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This overhead view of a BeagleV system shows the CPU (center), 4 USB 3.0 ports (far left), Gigabit Ethernet (top left) and 40-pin GPIO (bottom).
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Close-up view of the StarFive VIC7100 CPU. Under the hood: two U74 RISC-V CPU cores, a computer vision processor and a neural network mechanism.
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Schematic overview of the BeagleV system board.
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BeagleBoard is the oldest and best known of the partners behind BeagleV: a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit, founded in 2008, that produced more than 10 single-board computers for inexpensive developers / amateurs.
Seeed Studios – the makers of the Odyssey mini-PC that we reviewed in August – teamed up with the well-known SBC vendor BeagleBoard to produce an affordable RISC-V system designed to run Linux.
The new BeagleV system (pronounced “Beagle Five”) features a 1 GHz dual-core RISC-V CPU made by StarFive – one of a network of RISC-V startups created by the best-known RISC-V provider SiFive. The CPU is based on two of SiFive’s standard U74 cores – and unlike simpler microcontroller-only designs, it has an MMU and all the other accessories needed to run complete modern operating systems, such as Linux distributions.
StarFive’s VIC7100 processor design is designed for cutting-edge AI tasks as well as general-purpose computing. In addition to the two RISC-V CPU cores, it features a Tensilica Vision VP6 DSP for machine vision applications, a neural network engine and a single-core NVDLA (Nvidia Deep Learning Accelerator) engine.
BeagleV is not the first general-purpose RISC-V Linux PC to come out of SiFive designs, or even the second – but it is considerably more economical than previous designs, such as the $ 680 HiFive Unmatched. The lower cost should make it much more attractive to enthusiasts, as well as ready-to-use support for Fedora Linux, with support for Debian Linux and the FreeRTOS microcontroller operating system that will come soon after.
In addition to the StarFive processor, BeagleV includes 8GiB of LPDDR4 RAM, gigabit Ethernet, an 802.11n Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.2 chipset and a dedicated hardware video transcoder with H.264 and H.265 support at 4K and 60fps. The system also offers four USB 3.0 ports, a full-size HDMI output, a conventional 3.5mm audio connector and a 40-pin GPIO connector. 5 V / 3 A power is provided through a USB Type C port and the system boots from a standard SD card.
We hope to have a sample review of BeagleV in Ars sometime in late March, with the delivery of the first hardware running in April to the community. Widespread general availability will occur in September 2021. Although the first hardware run is entirely $ 140 / 8GiB on systems, low-cost variants with less RAM are expected in the next releases.
The initial BeagleV pilot will use the Vision DSP hardware as a graphics processor, allowing for a complete graphics desktop environment in Fedora. The following hardware runs will include an unspecified model of Imagine GPU as well.
Ars readers interested in purchasing one of the first “pilot” signs scheduled for delivery in April can apply to be part of the initial program here.
Listing image by Seeed