Finally! There’s now a much more affordable Allwinner D1 RISC-V Linux board thanks to Sipeed LicheeRV Nezha CM SBC sold for $16.90 and up on Aliexpress, that’s much cheaper than the $100 asked for Nezha SBC, although still not incredibly cheap as we’ll see from the specifications below.
Sipeed LicheeRV is actually both a board and a system-on-on-module with an edge connector, and is equipped with 512MB DDR3, a USB-C OTG port, a MicroSD card socket, and an SPI display interface. The dual M.2 edge connector can be plugged into a carrier board, and they will be a “86 Box” (86x86mm) for HMI display that can be used for home automation.
Sipeed Lichee RV specifications:
- 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 @ 792 MHz
- Storage – MicroSD card slot
- Video – SPI display interface for optional 1.14-inch magnetic display
- USB – USB Type-C OTG port
- Host connector – 2x M.2 B-key edge connector for I/Os such as HDMI, MIPI DSI, RGB, Ethernet, Audio, SDIO, GPIO, etc…
- Debugging – 4-pin UART header, USB ADB debugging
- Misc – Power LED, FEL button
- Power Supply – 5V/0.5A via USB-C port
- Dimensions – 43.2 x 25mm
The board will support the OpenWrt-based Tina Linux as well as Debian Desktop. With no networking connectivity nor HDMI output or easy access to I/Os, it will have limited use, but Sipeed says carrier boards are coming in December. The Aliexpress page also shows the LicheeRV-86 an “86 Box” with an integrated 480×480 touchscreen display, an XR829 WiFi and Bluetooth module, Ethernet via a USB port, dual microphone, a 2.54mm GPIO header, and support for WAFT (WebAssembly Framework for Things).
I’m not sure why it’s on Aliexpress, since only LicheeRV and the Suit variant ($22) with the SPI display are for sale at this time. If you’d really like a RISC-V Linux board that’s more like a Raspberry Pi Zero W with HDMI, WiFi, and a GPIO header, Sipeed is also working on it.
It will not use one of Allwinner’s wireless chips, but instead the Ampak AP6210 module with WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0.
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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