Rockchip RK3566/RK3568 SoM’s feature board-to-board connectors or castellated holes

Rongpin Electronics has designed RK3566 and RK3568 systems-on-modules (SoM) with either board-to-board connectors or castellated holes for direct soldering to the carrier board, which adds competition to the Firefly Core-3568J AI Core Rockchip RK3568 system-on-module offered in a SO-DIMM form factor with an edge connector.

The Rongpin Pro-RK3566 and Pro-RK3568 core boards are equipped with four high-speed Hirose connectors, while the RP-RK3568 Core board exposes I/Os through castellated holes around the four sides of the CPU module.

Rongpin Pro-RK356x system-on-module & devkit

Specifications:

• SoC – Rockchip RK3566/RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 2.0 GHz with 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 NPU for AI acceleration, 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoding, and 1080p100 H.265/H.264 video encoding
• System Memory – 2GB DDR4 (option for 4GB)
• Storage – 8GB eMMC 5.1 flash (option for 16GB to 128GB)
• 4x Hirose board-to-board connectors with
  • Storage
    • 1x SATA 3.0
    • Pro-RK3568 adds an extra SATA 2.0 (not sure how/why it is only 2.0, since 3x SATA 3.0 interfaces are supported by the processor)
  • Display I/F
    • HDMI, 4-lane eDP, LVDS, 8-lane MIPI DSI
    • Pro-RK3568 adds a 24-bit RGB LCD interface
  • Camera I/F – 16-bit DVP interface, 2-lane MIPI CSI up to 8MP
  • Audio – 2x I2S one up to 8 channels, one up to 2 channels; 2x analog audio inputs, headphone output, mono speaker output up to 0.6W
  • Networking
    • Pro-RK3566 – 1x Gigabit Ethernet
    • Pro-RK3568 – 2x Gigabit Ethernet
  • USB
    • 1x USB 3.0, 4x USB 2.0 including one OTG
    • Pro-RK3568 adds an extra USB 3.0 interface
  • PCIe
    • Pro-RK3566 – 1x PCIe 2.0 interface
    • Pro-RK3568 – 1x PCIe 3.0 x2, and 1x PCIe 2.0
  • 3x SDIO for WiFi, MicroSD card on carrier board
  • Analog
    • Pro-RK3566 – 4-channel analog inputs
    • Pro-RK3568 – 8-channel analog inputs
  • Low-speed I/Os
    • Pro-RK3566 – 8x UART, 3x SPI, 4x I2C, 16x PWM, up to 98 GPIOs
    • Pro-RK3568 – 10x UART, 3x SPI, 4x I2C, 15x PWM, up to 130 GPIOs
• Power
  • Supply Voltage/Current
    • Pro-RK3566 – 3.3V with 2A or more
    • Pro-RK3568 – 3.3V with 3A or more
  • Rockchip RK809-5 PMIC with support for lithium battery, charge detection
• Dimensions – 60 x 40 mm, 4.2mm thickness
• Temperature Range – Operating: -25 to +75 degrees C; storage: -30 to +100 degrees C
• Life span – Continuous operating life is more than 5 years

Some of the specs may be incorrect, as, for example, the company claims HDMI is limited to 1080p, but I don’t see any reason for this since the chip supports 4Kp60, and one SATA port is limited to version 2.0. The “block diagram” above also shows 3x SATA 2.0 and 2x SATA 3.0, so I’m a bit confused, and it could be due to the multiplexing ability from the SERDES interfaces of the processor. The full schematics are not available. The company provides Android 11, Ubuntu, or an OS based on Linux 4.19 + QT 5.12.

Rongpin also offers development boards which it calls “expanding boards”, and while Pro-RK3566 and Pro-RK3568 modules have the same dimensions they may not be compatible since the company decided to design two different carrier boards.

RP-RK3568 Core board

This model is also available with both Rockchip RK3566 and RK3568 SoC, but only the latter is listed on the website with the following specifications:

• SoC – Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 2.0 GHz with 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 NPU for AI acceleration, 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoding, and 1080p100 H.265/H.264 video encoding
• System Memory – 2GB DDR4 (option for 4GB or 8GB RAM)
• Storage – 8GB eMMC 5.1 flash (option for 16GB to 128GB)
• Castellated holes on all four sides with
  • Storage – 1x SATA 3.0, 1x SATA 2.0 (same remarks as above)
  • Display I/F – HDMI, 4-lane eDP, single-channel LVDS, 4-lane MIPI DSI, 24-bit RGB LCD interface
  • Camera I/F – 16-bit DVP interface, 2-lane MIPI CSI up to 8MP
  • Audio – 2x I2S one up to 8 channels, one up to 2 channels; 2x analog audio inputs, headphone output, mono speaker output up to 0.6W
  • Networking – 2x Gigabit Ethernet
  • USB – 2x USB 3.0, 4x USB 2.0 including one OTG
  • PCIe – PCIe 2.0
  • 3x SDIO for WiFi, MicroSD card on carrier board
  • Analog – 2x analog inputs
  • Low-speed I/Os – 10x UART, 3x SPI, 4x I2C, 15x PWM, up to 130 GPIOs
• Power
  • Supply Voltage/Current – 3.3V with 3A or more
  • Rockchip RK809-5 PMIC with support for lithium battery, charge detection
• Dimensions – 50 x 50 mm, 3.2mm thickness
• Temperature Range – Operating: -25 to +75 degrees C; storage: -30 to +100 degrees C
• Life span – Continuous operating life is more than 5 years

As one would expect, software support is the same with Android 11, Ubuntu, and Linux+Qt images.

The company provides both RK3566 and RK3568 development boards for the castellated system-on-module, and the module is soldered on the opposite to where the ports are located.

Rongpin can also provide a metal enclosure for fanless operation.

Documentation and availability

What’s not available, or I failed to find it, is proper public documentation, especially with regard to software. More details may be found on the company’s website, and there’s a contact email where you may request additional information, but considering they apparently translated their website with machine translation, everything may be in Chinese, or machine translated.

I noticed the Pro-RK3566 and Pro-RK3568 are listed on Aliexpress for $194.51 including shipping. But that’s a crazy price for such modules, and the seller only has a 68% positive rating. So it’s better to check about the company’s store on Taobao where the price starts at 350 RMB ($55) for the RK3568 SoM.

Sorry, no direct link, as Taobao follows the awful practice of requiring people to log in to access any further information from the website, and I’m not going to do that. [Update: I’ve just been told those were also available on Alibaba]

Thanks to theguyuk for the tip.

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