Posted on

Rockchip RV1126 AI Camera SoC features 2.0 TOPS NPU, promises 250ms fast boot

The Rockchip Developer Conference that took place at the end of November 2020 allowed us to learn more about RK3588, RK3566, and RK3568 64-bit Arm processors for AIoT applications. But the company also presented additional details about camera SoC’s, namely the dual-core RV1109 and quad-core RV1126, equipped with a 1.2 TOPS and 2.0 TOPS respectively, and both capable of delivering a 250ms fast boot. Rockchip RV1109 and RV1126 share many of the same specifications: CPU RV1109 – Dual-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.5 GHz + RISC-V MCU @ 400 MHz RV1126 – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.5 GHz + RISC-V MCU @ 400 MHz GPU – 2D graphics engine NPU RV1109 – 1.2 TOPS with support for INT8/ INT16 RV1126 – 2.0 TOPS with support for INT8/ INT16 Memory – 32-bit DDR3/DDR3L/LPDDR2/LPDDR3/DDR4/LPDDR4 up to 4GB RAM Storage – eMMC 4.51, Serial SPI NOR Flash or NAND flash with fast booting support, […]

Posted on

Year 2020 in review – Top ten posts and stats

It’s this time of the year when we look back at what happened, and what may be next. 2020 did not pan out as planned in more ways than one, but there were still some interesting developments. Based on 2019 announcements, 2020 was promising to be an exciting year for Amlogic and Rockchip with the expected launch of RK3588 and S908X high-end processors for 8K capable devices,  but we’ll have to wait for 2021 for this to happen. Instead, the most interesting processor of the year from the Allwinner, Amlogic, and Rockchip offerings was probably Amlogic S905X4 processing adding AV1 hardware decoding. As pointed out in our “RISC-V 2020 highlights” post, it was a fairly eventful year for RISC-V architecture, although there’s still a long road ahead, especially for application processors. We had seen some general-purpose and Bluetooth RISC-V MCUs in 2019, but 2020 saw the launch of the first […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
Posted on

Rockchip RK3566 and RK3568 datasheets and features comparison

We first covered Rockchip RK3566 processor in February, but we’ve been informed the specifications have changed since then, and earlier this month, we also wrote about RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor with the same base features but some extra I/Os. But due to NDAs, people familiar with the chips could not release too many details, so we did not get the full picture. This has just changed as the datasheets for both processors have just dropped from somewhere here and there, and we can get a much closer look. RK3566 and RK3568  specifications I’ve highlighted the obvious differences above, with the big ones being the PCIe interface and RK3568 having dual Gigabit Ethernet. The other features comparison can be found in the table below. Multiplexed interfaces. Important note. Rockchip RK3566 and RK3568 are using Multi-PHY Interfaces, and while the table above lists all possible interfaces, they can not all be used […]

Posted on

Rockchip RK3568 processor to power edge computing and NVR applications

We recently reported on the Rockchip developer conference (RKDC) 2020, and especially the upcoming Rockchip RK3588 Cortex-A76/A55 processor that packs a lot of power and features, and is now scheduled to launch in Q3 2021. But as you can imagine there were other products revealed during the conference, including the new Rockchip RK3568, similar to the previously announced RK3566, and designed for edge computing and network video recorder (NVR) applications. There’s also an RK353X processor specifically designed for NVR application that should have similar performance as RK3568, but a lower cost, as well as two UP camera SoC with RV1106 and RV1128. CNX Software managed to obtain the presentation for the RK3568 processor from the conference so we’ll focus on the quad-core Cortex-A55 processor in this post. Rockchip RK3568 specifications: CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor with NEON and FPU GPU – Mali-G52 EE with support for OpenGL ES 1.1 to […]

Posted on

Year 2019 in Review – Top 10 Posts and Stats

2019 is closing to an end, or you may already be into 2020 while reading this post. In any case, that means it’s time to look back at 2019 and look forward to the events and new products to take place next year. While 2018 was a boring year for new processors, 2019 brought us some interesting new chips such as Amlogic S922X / A311D, or the first Arm Cortex-A55 only processors such as Amlogic S905X3. Rockchip RK3399Pro was promising when it was announced last year, but it never really took off. It was a pretty quiet year for Allwinner as well. RISC-V architecture has been ramping up with the first general-purpose RISC-V MCU: GD32V, WCH CH572 Bluetooth LE MCU, the launch of more SiFive RISC-V cores, and Kendryte K210 RISC-V AI processor announced last year has found its way into more and more boards. There have also been the […]

Posted on

Amlogic S805X2, S905X4, and S908X AV1 Full HD/4K/8K Media Processors to Launch in 2020

AOMedia AV1 open, royalty-free video codec has come a long way since it was first introduced in 2016, and we’ve recently seen AV1 hardware video decoding integrated into higher-end STB SoCs such as Broadcom BCM7218X or Realtek RTD1311/RTD1319 processors. But AV1 codec is also coming to lower-cost media processors as shown by Amlogic 2020 roadmap below. We should expect at least three new AV1 capable processors in 2020. Amlogic S905X4 Specifications: CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor GPU Arm Mali-G31MP2 Video 4Kp75 H.265, VP9, AVS2 4Kp120 AV1 HDR support Smart Audio Voice Activity Detector (VAD) Asynchronous Sample Rate conversion (ASRC) Equalizer (EQ) Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) 2x DSP for audio front end (AFE) and wake word engine (WWE) Amlogic S905X4 looks like an update to Amlogic S905X3  with AV1 codec support, and maybe extra audio features. Amlogic S908X We’ve previously seen Rockchip RK3588 with Cortex-A76 / A55 cores, 8K video […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
Posted on

Rockchip RK2108 Smart Audio Dock Converts Tablets into Smart Displays

Last April, Rockchip published a roadmap to 2020 with processors such as RK3588 Cortex-A76/A55 or RK3530 quad-core Cortex-A55 SoCs. Part of the roadmap was also Rockhip RK2108 Arm Cortex-M4 microcontroller with an Audio DSP which did not get as much coverage. The company has now announced RK2108 based smart docks that convert tablets into smart display / speakers so that they can be waken-up and controlled by voice commands. Rockchip RK2108 audio MCU supports A/D audio interface, MIPI DSI/MCU LCD interface and USB2.0 interface, and comes with the following key features: Built-in audio DSP  for voice/audio signal processing Audio pre-processing, active noise reduction, AEC, etc… for improved voice recognition Customizable wake-up words and offline instructions Ultra-low power consumption in both standby and operating modes The RK2108 smart dock pictured above connects to compatible Android tablets over USB or Bluetooth, and turns those into smart display products that can handle voice […]

Posted on

Amlogic S912 vs Amlogic A311D/S922X-B Benchmarks Comparison

A few days ago we compared Amlogic A311D to Rockchip RK3399 since both the top-of-the-line processors from Amlogic and Rockchip are currently available. Rockchip RK3588 will even be faster, but we need to wait until Q1 2020 at least before it becomes available, and delays are not unheard of, so I’d expect it may take about one year before I can get my hands on a sample. Another comparison is against Amlogic S912, the previous high-end processor from the company. Amlogic A311D and S922X-B are newer and will be faster but it’s interesting to find out just how much. Note the Amlogic S922X found in ODROID-N2 is clocked at a lower speed compare to A311D/S922X-B, so performance will be somewhat lower. Since I recently benchmarked Khadas VIM3 with Amlogic A311D processor, I decided to dust off my old Khadas VIM2 Amlogic S912 development board, fit it a large heatsink, install […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC