7 ms·
A RISC-V CPU for $8
- microcolonel 8y agoSold out already. :- ) I want to see what Espressif, SiPeed, or some other vendor manages to do with RISC-V. I'm currently prototyping an A2DP vendor codec extension for Opus using an ESP32 board, and it is pretty painless. Bluetooth is the high value bit in my opinion.
- ac29 8y agoThe module without WiFi is in Stock (and is the $8 model, the WiFi is $9). https://www.seeedstudio.com/Sipeed-MAIX-I-module-w-o-WiFi-1st-RISC-V-64-AI-Module-K210-insid-p-3210.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/Sipeed-MAIX-I-module-w-o-WiFi-1s... There's also a dev board, which is probably much more useful than these bare modules. Unfortunately also out of stock: https://www.seeedstudio.com/Sipeed-MAix-BiT-for-RISC-V-AI-IoT-p-2872.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/Sipeed-MAix-BiT-for-RISC-V-AI-Io...
- mrmondo 8y agoAh I’ve had really good experiences with SeeedStudio too, ordered plenty of things over the years - dangerous site for me to visit when I have money ;,)
- agumonkey 8y ago13$ for a rpi zero w like thing.. not bad
- tyingq 8y agoI think "esp32 like thing" is probably a closer comparison.
- agumonkey 8y agoThat thing clocks a 400MHz out of the box and has coprocessors .. I'd also guess that risc-v isa is more performant than esp32's one (super wild guess). Let's say it sits in the middle :)
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoThe distinction to me is software; if it runs Linux or such, it's a computer. If I have to provide "firmware" then it is a microcontroller.
- therein 8y agoThat distinction is getting blurrier and blurrier every day with the ability to flash firmware to some MCUs such that they run Linux. :)
- milkey_mouse 8y agoIn my opinion the line to draw is support for a privileged mode/protection rings/memory protection. Anything without that can run μClinux at best, which isn't much better than an RTOS. Without process isolation an operating system isn't very "general purpose."
- justinclift 8y agoThere are Fedora and FreeBSD builds for RISC-V. This particular item seems to have only 8MB though, so not really in (most people's) "computer" realm. ;)
- dklsafhjskljfl 8y agoI view wifi on these devices as an anti-feature. Too often, they rely on MVP web services with limited security, and require a full TCP/IP stack, alongside CA-based PKI (meaning, an inherently limited lifespan). Not against a limited lifespan, but I really do like the model of a bridge device that communicates over wire or bluetooth, especially for consumer IOT - bt-based standards prevent vendor lock-in, for example.
- brucehoult 8y agoYeah, Espressif joined the RISC-V foundation, so it will be interesting to see if there is an ESP32 with RISC-V instead of Xtensa sometime soon.
- microcolonel 8y agoMaybe an RV64GC[V maybe] ESP64, with a bit more RAM. :- )
- Roark66 8y agoWhat a joke of a "release" why are all such products almost immediately out of stock. Do they make 20 units? They don't even bother to say on their website when if ever they'll have more units available. Imagine if you worked months to develop a product based on this chip and after all this work you can't use it because it is out of stock with no further info. This is why it'll make no sense to use such chips until they can be bought at digikey, mouser etc in serious quantities.
- ruffrey 8y agoAnyone know what "neural network processor" means, with regard to this chip?
- wyldfire 8y agoSometimes it's a DSP or FPGA with blocks/instructions designed to implement common matrix transformations. In this particular case a vendor on that site claims: > 3. There are 5.9MB SRAM can be used for convolutional neural network acceleration, so, it is possible to run small model like tiny-yolo v2,MobileNet, as you see in face detection routine video.
- monocasa 8y agoIt's a not very well documented "Neural Network Processor (KPU)" https://github.com/kendryte/kendryte-doc-datasheet/blob/master/en/003.md https://github.com/kendryte/kendryte-doc-datasheet/blob/mast...
- ac29 8y agoThere's a port of MicroPython to these chips, which is nice: https://github.com/sipeed/MaixPy https://github.com/sipeed/MaixPy
- matt_trentini 8y agoIt's also attracting a lot of attention in the MicroPython community; seems like this port will improve rapidly.
- purplezooey 8y agovery nice
- sandov 8y agoOff-topic: I'm so freaking excited for RISC-V.
- Koshkin 8y agoThe runner-up: https://www.analoglamb.com/product/dual-core-risc-v-64bit-k210-ai-board-kendryte-kd233/ https://www.analoglamb.com/product/dual-core-risc-v-64bit-k2...
- monocasa 8y agoSame chip, different board.
- netrap 8y agoWhat is the big difference between ARM RISC chips and RISC-V?
- mereel 8y agoRISC-V is an open ISA created by these guys: https://riscv.org/ https://riscv.org/. ARM RISC chips are ARM IP and not open. There's a lot more to unpack there, but that's the gist of it.
- iagovar 8y agoWill we see general purpose risc v's? I mean, as a substitute for ARM for example
- spacenick88 8y agoThat's the idea yes
- mrmondo 8y agoHere’s the Aliexpress link to buy the package with wifi, LCD and camera, it’s about 40% more expensive than "taobao.com" if you’re not a Chinese citizen with ID but still cheap as: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/LEORY-Sipeed-M1-Dock-Development-Board-2-4-inch-320-240-LCD-Screen-OV2640-Camera-Kit/32968590089.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/LEORY-Sipeed-M1-Dock-Develop...
- luma 8y agoCareful - that's just the dev board without the M1 MCU itself. Taobao is pretty easy to access through the use of reshippers, I've used superbuy.com with much success but there are loads of options out there to pick up deals from Taobao and have them sent out of mainland China.
- theli0nheart 8y ago> I've used superbuy.com with much success but there are loads of options out there to pick up deals from Taobao and have them sent out of mainland China. Please do tell more! I just made a Superbuy account but can't for the life of me figure out how to use it. I'm somewhat fluent in Mandarin (my reading's a little rusty), so if that opens up additional options I'd love to know of them.
- chx 8y agoI had zero problems with Superbuy, copy the taobao or jd.com url to the top search bar and from there it should be trivial. Now, I do not have the taobao URL to show you but here's an interesting device (takes wide range DC via 5.5mm x 2.5mm plug and spits up two USB C and one USB A connection) https://item.jd.com/36832086035.html https://item.jd.com/36832086035.html and via superbuy https://www.superbuy.com/en/page/buy?nTag=Home-search&from=search-input&url=https%3A%2F%2Fitem.jd.com%2F36832086035.html https://www.superbuy.com/en/page/buy?nTag=Home-search&from=s... add a cheap old 170W laptop charger from Lenovo with the right plug converter https://www.ebay.com/itm/282597814816 https://www.ebay.com/itm/282597814816 and presto, you have a super high wattage desktop USB charging station.
- potatofarmer45 8y agoThis is super exciting. I hope the demand for these stimulates the copycat manufacturers into making even more RISC-V chips at lower and lower prices with better availability and options (aka, Arduino style).
- openloop 8y agoTake note.
- glhaynes 8y agoFrom the RISC-V Privileged ISA Specification [https://riscv.org/specifications/privileged-isa/ https://riscv.org/specifications/privileged-isa/]: We briefly note that the entire privileged-level design described in this document could be replaced with an entirely different privileged-level design without changing the user-level ISA, and possibly without even changing the ABI. In particular, this privileged specification was designed to run existing popular operating systems, and so embodies the conventional level-based protection model. Alternate privileged specifications could embody other more flexible protection-domain models. Do many/most other architectures have this attribute? The idea of replacing only one "side" of an architecture has never crossed my mind before and seems pretty cool.
- FullyFunctional 8y agoTo my knowledge, no other _widely deployed_ ISA has had this level of flexibility and foresight. In fact it's usually the opposite; the ISA is usually tightly coupled to the processor implementation that introduced it and the survival (= market success) of the immediate product is all that matters. However if it's successful, the successor(s) are now locked into support all the legacy of its predecessors. I can only think of two other examples that successfully planned for the future: the IBM 360 (extremely CISC, but still alive today) and the DEC Alpha (beautiful design, but now mostly dead).
- gmueckl 8y agoThe Alpha disappeared because DEC went under and HP buried the CPU in favor of the Itanium, which is now also dead (mostly because of its technical shortcomings).
- pjmlp 8y agoItaninum is dead thanks to cross licensing between Intel and AMD. If the choice had been Itanium or bust, it would have turned out much different outcome.
- 8y ago
- FullyFunctional 8y agoThis has come up so many times. It has far too little memory for Linux, but ignoring that, the MMU is broken and can't support virtual memory (not that they claim to support supervisor mode anywhere).
- desdiv 8y agoKendryte K210 is designed for FreeRTOS[0] and other embedded OSes. Complaining that it doesn't support Linux is like complaining that a Honda Civic can't compete in Formula One. [0] https://github.com/kendryte/kendryte-freertos-sdk https://github.com/kendryte/kendryte-freertos-sdk
- trhway 8y agoin 1995 the Linux (Slackware) was flying on 25MHz 386SX with 4M RAM :)
- 3chelon 8y ago+1 for nostalgia!
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago...in part because the 80386 supported virtual memory.
- sharpneli 8y agoThere are various slimmed down versions of Linux. The kernel itself can be squeezed down into rather small footprint. It's the lack of full MMU that's the actual reason, it keeps the chip firmly in the microcontroller domain.
- andrewstuart 8y agoI'd be happy if it ran FreeRTOS. 8MB sounds like a whole lot of memory to me ... currently working with less than 512K on the esp32.
- nerdponx 8y agoIs there any chance this will supplant AVR for hobbyist uses?
- steve19 8y agoI think AVR had already been supplanted by ARM and ESP
- childintime 8y agoAs a dark pattern, the chip seems purpose-built for spying. It is interesting as we're witnessing the birth of a new category of embedded chips. 1. I wonder if a chip with these features will be standard in a couple of years, and somewhat shake up the embedded world. 2. ARM was said to be bet heavily on AI, but this chip seems to be ahead. Correct?
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoI'm not sure I follow... What specifically about this chip makes it purpose-built for spying?
- childintime 8y agoIt is a chip that puts face-recognition (and sound-recognition) in a webcam almost for free, and it lowers the price of this capability dramatically. This lends itself to tracking people in public and commercial places, on a scale not yet seen. Maybe it even is the initial market? Regardless it represents an interesting new kind of device (which ARM was aiming for)!