Sipeed has introduced the Longan Pi3H, a single board computer (SBC) that is similar in size to the Raspberry Pi Zero. Powered by an Allwinner H618 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, the board features full-size connectors including an HDMI 2.0 video output, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, and a gigabit Ethernet RJ45 jack. It also offers WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity, a 40-pin GPIO header, and a USB OTG Type-C port for power. The board is composed of a carrier board and a replaceable LM3H CPU module with the Allwinner H618 SoC, RAM, and eMMC flash.

The Sipeed Longan Pi3H specifications include:

• SoC – Allwinner H618 with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor, up to 1.5GHz, and 1MB L2 cache
• GPU – Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.0/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1
• VPU with support for various video formats
• System Memory – 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4
• Storage options include a microSD card slot and optional 32GB eMMC flash
• Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4Kp60
• Networking features a gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port and dual-band WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 with a ceramic antenna
• USB ports include 2x USB 2.0 Type-A ports and 1x USB 2.0 OTG Type-C port
• Expansion options include a 40-pin Raspberry Pi-compatible GPIO header with I2C, SPI, UART, and a variety of GPIOs
• Debugging features a 4-pin debug UART (3.3V)
• Additional features include FEL and Reset buttons, 2x user LEDs
• Power supply options include 5V via USB Type-C port or 4-pin Debug UART header
• Dimensions: SBC – 65 x 30.8 x 23.6 mm, LM3H module – 46.1 x 25 x 2.9mm

Mainline Linux support for the board is expected to be merged in Q1 2024. While the documentation page is not currently working, hardware documentation such as schematics and mechanical drawings are available.

Pre-orders for the Sipeed Longan Pi3H are available on Aliexpress, with prices ranging from $17.90 for the 2GB RAM variant (without eMMC flash) to $34.90 for the 4GB RAM variant with 32GB eMMC flash. Shipping is expected to start on February 11, and the product will be available for European customers in a few days.

Source: CNX Software – Embedded Systems News.

Alibaba has released nine user manuals for the T-Head TH1520 quad-core RISC-V processor. These manuals cover various aspects of the processor, including video and audio processing, peripheral interfaces, memory interfaces, system registers, and the built-in NPU for video acceleration.

The TH1520 RISC-V SoC was first mentioned in the expensive web3-focused ROMA laptop in October 2022. Since then, there have been interesting developments with the release of Sipeed’s Lichee Pi 4A SBC and various other platforms based on the LM4A system-on-module. Both boards have preliminary support in mainline Linux, with the Lichee Pi 4A making it to Linux 6.5 and the BeagleV Ahead being added to the Linux 6.6 kernel.

The user manuals for the TH1520 processor were not released publicly until now. Sipeed and Beagleboard.org have made available nine user manuals in English, with the Sipeed link also providing the Chinese versions.

While these user manuals are useful for people writing drivers for the TH1520 SoC, some of the documents may not provide enough details to be truly useful, especially those related to the video blocks of the TH1520 processors. Nonetheless, having public documentation is a step in the right direction.

Source: CNX Software – Embedded Systems News.

Liliputing is reporting that Sipeed is now taking orders for its Lichee Cluster 4A board, which allows users to combine up to 7 Lichee 4A modules for cluster builds and parallel processing tasks.

The cluster board is not being sold as a standalone product at the moment, and is priced starting at $929 for a cluster board paired with 7 Lichee Module 4A boards with 8GB of RAM and 32GB of storage each. The board supports up to 112GB of memory and up to 896GB of eMMC storage. It features 7 USB 3.0 ports, 7 microSD ports, 1 USB 2.0 port, 1 HDMI port, 3 Ethernet ports, and 1 10/100GB Ethernet port. The system supports Debian Linux.

Source: Liliputing.