Upcoming Product: SOEdge Module - More Details

From cnx-software.com, referencing an earlier ameriDroid.com article, plus new info from several sources including ameriDroid.com via TL Lim (founder of PINE64) and pine64.org:

A few weeks ago, ameriDroid reported Pine64 would soon launch SORock and SOEdge systems-on-module, but at the time there was virtually no info except SORock would be likely based on either RK3328 or RK3399 and work on the existing Clusterboard, while SOEdge would be an AI Neural module for Artificial Intelligence tasks, with up to 3 TeraFLOPS of performance.

[New Info: TL Lim (PINE64's founder) told Bo (ameriDroid's president) in a recent meeting that the SORock was delayed due to heat dissipation concerns as the RK3399 SoC generates significantly more heat than the A64. Bo suggested that ameriDroid could offer a liquid-cooling solution for the SORock.]

Let’s try to derive the specifications from the photos even though some components appear to be blurred out or just unclear:

• SoC – Rockchip RK1808 dual-core Cortex-A35 processor with 3.0 TOPS NPU (Neural Processing Unit)
• System Memory – 2GB RAM (2x 8GBit Micro DDR4-2400) but limited PC-2133
• Storage – 16GB eMMC 5.1 flash (FORESEE NCEMAD9D-16G)
• PMIC – Rockchip RK809-2
• Edge Connector – 204-pin SO-DIMM connector
• Dimensions – 67.9 x 31.0 mm (following DDR3 SO-DIMM / SoPine64 form factor)

There’s no information about software right now, but SoEdge-RK1808 should [run] Linux, and support RKNN-Toolkit for AI acceleration just like RK1808 AI (USB) Compute Stick.

As mentioned previously SoEdge-RK1808 appears to be compatible with SOPINE A64 SoM and fits into SOPINE Model “A” baseboard.

[New Info: This means the SOEdge modules will also be compatible with the Clusterboard, and this is verified to be the case via discussion between Bo and TL Lim. In addition, SOPine A64 Compute Modules can be intermixed on the Clusterboard with SOEdge modules.]

It should be noted that all ports may not be working on that baseboard, since for example RK1808 does not support HDMI, but MPI DSI and CSI connector should be fine.

Rockchip RK1808 has a low-end, low power dual-core Cortex-A35 processor so it will only be interested in those applications where you can leverage the NPU such as object detection, face recognition, and so on. I’ve been informed SOEdge-RK1808 module price will be the same as SOPine A64 module, or $29.

 

[New Info from the PINE64.org August Update:

[The SOEdge] features 2GB of DDR4 SDRAM, 128Mb of SPI-NOR Flash as well as both eMMC and microSD sockets.

We have taken great care to ensure a high degree of compatibility between the SOEdge and SOPine peripheral/ baseboard compatibility. In result, the new module can be used with the SOPine baseboard (N.B. the SOEdge doesn’t have digital video out functionality, so the digital video out port on the baseboard will not function) as well as the Clusterboard. We also intend to create a SOEdge-specific baseboard as well as PCIe and USB 3.0 adapters for it, so that it can be paired with the ROCK64 via USB 3.0 or the ROCKPro64 using PCIe. We have spoken and worked closely with Rockchip and they’ll be open-sourcing all the relevant source code and documentation related to the SOEdge. I will be returning to look at the SOEdge, as well as other things we’ve been working on behind the scenes, at a later date when the software is up and running and there is something to showcase.

 

[New Info from John Smirl, cnx-software.com forum member:

All of the software is here: https://github.com/rockchip-linux

I’ve built buildroot and debian for rk1808 but I have no hardware. All of the AI tools are there too.

And the rockchip developers even occasionally respond when you file an issue.

This is supposed to be a clone of the official dev board or something very close. So hopefully the dev board SDK will boot.]

 

Read the full article at cnx-software here.

Read the full article at pine64.org here.