Rockchip RK1808 Datasheet, TRM, Schematics and Linux SDK Released

Rockchip RK1808 is the first chip from the company fully dedicated to artificial intelligence applications. The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) features an accelerator delivering up to 3.0 TOPS and is coupled with two low power Arm Cortex-A35 cores allowing it to run Linux.

We’ve had the specifications for RK1808 for a while, but the company has recently posted hardware and software resources on their open source website.

On the hardware side we’ve got:

RK1808 Technical Reference Manual (TRM)
RK1808 datasheet
PDF Schematics for the company’s official RK1808-EVB

On the software side we can get the Linux SDK from Github as explained in the Wiki:

git clone https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo
mkdir linux
cd linux
../repo/repo init --repo-url=https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo -u https://github.com/rockchip-linux/manifests -b master -m rk1808_linux_release.xml
../repo/repo sync

git clone https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo

mkdir linux

cd linux

../repo/repo init --repo-url=https://github.com/rockchip-linux/repo -u https://github.com/rockchip-linux/manifests -b master -m rk1808_linux_release.xml

../repo/repo sync

Finally configure the build and start the build process:

sudo apt install liblz4-tool build-essential
source envsetup.sh rockchip_rk1808
./build.sh

sudo apt install liblz4-tool build-essential

source envsetup.sh rockchip_rk1808

./build.sh

After a while, or more accurately close to two hours on a Laptop with Ryzen 7 2700U processor, 8GB RAM, and hard drive, we’ll get U-boot, Linux, buildroot based rootfs, and firmware files and in IMAGE/RK1808-EVB-V10_20190430.1810_RELEASE_TEST/ directory:

ls IMAGE/RK1808-EVB-V10_20190430.1810_RELEASE_TEST/
build_cmd_info  IMAGES  manifest_20190430.1810.xml  PATCHES
ls IMAGE/RK1808-EVB-V10_20190430.1810_RELEASE_TEST/IMAGES/
boot.img           oem.img        rootfs.img  update.img
MiniLoaderAll.bin  parameter.txt  trust.img   userdata.img
misc.img           recovery.img   uboot.img

ls IMAGE/RK1808-EVB-V10_20190430.1810_RELEASE_TEST/

build_cmd_info IMAGES manifest_20190430.1810.xml PATCHES

ls IMAGE/RK1808-EVB-V10_20190430.1810_RELEASE_TEST/IMAGES/

boot.img oem.img rootfs.img update.img

MiniLoaderAll.bin parameter.txt trust.img userdata.img

misc.img recovery.img uboot.img

Now the only available development board is the RK1808-EVB from Rockchip which won’t be for sale to the general maker community, so we may have to patiently wait until one of the SBC’s companies decides to design one.

Thanks to Jon for the tip.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

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.