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$119+ BeagleV powerful, open-hardware RISC-V Linux SBC targets AI applications
Running Linux on RISC-V hardware is already possible, but you'd have a choice of low-end platforms like Kendryte K210 that's not really practical for anything, or higher-end board like SiFive HiFive Unmatched or PolarBerry for which you'd have to spend several hundred dollars, or even over one thousand dollars to have a complete system.
So an affordable, usable RISC-V Linux SBC is clearly needed. We previously wrote about an upcoming Allwinner RISC-V Linux SBC that will be mostly useful for camera applications without 3D GPU, and a maximum of 256MB RAM. But today, we have excellent news, as the BeagleBoard.org foundation, Seeed Studio, and Chinese fanless silicon vendor Starfive partnered to design and launch the BeagleV SBC (pronounced Beagle Five) powered by StarFive JH7100 dual-core SiFive U74 RISC-V processor with Vision DSP, NVDLA engine, and neural network engine for AI acceleration.
[...] Based on our previous article about SiFive U74 core, performance should be similar to Cortex-A55, so a dual-core U74 RISC processor will not have that much processing power compared to other Arm boards, but the network accelerator should make it competitive against other AI boards like Coral Dev Board mini.
One obvious item missing from the specifications is a GPU, and I was told while the first batch scheduled in March will be GPU less, but the next batch – slated to be manufactured in September – will come with an Imagination Technologies GPU.
BeagleV will be supported by mainline Linux and a Debian-based software image will be provided. I can also see mentions of Fedora and FreeRTOS. The RISC-V Linux SBC will be open-source hardware just like other boards from the BeagleBoard.org foundation meaning hardware design files, firmware, and the software will be made available publicly.
Related: SiFive Announces HiFive Unmatched Mini-ITX Motherboard for RISC-V PCs
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday January 14 2021, @07:48PM (7 children)
The key difference is that there is no impediment to prevent a dozen competitors to SiFive. It isn't only SiFive's core. Or, at least, I hope that is not the end game. I thought the whole point is that others who make silicon could also get into this game and compete on implementation -- while agreeing on interface. (a saying that's popular in the Java world, where multiple implementations implement identical interfaces.)
If RISC V is available from multiple vendors, then the market will support what the customers want. Or do not want -- like "management engines", or "managing your digital rights", etc. The presence or absence of these features might be verifiable.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Thursday January 14 2021, @09:37PM (1 child)
I "do not want" something requiring proprietary drivers, firmware or software. I want something that will support the use of all free software.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Thursday January 14 2021, @10:00PM
I want that too.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday January 15 2021, @05:15AM (3 children)
But the same could be said of any other ISA. All you need to do is hire a few hundred highly skilled engineers and managers, spend a few hundred million on development, and have your own billion-dollar fab, and you can do anything you want.
In fact arguably ARM is less proprietary/locked-in at the moment because I can go to dozens if not hundreds of different vendors to pick and choose what I want, while with SiFive there's, well, SiFive. Take it or leave it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 15 2021, @02:50PM (2 children)
You seem to miss the entire point.
ARM is proprietary. Like Windows.
You have to license it.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday January 15 2021, @03:19PM (1 child)
That only matters if you have a billion-dollar fab in your basement and can make your own silicon. For everyone else, you go out and buy ARM CPUs by the truckload from any vendor you want, no licensing involved. And they're cheaper, faster, and more capable than SiFive's silicon.
As far as 99.99999% of the world's population is concerned, the choice is: ARM = cheap, universally available, RISC-V = expensive, single vendor (if you want one you can run Linux on). This is why the entire planet runs ARM and not RISC-V. It'd be nice if there was more RISC-V, but it's not providing anything that the market cares about.
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Friday January 15 2021, @09:43PM
ARM might be cheap, but it is gone when NVIDIA feels like it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @03:01PM
We hoped RISC-V would mean fully open ISA (instruction set architecture) and implementations, and that didn't happen. But people can make open implementations to the RISC-V ISA, which still makes it a more open ISA than ARM or x86/x86_64. I don't think it will happen, but I hope high performance fully open RISC-V implementations eventually exist.