Linux Patches Posted For Enabling A 22 x 35 mm RISC-V / ARM Board

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Patches Posted For Enabling A 22 x 35 mm RISC-V / ARM Board

Linux kernel patches were posted today for enabling Linux to boot on the LicheeRV Nano, a mini single board computer that comes in at a mere 22.86 x 35.56 mm. As interesting as the size with this SBC is the Sophgo SG2002 SoC that features a mix of RISC-V and ARM cores...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/LicheeRV-Nano-Linux-Patches

[user556]

I have to assume the NPU is the main feature ... with the CPU just there to feed it. Otherwise the selectable CPU core type is just dumb.

[geerge]

Should have called this thing the chimera.

[Eraserstp]

Should have called this thing the chimera.

ChPU - a chimeric processing unit.

[ayumu]

I have to assume the NPU is the main feature ... with the CPU just there to feed it. Otherwise the selectable CPU core type is just dumb.

This is not unlike chicken bits. They were not confident and thus elected to also include an arm cpu in case the risc-v one didn't work.

[user556]

This is not unlike chicken bits. They were not confident and thus elected to also include an arm cpu in case the risc-v one didn't work.

Implication is still the same - The focus is the NPU.

What the frig is "chicken bits"?

[Quackdoc]

Lot's of really cool applications for this device. sipeed has demoed using it as a KVM (of which I plan to get when available), demoed it as a camera device which can use the TPU. and I can see loads more uses.

[Quackdoc]

I have to assume the NPU is the main feature ... with the CPU just there to feed it. Otherwise the selectable CPU core type is just dumb.

this thing is literally crammed with goodies, hwenc h264/h265 with various asic video manipulation stuffs. obviously as mentioned it has a dedicated TPU, BLE support with an extra module, low power dac which can power >1w speakers (though if you wanted to use it as a bluetooth device you would likely want a USB dac)

[pong]

An 8051 MCU core in 2024, really?!
I don't understand why a small RISC-V MCU wouldn't do unless they were REALLY desperate to have just an 8-bit MCU
that's even smaller than a no-frills RV32I-whatever which I guess does limit the "hugely popular open cores" options
though if they were licensing some core for it one would think a 6800 or 6502 or such would've been also available.

[ayumu]

Implication is still the same - The focus is the NPU.

What the frig is "chicken bits"?

In hardware, these are bits that control "features" the hardware designers are not confident about, so that they can be switched off if they turn out to be problematic.

It is much better than potentially being forced to bin the hardware.