Industrial Android mini PC with HDMI input, ATSC, 4G modem
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Industrial Android/Linux mini PC ships with optional HDMI input, DTV tuner, 4G LTE modem

We’re seeing several companies known for their Android TV boxes switch to higher-margin industrial Android/Linux mini PCs with, for instance, Zidoo M6 mini PC powered by Rockchip RK3566 processor and designed for IoT applications, digital signage, and more. Geniatech APC820 is another industrial mini PC running either Android or Linux, on the older, yet more powerful Rockchip RK3399 SoC, and offering a different set of options including 4K or Full HD HDMI input, digital TV tuner, and/or a 4G LTE modem. Geniatech APC820 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with 2x Cortex-A72 cores up to 1.8GHz,  4x Cortex-A53 up to 1.4GHz, Mali-T860 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenCL, and DirectX 11.1 System Memory – 2GB or 4GB RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash by default (Option for  8GB to 128GB), MicroSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 up to 4Kp60 Internal LVDS connector with backlight Internal eDP connector […]

Zidoo M6 mini PC & SBC
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Zidoo M6 RK3566 mini PC & SBC supports GbE, WiFi 6, 5G connectivity

Zidoo M6 is both a complete mini PC and a single board computer based on Rockchip RK3566 processor with up to 8GB RAM with plenty of peripherals connectivity options including built-in Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5, and support for 5G modems. Several years ago, Zidoo used to serve the TV box market, but they’ve now veered towards higher-end media players, digital signage players, and industrial applications. While we’ve already seen some RK3566 TV boxes on the market, using the AIoT processor does not make much sense in this type of product, and instead, Zidoo M6 targets AI Edge gateways, digital signage, and other AIoT products. Zidoo M6 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 with a quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 1.8GHz, Arm Mali-G52 2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2. OpenCL 2.0. Vulkan 1.1, 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator, 4K H.265/H.265/VP9 video decoder, 1080p100 H.265/H.264 video encoder. System Memory […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
ROCK 3A
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ROCK 3A SBC brings M.2 slots for NVMe SSD, WiFi 6 to Raspberry Pi form factor

Radxa ROCK 3A is a single board computer powered by Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor that closely follows Raspberry Pi 3 Model B form factor like the early Rock Pi 4 SBC, but with a twist. By switching from a Rockchip RK3399 to a Rockchip RK3568,  the board loses some CPU and GPU performance, but gains extra I/Os with enabled the company to add an additional M.2 slot with PCIe to ROCK 3A board, meaning it’s now possible to attach one NVMe SSD and another M.2 module like a WiFi 6 M.2 card. ROCK 3A preliminary specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex A55 processor at up to 2GHz, with Mali G52 GPU, 0.8TOPS NPU System Memory – 2GB, 4GB, 8GB LPDDR4 3200MT/s, up to 1560MHz Storage Pluggable eMMC module MicroSD card slot M.2 M key socket for NVMe with PCIe 3.0 x2 lanes 4MB SPI flash with support for […]

Business card-sized mini PC
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Station M2 business-card sized Android 11 mini PC, also supports Ubuntu & Buildroot

After introducing Station P2 Rockchip RK3568 mini PC in March of this year, Firefly has now launched another, cheaper model with the ultra-thin Station M2 computer based on the company’s ROC-RK3566-PC single board computer equipped with Rockchip RK3566 SoC. Station M2 is only slightly larger than a business card, but packs up to 8GB RAM, M.2 SSD storage, HDMI 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0/2.0 ports. Station M2 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 with a quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 1.8GHz. Arm Mali-G52 2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2. OpenCL 2.0. Vulkan 1.1, 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator, 4K H.265/H.265/VP9 video decoder, 1080p100 H.265/H.264 video encoder. System Memory – 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 (8GB optional) Storage – 32GB or 64GB (128GB eMMC optional), M.2 PCIe 2.0 socket for 2242 NVMe SSD, MicroSD card socket Video Output – 1x HDMI port up to 4Kp60 Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, […]

BL602 decompiled C code
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Reverse engineering the SDK for BL602 RISC-V WiFi & BLE microcontroller

Bouffalo Lab BL602, and its big brother BL604 with extra GPIOs, are RISC-V microcontrollers with WiFi and Bluetooth LE that offer an alternative to Espressif Systems ESP32 Xtensa based WiSoC, although Espressif has also designed its own RISC-V solution: ESP32-C3. Soon after the “announcement” in October 2020, we found out the SDK and a relatively cheap BL602 board, but the SDK has many closed-source binaries. Soon after Sipeed and Pine64 expressed their interest in developing an open-source toolchain and even an open-source WiFi (and BLE) stack. Time has passed and even got a Pinecone board in January, but did not do anything with it, especially seeing the status of the software. The same cannot be said for Lup Yuen Lee (aka MrTechBlog) who spent a lot of time doing interesting with Pine64 BL602 module and board including playing and thoroughly documenting his work with Tensorflow Lite, connecting the board to […]

Linux 5.13 release
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Linux 5.13 Release – Notable changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.13: So we had quite the calm week since rc7, and I see no reason to delay 5.13. The shortlog for the week is tiny, with just 88 non-merge commits (and a few of those are just reverts). It’s a fairly random mix of fixes, and being so small I’d just suggest people scan the appended shortlog for what happened. Of course, if the last week was small and calm, 5.13 overall is actually fairly large. In fact, it’s one of the bigger 5.x releases, with over 16k commits (over 17k if you count merges), from over 2k developers. But it’s a “big all over” kind of thing, not something particular that stands out as particularly unusual. Some of the extra size might just be because 5.12 had that extra rc week. And with 5.13 out the door, that obviously means […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Rockchip RK835 & RK837 fast charger chips support USB PD 3.0, QC4+, and VOOC

Rockchip is better known for its application processors for TV boxes (RK3328), Chromebooks and other higher-end hardware (RK3399), AIoT applications (RK3566), and more, but the company has recently introduced the RK83x family with RK835 and RK837 chips designed for fast chargers compatible with USB PD 3.0 and/or Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ and BBK Electronics’ VOOC. RK835 Specifications MCU sub-system – Arm Cortex-M0 with 60KB flash, 1KB RAM USB PD 2.0/3.0 and PSS with TID number 4325 USB Type-C and Vconn power source Supports proprietary protocols 8-channel 10-bit, 500Hz converter speed ADC sensing voltage and 1-channel 10-bit current ADC All GPIOs can be configured as ADC input or edge triggering input DP/DM pins can be configured as UART, BC 1.2, or GPIO mode High-voltage endurance DP/DM and CC1/2 pins I2C interface with slave and master modes Low-power RC oscillator, 3 timers, one watchdog Discharge N-MOSFETs for VCC and VBUS Power – […]

Kloud Note
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KloudNote 10.3-inch E-reader supports WiFi, Bluetooth and cellular connectivity

Geniatech used to be better known for their Amlogic TV boxes, before expanding their business to development boards and systems-on-modules. But the company has now introduced KloudNote, a 10.3-inch E-reader running Android 8.1 on a quad-core Cortex-A35 processor. The device is equipped with 2GB of RAM and a 16GB eMMC flash, supports WiFi 5 and Bluetooth, as well as optional 2G/3G/4G LTE cellular connectivity, and comes with a USB-C port and a headphone jack. KloudNote (sometimes written Kloud Note) specifications: SoC – Unnamed quad-core Cortex-A35 processor @ 1.2 GHz System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16GB or 32GB eMMC flash Display – 10.3-inch E-Ink flexible screen with cover-lens, 1872×1404 resolution, capacitive touch and electromagnetic touch with support for a stylus with 4096-level of pressure sensitivity Connectivity 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac WiFi 5, Bluetooth 4.2 Optional 2G/3G/4G Audio – Earphone jack, built-in speaker & microphone USB – 1x USB-C port for charging Documents […]

Boardcon LGA3576 Rockchip RK3576 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications