Rockchip showcased some new processors at Mobile World Congress 2023: the RK3528 for TV boxes, and the RK3562 for tablets both with a Cortex-A53 CPU subsystem, but the former comes with a Mali-450 GPU, and the latter with a faster Mali-G52 2EE GPU.
Both are clearly for entry-level devices, but I’m a little surprised they didn’t go with Cortex-A55 cores instead. Rockchip demonstrated the new processors in a TV box running Android 13 and a tablet with a 144,506 score in the latest Antutu benchmark as shown below.
Rockchip RK3528 preliminary specifications:
- CPU – Arm Cortex-A53 processor (core count unspecified)
- GPU – Arm Mali-450 GPU with AFBC compression support
- Memory – LP4, LP4X, LP3, DDR4, DDR3
- Video decoding – Up to 8Kp25
- Supported OS – Android 13
Rockchip RK3562 preliminary specifications:
- CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 2 GHz
- GPU – Mali-G52 EE
- AI accelerator – 1 TOPS NPU
- VPU – 4Kp30 video decoding, 1080p60 video encoding
- Memory – 4GB RAM in tablet PC above
- Storage – 32GB eMMC flash in tablet PC above
- Camera – 1.3MP camera support
There’s no mention of OS support for the RK3562, but it would make sense to assume Android 13 since the RK3528 supports it. While the RK3562 was featured in a tablet PC, the tweet with the photo above refers to it as an “IoT” processor, so the range of I/Os may be greater than seen here.
The RK3528 is probably an upgrade to the RK3328 TV box SoC adding “8K” video decoding, and the RK3562 could potentially be a low-cost alternative to the RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor, although the EVB shown below makes it unlikely with features like HDMI and SATA not shown.
That evaluation board comes with a touchscreen display, two cameras, a few USB ports, a WiFi and Bluetooth module, a PCIe 2.0 slot, and a microSD card. I was also pointed to a Yocto Project repository with support for the RK3562-EVB. Neither the RK3528 nor the RK3562 processor are listed on the Rockchip website, so we’ll have to need to wait a little longer to find additional information.
Thanks to Geoffrey and Jasbir for the tips.
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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Mali-450? How old is that GPU at that point?
But enough to do the video, alas 🤔
If only micro console gaming and emails, word processing etc would catch on. Sadly only at higher mobile, smartphone prices is desktop mode catching some interest. Pity a Rk3588 challenger with real afford able value is needed from Nvidia etc.
Rk3588 software is still for hardware engineers. Imo
Got a feeling they are just 2.0Ghz low cost alternatives as the Mali-G52 2EE GPU is the single core cut down G52 of the rk356(x) and also nothing to write home about.
The one withe the Mali-450 has AFBC compression support and as a 4k settop box that is all it needs… ?
Yeah, the most important part of a STB is the vpu (and Wildwine L1 support). The GPU is only there to output video, nothing more.
nm ?
I don’t know, but A53 and Mali-450 make me think it’s something old that they got wafer starts on for cheap.
I stumbled across this rk3528.dtsi in the meantime. It’s quad-core A53 and judging by the DVFS OPP table it’s same process as RK3566 (2 GHz @ 1100 mV vs. RK3328’s 1.3GHz @ 1325mV).
Asides this the SoC features two GMAC, PCIe Gen2 x1, USB3 (Naneng ComboPipe PHY as on the other RK356x so PCIe/USB3 most probably multiplexed) and a bunch of CAN, I2C, PWM, whatever…
Not so sure about the two GMAC any more since now there are router devices appearing with this SoC like the Hlink H28K that combine the internal GMAC with a RTL8211F PHY and add a PCIe attached RTL8111H controller for the other NIC: https://youtu.be/lLYWgdZ72zc?feature=shared&t=143
According to the block diagram shown there PCIe and USB3 are pinmuxed.
I found 2 new boards with RK3528A on Arace eshop. It is Radxa 2A and 2F. They are quite cheap and both with pcie connector pin compatible with Rpi5.