Raspberry Pi Pico 2 was released last month with a Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller equipped with two Arm Cortex-M33 cores and two 32-bit RISC-V “Hazard3” cores with up to two cores usable at any time. So in this guide, we’ll show how to use the RISC-V cores on the RP2350 MCU, compare their performance against the Arm Cortex-M33 cores, and even build Linux for RISC-V for RP2350 boards that have PSRAM. Apart from the extra memory and more powerful cores, plus new features related to security and the HSTX interface, the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and Pico will be very similar to the end user and the instructions in our article “Getting Started with Raspberry Pi Pico using MicroPython and C” remain valid. I don’t think there’s a MicroPython RISC-V image yet, so we’ll focus on running C programs on the RISC-V cores. A quick check with the Arm cores […]
DC-ROMA RISC-V Pad II octa-core RISC-V tablet can be pre-ordered for $149 and up
DeepComputing DC-ROMA RISC-V Pad II is a 10.1-inch tablet based on the same SpacemIT K1 octa-core 64-bit RISC-V processor found in the DC-ROMA RISC-V Laptop II introduced a few months ago, as well as in the MILK-V Jupiter mini-ITX motherboard. The RISC-V tablet features up to 16GB LPDDR4, 128GB eMMC flash, a 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 1920×1200 resolution, a 5MP rear camera, a 2MP webcam, a USB-C port for peripherals and/or an external display, and a 6,000 mAh battery. DC-ROMA RISC-V Pad II specifications: SoC – SpacemiT K1 CPU – 8-core X60 RISC-V processor @ up to 2.0 GHz GPU – Imagination IMG BXE-2-32 with support for OpenCL 3.0, OpenGL ES3.2, Vulkan 1.2 VPU – H.265, H.264, VP9, VP8 4K encoding/encoding NPU – 2.0 TOPS AI accelerator RVA 22 Profile RVV 1.0 compliant System Memory – 4GB, 8GB or 16GB LPDDR4 Storage 64GB or 128GB eMMC 5.1 flash MicroSD […]
Akeana unveils 10 RISC-V cores suitable for microcontrollers up to data center chips
Founded about three years ago, Akeana has just officially launched and announced three 32-bit and 64-bit RISC-V processor lines and SoC IP with the Akeana 100 series for 32-bit microcontrollers, the Akeana 1000 series for 64-bit processors with MMU, and the Akeana 5000 series with much higher single-thread performance and designed for laptops, data centers, and cloud infrastructure. The company also introduced Scalable Coherent Interconnect, Interrupt Controller, and IOMMU IP for building out compute subsystems based on the aforementioned RISC-V cores, as well as AI-targeted Vector RISC-V Cores and Matrix Computation IP. The design team is said to have previously worked on Marvell’s ThunderX2 server chips. Akeana 100 Series The Akeana 100 Series is a line of highly configurable processors with 32-bit RISC-V cores that support applications from embedded microcontrollers to edge gateways, to personal computing devices. Four Akeana 100 RISC-V cores are available Akeana 110 for area- and power-constrained […]
Efinix introduces the low-power Topaz RISC-V SoC FPGA family for “high-volume, mass-market applications”
Efinix Topaz is a new low-power RISC-V SoC FPGA family manufactured with the same 16nm TSMC process as the Efinix Titanium SoC FPGA, but optimized for high-performance in a low-power footprint, and targetting high-volume, mass-market applications. The Topaz SoC FPGAs provide fewer features than the Titanium family but still offer up to four RISC-V hard cores, PCIe Gen3, MIPI interfaces, LPDDR4, LVDS, and 12.5 Gbps transmitter with most features being optional and depending on the exact SKUs selected. Efinix Topaz key features and specifications: FPGA compute fabric Up to 326,080 logic elements (LEs) Up to 19.22 Mbits embedded memory Up to 1,877 10-Kbit SRAM blocks Up to 1,008 embedded DSP blocks Memory – 10-kbit high-speed, embedded SRAM, configurable as single-port RAM, simple dual-port RAM, true dual-port RAM, or ROM FPGA interface blocks Optional 32-bit quad-core hardened RISC-V block (RISCV32I with M, A, C, F, and D extensions and six pipeline […]
SparkFun Pro Micro – RP2350 development board comes with 16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM
The SparkFun Pro Micro – RP2350 is a compact and powerful development board built around the RP2350 chip from Raspberry Pi and equipped with 16MB flash and 8MB PSRAM. It follows the updated Pro Micro design and includes a USB-C connector, Qwiic connector, WS2812B RGB LED, Boot and Reset buttons, resettable PTC fuse, and both PTH and castellated solder pads. Last week, besides the Raspberry Pi Pico 2, we wrote about more boards with the Raspberry Pi RP2350, like the XIAO RP2350, Solder Party’s RP2350 Stamp, and Cytron MOTION 2350 Pro. Feel free to check them out if you are interested in these boards. SparkFun Pro Micro – RP2350 specification Microcontroller – Raspberry Pi RP2350A MCU CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @150MHz with Arm Trustzone for secure boot Dual-core 32-bit Hazard3 RISC-V @ 150MHz Up to two cores can be used at the same time Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM […]
MILK-V Jupiter review – A RISC-V mini-ITX motherboard and PC tested with Ubuntu-based Bianbu OS
In this review or preview of the the Shenzhen Milk-V Jupiter RISC-V mini-ITX motherboard, I’ll assemble the motherboard into a mini-ITX chassis, before installing the Ubuntu 23.10 Mantic-based Bianbu OS optimized for RISC-V platforms, and testing the device to see how much progress has been done on RISC-V since I tested the StarFive VisionFive 2 SBC with Debian 12 about 18 months ago. In the first part of the review, we checked out the Radxa ROCK 5 ITX (Rockchip RK3588 Arm) and Jupiter (SpacemIT K1 RISC-V) mini-ITX motherboards with specifications and unboxing, and the Auriga 6-Bay NAS mini-ITX chassis used in this review. I planned to start with the Radxa ROCK 5 ITX, but due to logistics and technical issues, I went ahead testing the RISC-V motherboard first. Installing Bianbu OS to the Jupiter RISC-V motherboard The board does not come with storage, so no operating system is installed. So […]
$5 Raspberry Pi Pico 2 launched with Raspberry Pi RP2350 dual-core RISC-V or Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller
The Raspberry Pi Pico 2 is an MCU development board based on the new Raspberry Pi RP2350 dual-core RISC-V or dual-core Cortex-M33 microcontroller with 520 KB on-chip SRAM, a 4MB flash, a micro USB port for power and programming and the same GPIO headers as the Raspberry Pi Pico board with an RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller with 264KB SRAM. The RP2350 embeds both an open-source Hazard3 RISC-V dual-core CPU and a dual-core Cortex-M33, but only one cluster can be used at a given time. Apart from the faster MCU cores and higher SRAM capacity, the RP2350 is about the same as the RP2040, albeit it also adds one extra PIO block bringing the total to three. One important new feature is built-in security when using Arm Cortex-M33 cores with Trustzone and other security features. Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller Let’s have a closer look at the RP2350 microcontroller, before checking out […]
Geniatech XPI-7110 – A Raspberry Pi-sized RISC-V SBC based on StarFive JH7110 processor
Geniatech XPI-7110 is a RISC-V single-board computer (SBC) built on StarFive JH7110 with a form factor similar to that of a Raspberry Pi 3 and equipped with up to 8GB of RAM, 256GB of eMMC storage. It comes with various I/O options including USB ports, HDMI 2.0, GbE Ethernet, Wi-Fi/BT, GPIO, camera, display, and much more. The company also mentions that the board will be available in both commercial and industrial variants and will include a 10+ year lifecycle The new Geniatech board is very similar to the Milk-V Mars that we wrote about a few months ago. Additionally, we have written about PineTab-V, Pine64 Star64 SBC, and Milk-V Meles SBC all of which are built around the StarFive JH7110 or T-Head TH1520 RISC-V SoC, feel free to check those out if you are interested in the topic. Geniatech XPI-7110 SBC specifications: SoC – StarFive JH7110 CPU – Quad-core RISC-V processor […]