Will devTerm support more Socs, such as rk3566 rk3588

When I learned about devTerm, it only supports rk3566 and raspberry pi cm3. Now I’m happy to find out that it works with RISC-V and cm4.
However, the performance of these chips is still relatively weak, especially now that the rk3588 has been released and the rk3566 has begun to be used in China’s open source handhelds.
I wonder if there will be an opportunity for devTerm to upgrade to these SoCs in a similar fashion to cm4 and RISC-V in the future.
If not, what is the problem.

在我了解到 devTerm 的时候,它仅支持 rk3566 和 树莓派 cm3。现在我很开心的发现它能够使用RISC-V 和 cm4 了。
但是这些芯片的性能依旧比较羸弱,特别是在现在 rk3588 已经发布,rk 3566 已经开始用于中国开源掌机的当下。
我想知道以后 devTerm 会有机会以类似 cm4 和 RISC-V 的方式升级到这些 soc 吗。
如果不行,存在问题又是什么。

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Well I think maybe the clockworkpi team is just not big enough to handle so many new SoCs. And I’m wondering how much additional performance we can get from these new chips. And the battery lifetime is also need to be considered.

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I would be interested in the RK 3588 as well.
8 cores …

Keeping the DevTerm up to date with its modules sound very logical to me.

I’d be interested to know if CM4 alternative devices work as well. Such as the Banana Pi BPI-CM4, which has not released yet, and might not for a while, but would be a HUGE step up in power over the A-06 module (4x A-73 + 2x A-53 in the BPI-CM4, vs the 2x A-72 + 4x A-53). It’s not as powerful as the RK3588, but, it is a possibility seeing as it will be the same form factor as the CM4.

https://wiki.banana-pi.org/BPI-CM4_Computer_module_and_development_Kit

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the rk3566 has begun to be used in China’s open source handhelds

what machines are you talking about here?

Probably these: 最新开源掌机RG353V GKD mini Plus你选哪个?_哔哩哔哩_bilibili

hey check this out:

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Interesting.
When I understand it correctly, it should fit physically to the DevTerm connector, that we already have.

But I can’t really estimate the software support side.

Yeah, rk3588 mainline support is in a relatively early stage, but it’s very active – lots of pull requests incoming everyday.

I’m wondering when that board is going to be available. Currently more like vaporware :stuck_out_tongue:

Power is another concern… after seeing many rk3588 sbcs equipped with 45W power supply. We’ll need to throttle it down to rk3399 level I guess. It will be embarassing if there’s not much performance gain after that :smiley:

I don’t know.
Are you sure?

I mean they use the 3588S in the OrangePi 5

I think “S” means “slim” in Rockchip naming schema. A throttled down version with different max frequency etc.
Even so, down the page it lists the power supply is 5V 4A, which is I believe beyond what the DT pmu (axp228) can handle. Not sure about mainboard “version 5” improvements though!
Edit: not relevant. Extra current will be drawn from the batteries instead.

In theory, 3588 will deliver more on the same power budget due to better fab (8nm vs 28nm), and improved core designs. We can avoid busting out pmu by programming the operating points and remove the max performance states – which is already done for A06 for both cpu and gpu.

Anyway, I will get the board once it come out.
Official radxa page: Rock5/CM - Radxa Wiki
That’s 3588S too – good to know actually.
No onboard wifi/bt though – not sure if it’s pin compatible with our SDIO/uart wireless modules.

Edit:

1 x SDIO 3.0

Uh oh. That goes to microsd. kuku.

Edit: and … no onboard audio. Gonna need a much more elaborated EXT.

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I only understood 60% of it, but can it be, that the RPis (in general) are insanely exhaustively designed ?

I only understood 60% of it, but can it be, that the RPis (in general) are insanely exhaustively designed ?

I don’t know. But could you elaborate on this point (if so, how is it going to affect our ability to interface with ROCK5)?

More on the power requirements, here’s the schematic of ROCK5B, an RK3588 board:

Sheet 3 lists the power delivery tree:

5000mA@4V goes to the power management chips (RK806+external DC/DC) – that’s 20Watts

On the other hand, here’s what we have in DevTerm:

“IPS” is AXP228+Battery output, which is fed into a step-up regulator of up to 15A. This chip is going to be fine. If we set V_ips=3.7v, we need 5.4A current from the batteries (2.7A each), so the batteries would be fine too – not sure about the overcurrent protection on the battery module – it could cut off power if we push the batteries too hard!

Battery would draw very fast though! Expect some 1.5h battery life if RK3588 kicks in full power.

The main issue I think of with these boards is driver support for the LCD, keyboard, etc. Am I being dumb? Or are these different ARM chips close enough that developing drivers would be easy?

This is maybe counterintuitive, but peripheral drivers are the easy part.
More problematic is the support for the SoC itself, e.g. video codec, gpu, suspend etc. Sure these are available in the vendor supplied kernel (part of what’s called BSP) but these are usually outdated and increasingly hard to use with the current OS userspace.

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Ah okay, well hopefully there’s lots of enthusiasts who can sort out those problems!

Some time has passed.
Does anyone have any updates?

It is expected that the clockworkpi team will introduce Chinese-made chips ,Rockchip, allwinner

期待clockworkpi 团队导入国产芯片,瑞芯微,全志

Any thoughts ok RK3588 support? Touring Pi team has released RK1 module which would be an amazing upgrade in power for the DevTerm.

–Chris

How do you guys think about this one:

https://www.unisoc.com/en_us/home/T5GSJ-T820
This is a range of processors {T750, …, T820} that belong to the UMS9620 family:

  • SD845------------------This----SD855
    • 1xA76+3xA76+4xA55
  • MALI G57
    • Panfrost compatible
  • 6nm fab tech
  • Up to 32GB LPDDR4X @ 2133MHz
  • EMMC5.1/UFS3.1 compatible
  • Built in 2G/3G/4G/5G modem
  • AI buzzwords

Feel like this is even better than 3588 due to more advanced fab tech?