From Open Source software to Open Hardware: RISC-V is the future:
“Computer chip designs are expensive and hard to license. That’s all about to change thanks to the popular open standard known as RISC-V” https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/09/1064876/riscv-computer-chips-10-breakthough-technologies-2023/
future Smart Phones could be running on RISC-V CPUs! 2023-03 https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/01/google-announces-official-android-support-for-risc-v/
RISC-V goes to space! NASA announced in 2022: https://riscv.org/news/2022/09/nasa-selects-sifive-and-makes-risc-v-the-go-to-ecosystem-for-future-space-missions-sifive-business-wire/
looking for a new SoC? (or SBC?)
search eBay for GPIO+SoC, GPIO+SBC, but also checkout what those are up to:
- https://www.hardkernel.com
- https://friendlyelec.com
- http://www.orangepi.org
- https://www.banana-pi.org
- https://www.mekotronics.com/
- https://www.olimex.com/
- https://pine64.com/product-category/single-board-computers/ (they got RISC-V boards now as well!)
- or whats new here https://linuxgizmos.com
- info:
- SOC = System on a Chip, has multiple functional (CPU+GPU+Network) in one Chip (one piece of silicon)
- SBC = Single Board Computer CPU is a spearate chip, GPU is a spearate chip, Network is a separate Chip…
most importantly: the user’s project should be easily portable from one SoC-SBC to the next, to not be “stuck” to one particular model that is not manufactured anymore in 2 years time.
2x faster: T-HEAD Light Lichee Pi 4A vs StarFive VisionFive V2
a few days later… a new SoC 2x the RISC-V speed 😀
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/risc-v-lichee-pi-4a-desktop-unboxing
https://dl.sipeed.com/fileList/LICHEE/licheepi4a/01_Specification/SIPEED_LPi4A_DataSheet_EN_V1.0.pdf
it’s a bit pricey: for the 8GB RAM version, search eBay
what is also cool & new: modular design: so in theory: keep the baseboard-mainboard (RAM and connectors), just switch out the CPU 😀
v2 of an excellent RISC-V SOB is out:
… AND IT GOT A GPU 😀 which means: first time many users can now see LibreOffice is running on RISC-V 😀 (it’s still slow but well :D)
also remarkable: price-wise it can compete with the Raspberry 4 and ODROID N2l!
unfortunately: the performance of the RISC V CPU is still light years away from the ARM competition 😐 (but it’s a start)
SoC: battle rages on: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (currently 89,99 Bucks) Rev 1.5 vs HardKernel Co., Ltd. ODROID-N2L (currently 105,39 Bucks)
this is a very close race, the odroid (once more) is a whee bit faster, but Raspberry developers finally have a CPU of decent speed 😀 congratz all involved!
problem: the RaspBerry probably (still) needs a massive GPU binary driver blob to boot, while the community of both SoC is bretty decent, the RaspBerry community is without a doubt larger.
ODROID-N2L
youtube-benchmark: can it do decent youtube playback (of course) IN THE BROWSER?
- it can do 1080p with 0 dropped frames
- it can not do 4k or 8k playback (even if a lot of companies like to advertise their boxes “can do 8k”)
- THE ONLY possible WAY for 8k x264 or x265 videos to play fluently is a DEDICATED in HARDWARE x264 and x265 DECODING CHIP as even a amd-ryzen-5600g can do it “in software” but really hitting it’s limit by the amount of processing required for 8k (in this case AV1) decoding)
holy crap what is this? X-D
what is neat: it runs on 12V 😀
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