Sipeed has turn out to be the primary to launch a tool constructed across the uncommon Sophgo SG2002 system-on-chip, which presents a mixture of RISC-V, Arm, and Intel 8051 processor cores alongside a proprietary tensor accelerator: the LicheeRV Nano, designed for edge AI good digicam workloads.
Described by the corporate as a “RISC-V full-featured mini monster” in a product itemizing delivered to our consideration by CNX Software program, the Sipeed LincheeRV Nano is a compact growth board that features MIPI Show Serial Interface and Digital camera Serial Interface (DSI and CSI) connectivity, a alternative of wired Quick Ethernet or wi-fi Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity, and a USB Sort-C connector on a tiny breadboard-friendly module with castellated pins.
Sipeed’s newest growth board, geared toward edge AI imaginative and prescient work, builds atop the weird Sophgo SG2002 chip. (📷: Sipeed)
It is the system-on-chip on the boards’ coronary heart which makes them stand out, although: the Sophgo SG2002, the higher-end of two fashions lately unveiled by the corporate and its first to make use of an uncommon four-architecture design. On the chip’s coronary heart are Linux-capable 64-bit application-class processors, selectable at boot: one constructed across the free and open supply RISC-V instruction set structure, and the opposite across the proprietary Arm Cortex-A53.
Having two fully distinct central processors is odd sufficient, however the chip’s design goes additional by including a second RISC-V core for working a real-time working system (RTOS), a proprietary neural processing unit (NPU) coprocessor for accelerating on-device machine studying and edge synthetic intelligence workloads, and — most unusually of all — a microcontroller core based mostly on Intel’s 8051 structure, first launch in 1980 and long-since discontinued by the corporate itself.
The SG2002 driving the board packs in an uncommon assortment of architectures, from RISC-V and Arm to Intel’s ageing 8051. (📷: Sophgo)
That is getting used within the LicheeRV Nano for good digicam work, which explains why the corporate has plumped for the higher-end SG2002 with its one tera-operations per second (TOPS) NPU as a substitute of the SG2000 which presents half the INT8 efficiency. Elsewhere on the board are a 1W energy amplifier and built-in analog microphone, a user-addressable LED, and 256MB of DDR3 reminiscence.
Extra info on the board is accessible on the Sipeed wiki, whereas the corporate has listed a “beta model” on the market on its AliExpress retailer beginning at $8.90 for the bottom mannequin with no community connectivity, $9.90 for a model with Quick Ethernet port, $12.90 for one with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 radios, and $13.90 for a mannequin with each the radios and Ethernet port. All fashions are provided with out show or digicam sensor, which may be added on at an extra price.
