New ODROID Board: ODROID-N2L

Compact, cost-effective, simple, and still high-performance SBC, ODROID-N2L.

• Smaller and neater form factor: 69 x 56mm 
• Small size allows for mounting inside a variety of small devices
• Suitable for various standalone embedded system which don’t require Ethernet connectivity
• Suitable for building robots, drones, arcade consoles, human-machine-interface devices, and many other applications
• Faster and lower power consumption LPDDR4 RAM
• Lightweight
• Low cost

While the letter ‘L’ does not refer to any specific word, it has various meanings such as Little, Leaf, Lynx, Lovely, Lumen, LPDDR and Light. The N2L has removed some features which were available on the N2+ to reduce the material cost and to minimize the PCB form factor. Ethernet, RTC, SPI-Flash, OTG port, Analog audio output, IR receiver, three USB 3.0 ports and the large heatsink frame were removed. 

DDR4 RAM chips were replaced with a single LPDDR4 chip to minimize the PCB form factor and reduce power consumption. As a bonus, around 20% higher DRAM interface clock frequency is an obvious and important improvement. It was found that 10% to 20% of increased system performance compared to the original N2+ in various benchmark test results.

The GPU benchmark glmark2-es2 also showed about 10% of increased performance which is very similar to the improvement of the memory bandwidth (MBW) test.

OS images and CAUTION

Because the DRAM chip was changed from DDR4 to LPDDR4, the existing OS image for N2/N2+ will NOT boot on N2L.

It is necessary to modify the boot loader files at a minimum.

Currently, the following OS images for N2L have been prepared.

• Android 9.0 64bit and 32bit images
• Ubuntu 22.04 Mate / Minimal with Kernel 4.9
• Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop with Kernel 5.15 and upstream
• EmuELEC (TBD)

SPECIFICATIONS

• Form Factor: 
• Dimensions including Fan heatsink: 69mm x 56mm x 22mm
• Dimensions including Tall heatsink: 69mm x 56mm x 32mm
• Weight: 50g including Fan heatsink, 66g including Tall heatsin
• Processor: 
• Amlogic S922X Processor (12nm)
• Quad-core Cortex-A73(2.2Ghz) and Dual-core Cortex-A53(2Ghz)
• ARMv8-A architecture with Neon and Crypto extensions
• Mali-G52 GPU with 6 x Execution Engines (800Mhz)
• Memory:
• LPDDR4 4GiB or 2GiB with 32-bit bus width
• Data rate: 3216 MT/s
• 1.1Volt low power design
• Storage:
• 1 x eMMC connector (8G, 16G, 32G, 64G and 128G are available)
• 1 x microSD slot (DS/HS modes up to UHS-I SDR104)
• Network:
• Optional WiFi or Ethernet USB adapters
• Video:
• 1 x HDMI 2.0 (up to 4K@60Hz with HDR, CEC, EDID)
• Although the +5V Power pin is able to supply a minimum of 300mA, according to HDMI 2.0 specification, a sink shall not draw more than 50mA of current from the +5V Power pin.
• Audio:
• 1 x HDMI digital output
• External I/O:
• 1 x USB 3.0 Host port
• 1 x USB 2.0 Host port
• 1 x Debug serial console (UART)
• 1 x MIPI DSI 4Lane (TBD)
• 1 x Peripheral Expansion Header (40-pin, 2.54mm pitch)
• – 2 x DC 5V, 2 x DC 3.3V, 1 x DC 1.8V, 8 x GND
• – 1 x SPI
• – 1 x UART
• – 2 x I2C
• – 25 x GPIO (Max)
• – 2 x ADC input (10bit, 1.8V Max)
• – All of I/O signal level is 3.3 Volt except for ADC input at max 1.8 Volt
• Other Features:
• Built with a large passive heatsink
• System LEDS Indicators:
• – Red (PWR) – Solid light when DC power is connected
• – Blue (ALIVE) – Flashing like heartbeat while Kernel is running.
• Active Cooling Fan Connector (5V 2-pin)
• – Connector (2-pin, 1.25mm pitch)
• Power:
• 1 x DC jack : outer (negative) diameter 5.5mm, inner(positive) diameter 2.1mm
• 7.5V ~ 16V (Recommend range of input)
• – DC 12V/2A power adapter is recommended Power consumption:
• – IDLE : ≃ 1.5W (Performance governor), 1.3W(Conservative governor)
• – CPU Stress (Passive Heat-Sink) : ≃ 5.4W (@1908/2208MHz, Stock), 5.8W (@2016/2400MHz, Overclock)
• – CPU Stress (Active Cooling-FAN) : ≃ 6.1W (@1908/2208MHz, Stock), 6.4W (@2016/2400MHz, Overclock)
• – Power-Off : ≃ 0.2W

 VIDEOS