We’ve already got a long list of upcoming Rockchip RK3288 based Android media players, but no low cost development boards have been announced to date. We can certainly expect a Radxa Rock 2 board with the Cortex A17 processor, but it might not be the only one, as Firefly-RK3288 development board powered by Rockchip RK3288 is currently being developed by another Chinese team.
Current specifications for Firefly-RK3288 board:
- SoC – Rockchip 3288 quad core ARM Cortex A17 up to 1.8 GHz with Mali-T764 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 /3.0, and OpenCL 1.1
- System Memory – 2G DDR3
- Storage – 8GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot
- Video I/O
- HDMI 2.0 up to 3840×2160@60p
- VGA out (D-SUB connector)
- VGA in is available via the expansion headers.
- LCD, MIPI and LVDS
- Audio Output / Input – HDMI, optical S/PDIF, microphone header, and built-in MIC
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi with external antenna, and Bluetooth 4.0
- USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports, 1x micro USB OTG
- Expansion Headers – 2x 38-pin headers with access to SPI, UART, EDP, ADC, GPIO, I2C, VGA=IN, LVDS, MIPI, 3.3V, 5V, and GND signals.
- Power Supply – TBC
- Dimensions – 118 x 83 mm
The developers told me it would be an open hardware project, but I’m not sure it will be 100% open source hardware, but at least they seem committed to release the hardware schematics, component’s placement file, and components’ datasheets. Hardware design and debugging have just been completed, and they have not reached the mass production stage just yet, which also means there’s no price information either. They will support Android 4.4 and Ubuntu for the board, and the SDKs, tutorial and hardware files will all be available from their website in August.
That website is not online yet (and I don’t even know the domain name), but the board can be found on oschina, and the development followed on TeeFirefly’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.
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.
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