security, and a second-generation RISC-V standard-compliant IOMMU to build a complete SoC with up to 16x P570 Gen 3 cores. Performance P570 Gen3 specifications: Support for all mandatory RVA23 profile extensions for compatibility with modern operating systems such as Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Red Hat Enterprise Adds extensions for enhanced security and performance, including Smepmp, Zvkng, Zvksg, Zicfilp, Zicfiss, Zfbfmin, Zvfbfmin, Zvfbfwma, and Zvdot4a8i Third-generation out-of-order core building on earlier P550 Gen1 and P470 Gen2 cores 3-wide, 13-stage fully out–of order execution superscalar pipeline Single 128-bit vector pipeline with dot product extensions Supports multicore coherence […]

May 12, 2026May 12, 2026 by Debashis Das - 5 Comments

Firefly AIBOX-K3 – An Edge AI mini PC powered by SpacemiT K3 RISC-V SoC

AIBOX K3 High Performance RISC V Edge Box

Back in July last year, SpacemiT unveiled the SpacemiT K3 SoC. After that, we saw some system information and early benchmarks come out around January this year. The company has just officially launched the K3 Pico-ITX SBC, which is now available through various distributors. Firefly has launched its own K3 hardware with the AIBOX-K3, a complete industrial-grade RISC-V edge computing box. The AIBOX-K3 Edge AI mini PC is built around the SpacemIT Key Stone K3 octa-core processor and features an integrated AI engine that delivers up to 60 TOPS of compute performance, making it suitable for local LLM inference and edge AI applications. Firefly AIBOX-K3 specifications: SoC – SpacemiT K3 CPU 8x 64-bit RISC-V X100 “big” cores clocked up to 2.4 GHz, RVA23 compliance; 130 KDMIPS performance (similar to RK3588) 8x RISC-V A100 AI Cores with support for up to 1024-bit RVV1.0 parallel computing, optimized for matrix operations. GPU – Imagination […]

May 11, 2026May 11, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 33 Comments

RVA23-compliant K3 Pico-ITX SBC and K3-CoM260 SoM feature SpacemiT K3 octa-core RISC-V AI SoC, up to 32GB RAM, 256GB UFS

SpacemiT has now officially launched the K3 Pico-ITX SBC and K3-CoM260 system-on-module with the RVA23-compliant, SpacemiT K3 octa-core X100 CPU with up to 60 TOPS of AI performance, up to 32GB LPDDR5, 256GB UFS, and PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe SSD support. The board also features an eDP connector, a 10GbE SFP+ cage, a Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port, built-in WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity, two USB Type-C connectors, four USB 2.0 ports, an M.2 Key-B socket coupled with a NanoSIM card slot for 4G LTE or 5G cellular connectivity, and more. K3 Pico-ITX SBC specifications: System-on-Module – K3-CoM260 SoC – SpacemiT K3 CPU 8x 64-bit RISC-V X100 “big” cores clocked up to 2.4 GHz, RVA23 compliance; 130 KDMIPS performance (similar to RK3588) 8x RISC-V A100 AI Cores with support for up to 1024-bit RVV1.0 parallel computing, optimized for matrix operations. GPU – Imagination Technologies BXM4-64-MC1 GPU with Vulkan 1.3, OpenCL […]

April 24, 2026April 24, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS “Resolute Raccoon” released with Linux 7.0

Canonical has just announced the release of Ubuntu 26.04 LTS “Resolute Raccoon” Linux distribution about two years after Ubuntu 24.04 LTS “Noble Numbat” was introduced. The new version of the operating system comes with the just-released Linux 7.0 kernel, GNOME 50, and a range of updates and new features. As a long-term support release, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS will be supported for 5 years until April 2031, and an Ubuntu Pro subscription provides access to ESM (Expanded Security Maintenance) updates for ten years, or until April 2036. One of the benefits of using the latest Linux 7.0 kernel is support for Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” processors, including Intel Xe3 integrated graphics and the integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) optimizations, which may also benefit Wildcat Lake processors (aka Panther Lake Lite). Canonical also highlights TPM-backed full-disk encryption, improved support for application permission prompting, Livepatch updates for Arm-based servers, and […]