MangoPi MQ Pro – A $20 RISC-V alternative to Raspberry Pi Zero W

MangoPi MQ Pro

MangoPi MQ Pro is an Allwinner D1 RISC-V SBC that offers an alternative to Raspberry Pi Zero W with the same form factor, and most of the same features including WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity The board has been in the works for several months, but the MangoPi MQ Pro board can now be purchased for around $20 on Taobao with 512MB RAM, and I’d expect it to show up on Aliexpress and/or Seeed Studio within the next few weeks. MangoPi MQ Pro specifications: SoC – Allwinner D1 C906 RISC-V processor @ up to 1GHz with HiFi4 DSP, G2D 2D graphics accelerator System Memory – 512MB or 1GB DDR3L Storage – MicroSD card socket Display – mini HDMI 1.4 port up to 1080p60 or 4Kp30, 20-pin MIPI DSI, CTP, LVDS FPC connector Camera I/F – 24-pin DVP/RGMII connector Audio – Audio out pads Networking 2.4Ghz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2 […]

Amlogic T962E2 quad-core Cortex-A55 TV box board supports 4K HDMI input & output

Amlogic T962E2 TV box board

Amlogic T962E2 is an upgrade to the Amlogic T962E quad-core Cortex-A53 SoC we first found in the Alfawise H96 Mini TV box with both HDMI output and HDMI input ports. The new processor offers similar features but comes with more efficient Cortex-A55 cores, a Mali-G31 MP2 supporting modern Vulkan and OpenGL ES 3.2 APIs, and some other improvements including 4K AV1 video playback. While mostly designed for Smart TVs, I found the Amlogic T962E processor in a TV box board with up to 4GB RAM, 32GB eMMC flash, HDMI 2.1 output, HDMI 2.1 input, Gigabit Ethernet, a wireless module, and allegedly running either Android 8, Android 9, or Android TV. TV box boards specifications: SoC – Amlogic T962E2 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU support OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1 and OpenCL 2.0, 1.2 TOPS AI accelerator, 2x HiFi4 DSP System Memory […]

Eben Upton expands on Raspberry Pi shortage

Raspberry Pi Shortage

As you may have noticed, Raspberry Pi boards may get hard to get and/or be sold at excessive prices by some resellers. Eben Upton explains the reasons behind the Raspberry Pi Shortage and provides some recommendations to work around the shortage and high prices. Raspberry Pi Trading is still manufacturing around 500,000 Raspberry Pi boards or modules per month despite the global semiconductors shortage, and the issue they face is more of a demand shock than a supply shock with demand for Raspberry Pi products having increased sharply from the start of 2021 and remains unabated as the supply chain can not handle that extra demand at this time. That means distributors have backlogs in almost all products, and it takes time for customers to get their orders. Bots are also involved in making automatic purchases as soon as stock becomes available often in order to resell those boards at […]

ASUS Tinker Edge R SBC with 3GB RAM, Rockchip RK3399Pro sells for $179

ASUS Tinker Edge R 3GB RAM

ASUS Tinker Edge R Pico-ITX single board computer with Rockchip RK3399Pro AI processor was first unveiled in 2019 with 6GB RAM, but a cheaper 3GB RAM version with 2GB RAM for the CPU, and 1GB RAM with the integrated NPU just showed up in my news feeds. Whether it comes with 3GB or 6GB RAM, the Tinker Edge R board should mostly be interesting for AI accelerated workload thanks to the 3 TOPS built-in NPU, as well as the two MIPI CSI camera interfaces. ASUS Tinker Edge R (3GB) SBC specifications: SoC – Rochchip RK3399Pro hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Cortex A72 cores up to 1.8 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.4 GHz, an Arm Mali-T860 MP4 GPU up to 800 MHz with OpenGL ES 1.1 to 3.2, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL 1.2 and DX 11 support, and NPU delivering up to 3.0 TOPS System Memory – 2 GB dual-channel LPDDR4 […]

Kontron Pi-Tron CM4 mini PC leverages Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 for industrial applications

Kontron AL Pi-Tron CM4

Kontron Pi-Tron CM4 is a single-board computer and mini PC based on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module with a Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor, up to 8GB RAM, up to 32GB eMMC flash, HDMI video output, two Ethernet ports, optional WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, and an M.2 slot for AI or wireless expansion. Designed for industrial applications, the Pi-Tron CM4 is also equipped with RS232, RS485/CAN FD bus, and GPIO terminal blocks, supports 24V input voltage, and is optionally sold as AL Pi-Tron CM4 in a housing suited for challenging environments. Kontron Pi-Tron CM4 specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) with Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor @1.5 GHz, VideoCore VI GPU, H.265 (HEVC) up to 4Kp60 decode, 1080p30 encode, up to 8GB LPDDR4, up to 32GB eMMC flash Storage – MicroSD card socket (only for Raspberry Pi CM4 Lite module) Display I/F HDMI 2.0 up to 4Kp60 […]

Hardkernel launches ODROID-M1 Rockchip RK3568B2 SBC

ODROID-M1

It’s been a while since we have seen new hardware from Hardkernel, but the Korean company has just launched the ODROID-M1 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3568 with up to 8GB RAM. The single board computer is cooled with a large heatsink placed underneath, supports SATA and NVMe storage, offers HDMI and MIPI DSI video output, Gigabit Ethernet networking, as well as two USB 3.0, two USB 2.0 ports, an RTC backup battery, and a 40-pin GPIO header. ODROID-M1 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568B2 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 MP2 GPU, 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator System Memory – 4GB or 8GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage 16MB SPI flash preinstalled with Petitboot MicroSD card socket eMMC module socket Native SATA 3.0 port + SATA power (5V only) tested up to around 500 MB/s M.2 NVMe M-Key socket (2-lane PCIe 3.0) for M.2 SSDs tested up to around […]

INNOTECH AX-1020 Atom x6000E Elkhart Lake SBC targets fanless equipment

INNOTECH AX-1020

Japan-based INNOTECH has announced the AX-1020 SBC based on Intel Atom x6000E Elkhart Lake processor designed for fanless industrial equipment, medical equipment, surveillance/security, and transportation applications. The board supports up to 16GB of RAM, SATA & NVMe storage, and is equipped with three display interfaces, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, six USB3.0/2.0 interfaces, one RS-485/422, and four RS-232C serial interfaces. INNOTECH AX-1020 specifications: Choice of Atom x6000E Elkhart Lake SoC Intel Atom x6425E quad-core processor @ 2.00 GHz / 3.0 GHz with 32 EU UHD graphics; 12W TDP Intel Atom x6413E quad-core processor @ 1.50 GHz / 3.0 GHz with 16 EU UHD graphics; 9W TDP Intel Atom x6211E dual-core processor @ 1.30 GHz / 3.0 GHz with 16 EU UHD graphics; 6W TDP System Memory – 4GB to 16GB DDR4 SO-DIMM (The company tells customers to contact them first when using 8GB or 16GB RAM) Storage – 1x SATA port, […]

Dongshan Nezha STU devkit features Allwinner D1 RISC-V SoM/SBC

Dongshan Nezha STU

Dongshan Nezha STU is a development kit comprised of an Allwinner D1 RISC-V system-on-module (SoM) and a carrier board with three 40-pin headers to access I/Os from the RISC-V processor. While not quite as compact as the Sipeed LicheeRV module, the “Dongshan Nezha STU Core” module also doubles as a standalone single board computer (SBC) with USB-C, Ethernet and HDMI ports, plus a MicroSD card socket for the firmware, which reminds me of the Khadas Edge design. Dongshan Nezha STU specifications: Nezha STU Core SoM SoC – Allwinner D1 single-core XuanTie C906 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 1.0 GHz with HiFi4 DSP, G2D 2D graphics accelerators Memory – 512MB DDR3 memory (option up to 2GB – TBC) Storage – MicroSD card slot, 2Gbit serial NAND flash (MX35LF1GE4AB); Note the SPI NAND flash (U12) is not populated in the photo below. Video – HDMI port up to 1080p60 Networking – Low-profile Gigabit […]