sipeed

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Sipeed TANG Hex is a Low-Cost Xilinx Zynq-7020 Arm FPGA Board

Sipeed TANG Hex is a Low-Cost Xilinx Zynq-7020 Arm FPGA Board

Sipeed TANG Hex

Last year, Sipeed launched a $5 FPGA board called Sipeed Tang and based on an entry-level Gowin GW1N-1-LV FPGA. But I had not noticed the company had also worked on a more powerful, yet still low-cost Xilinx Zynq-7020 board in a business card form factor not too dissimilar from the Raspberry Pi model B form factor. Meet Sipeed TANG Hex. So far a low-cost Zynq-7010 or Zynq-7020 board met you had to spend $99 to $199 with products such as MyIR Z-Turn and Digilent PYNQ-Z1. But Sipeed Tang HEX can be purchased for as little as $73 shipping on Aliexpress,  or 439 RMB ($62) on Taobao for people based in mainland China. It might be tempting to get a low-cost board to get started, but is it worth it? Read on to find out. Sipeed TANG Hex specifications: SoC – Xilinx Zynq-7020 (XC7Z020-1CLG484) dual-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor and FPGA with […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Sipeed MaixCube is a Fully Integrated AI Development Platform Powered by Kendryte K210 RISC-V SoC

Sipeed MaixCube is a Fully Integrated AI Development Platform Powered by Kendryte K210 RISC-V SoC

MaixCube All-in-one K210 Development Platform

Sipeed has made several boards and kits based on Kendryte K210 RISC-V processor for low-power AI workloads such as face detection or object recognition including Maixduino board and Grove AI HAT that ship with camera and display. The company has now come up with MaixCube all-in-one development platform that houses Sipeed M1 module, a display, a camera, and a battery into a plastic case that’s somewhat similar to MStack M5StickV but with a larger display, and variations in the form factor and features. Sipeed MaixCube specifications: SoC – Kendryte K210 dual-core 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 400 MHz (overclockable to 600 MHz) with FPU, 8MB SRAM, KPU AI accelerator, APU audio processor, and FFT accelerator Storage – 128 Mbit flash, MicroSD card slot Display – 1.3″ TFT screen with 240×240 resolution Camera – OV7740 sensor (VGA camera) Audio – Built-in microphone, external speakers support; ES8374 audio codec USB – 1x USB […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Sipeed M1n is a $10 M.2 Module based on K210 RISC-V AI Processor

Sipeed M1n is a $10 M.2 Module based on K210 RISC-V AI Processor

Sipeed M1n with Camera & USB-C adapter

Kendryte K210 is a RISC-V processor with AI accelerator found in boards such as Maixduino, Grove AI HAT, or HuskyLens among others, and enabling low-cost, low power AI applications such as face detection or object recognition. You can now add Kendryte K210 AI accelerator to any board or computer with M.2 socket or [Update: the M.2 connector pinout is non-standard] a USB-C port thanks to Sipeed M1n M.2 module that also comes with an M.2 to USB-C adapter. Sipeed M1n specifications: SoC – Kendryte K210 dual-core 64-bit RISC-V processor @ up to 400MHz with FPU, Neural-network Processing Unit (NPU), audio processor, built-in 6MB SRAM memory for CPU, and 2MB AI SRAM Storage – 128Mbit SPI flash Camera – 24-pin connector for DVP camera (OV0328 camera module provided as part of the kit) Host Interface – M.2 socket with some IOs and JTAG interface, accessible via Maix Nano M.2 to USB-C […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments on How to Build & Run Linux on Kendryte K210 RISC-V NOMMU Processor

How to Build & Run Linux on Kendryte K210 RISC-V NOMMU Processor

RISCV64 NOMMU Menuconfig

A few months ago, we wrote that Western Digital was working on Linux & BusyBox RISC-V NOMMU, and managed to boot a minimal Linux OS on Kendryte K210 powered Sipeed Maix Go board. RISC-V NOMMU support was scheduled for Linux 5.5, and now that the new kernel has been released, Damien Le Moal has pushed the code allowing to build Linux and a busybox based roofs for RISC-V 64-bit NOMMU platforms using buildroot. I could start the build following the instructions on Github, but it failed as a Linux 5.6 RC1 tarball was missing. But I noticed “Vowstart” picked up on Damien’s work, and wrote detailed instructions. So let’s try the build out using a machine running Ubuntu 18.04. We’ll have to make sure dependencies are installed first:

Then we can retrieve the source code and do some preparations (e.g. extract Linux 5.6 RC1 tarball):

The next step […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Giveaway Week Winners – November 2019

Giveaway Week Winners – November 2019

giveaway week 2019

We just had another of our yearly “Giveaway week” on CNX Software with 7 prizes including Arm and RISC-V development boards, NB-IoT tracker, USB-C hub, as well as development kits based on ESP32 or ESP8266 WiSoCs. People just had to comment within a 48 hours period, and we would randomly select a winner each day. We now have all confirmed winners with a strong start from Europe, Asia catching up mid-week, before with Poland and Brazil taking the week-end prizes: Balena Fin Developer Kit – Laurent H, FRANCE WisCellular NB-IoT & eMTC GPS Tracker – Jimmy, SWEDEN MINIX NEO S1 USB-C Hub with 120GB built-in SSD – Jeroen, BELGIUM Maixduino Sipeed M1 RISC-V AI Kit – Nguyen Tung, VIETNAM ANAVI Gas Detector Starter Kit – Bumsik Kim, SOUTH KOREA Particle Mesh IoT Development Kit – Wojciech Lubicz-Lapinski, POLAND NanoPi M4V2 SBC & Metal Case Kit – Thiago Tavares, BRAZIL I […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on $5 Tang Nano FPGA Board Features GOWIN GW1N “LittleBee” FPGA

$5 Tang Nano FPGA Board Features GOWIN GW1N “LittleBee” FPGA

Last year, we wrote about Lichee Tang FPGA board powered by Anlogic EG4S20 FPGA and targeting RISC-V development for just under $15. The company, now called Sipeed, has made an even cheaper FPGA board with Tang Nano equipped with GOWIN Semi GW1N FPGA part of the company’s LittleBee family. Sipeed Tang Nano Sipeed Tang Nano specifications: FPGA – Gowin GW1N-1-LV FPGA with 1,152 LUT4, 864 Flip-Flops(FF), 72Kbit Block SRAM, 4x B-SRAM, 96Kbit user flash, 1x PLL, 4x I/O banks System Memory – 64Mbit (8MB) 3.3V PSRAM Display – Standard 40-pin RGB LCD interface with on-board screen backlight driver circuit (default normally open, EN pin can be connected to FPGA) USB – USB Type-C port for download and power supply Expansion – 34 I/O ports and power pins on headers (unpopulated), breadboard-compatible Misc – RGB LED, 2x user buttons, 24MHz crystal oscillator Power Supply – 5V via USB-C port (at least […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 36 Comments on $5 Longan Nano GD32V RISC-V Development Board Comes with LCD Display and Enclosure

$5 Longan Nano GD32V RISC-V Development Board Comes with LCD Display and Enclosure

Longan Nano

There’s been some exciting news about RISC-V microcontrollers recently with Gigadevice announcing GD32V, one of the first RISC-V general-purpose microcontrollers, which outperforms its Arm Cortex-M3 equivalent in terms of performance and power consumption. The company also announced some development boards, but they are not quite that easy to purchase being listed on Tmall website in China. The good news is that Sipeed has introduced Longan Nano development board powered by GD32VF103CBT6 microcontroller, and it’s up for sale on Seeed Studio for $4.9. Longan Nano board specifications: MCU – Gigadevice GD32VF103CBT6 32-bit RISC-V (rv32imac) microcontroller @ 108 MHz with 128KB Flash, 32KB SRAM Storage – MicroSD card slot Display – 0.96″ 160×80 IPS RGB LCD connected via SPI USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Expansion – 2x 16 through holes (2.54mm pitch) exposing 3x USART, 2x I2C, 3x SPI, 2x I2S, 2x CAN, 1x USBFS (OTG), 2x […]