Pine64 Ox64 is a RPi Pico SBC with RISC-V CPU (available Nov.22 for $6 and up) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: DC1MC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2022, 03:54:51 pm
content: Here we go:https://liliputing.com/pine64-ox64-is-a-raspberry-pi-pico-sized-single-board-pc-with-a-risc-v-processor/Get it before China's semiconductor industry is done forBSP, SDK & Co:https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Ox64#Quick_Links_to_the_Source_of_OS_Images_BuildCheers,DC1MC

author: HwAoRrDk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2022, 04:55:22 pm
content: Had not heard of this company,Boufallo Lab, before. Chinese company who seem to focus on RISC-V chips with wireless capabilities.What's also interesting with regard to Pine64 is that they also appear to be transitioning their Pinecil soldering iron to a Boufallo RISC-V microcontroller. Their product page still says it uses a GD32, but if you look on theirstore page, it says it uses a Bouffalo BL-706. Specs are 32-bit 144 MHz CPU core, 132KB RAM, 192KB ROM, and BLE and ZigBee support. Prices for the chip onLCSCare less than $2 each even for single quantity.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2022, 05:03:33 pm
content: I'll wait until you can actually buy it at that price. RPi boards were always promising a great price and were never available at that price.Those devices are really strange. They are more of a replacement for ESP32 and similar. In which case Linux seems like an overkill. But if they are cheap enough, then it is fine, I guess.I'm more interested in raw ICs in solderable packages that can run Linux. We'll have to see how well it works in practice.Boufallo Lab website induces major headache after just a few minuted of trying to navigate it. I'm not kidding, try it.They also mention "TrustZone" under security, which is an ARM trademark.

author: djsb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2022, 05:31:57 pm
content: Also, will the development tools be easy to use? The PI PICO is very easy to use with Micropython and the Arduino IDE. I wonder if this will be the same? If the RTOS is easy to use, it will be worth it as a gateway to learning about real time operating systems. Same with Linux, as long as it's accessible for beginners like me.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2022, 06:30:45 pm
content: Uh, that's cool.If only we could also get some semiconductors. Maybe we should just move to China or something.

author: MikeK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2022, 06:37:52 pm
content: I wish companies would stop bragging about things before they're actually available.

author: djsb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2023, 02:24:32 pm
content: I've just bought 2 of these (the 128MB version) on the pine 64 website (https://pine64.com/product-category/ox64/). The total comes to approx £24 including £11 postage. This video is what convinced me to give them a try.I'll report back on my experiences with these boards.

author: GromBeestje
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2023, 05:09:45 pm
content: It looks like there is progress since I looked at the ox64 a month ago. Last month it seemed there was no sd card driver in the kernel yet.With SD card support in place, I suppose it should be possible to drop in any riscv64 linux rootfs, making these boards a lot more interesting.

author: mark03
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2023, 03:13:19 am
content: I notice this chip has two cores (at least?). I wonder if it is possible to run Linux on half of the chip and bare metal on the other half, with communication between the two similar to the PRU (programmable real-time unit) on the Beagleboard. That was a really useful capability, and one that I'd like for a variety of embedded Linux gizmos.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2023, 03:40:30 am
content: Quote from: mark03 on February 12, 2023, 03:13:19 amThree.64-bit 480MHz RV64 C906 RV64IMAFCV 32k icache, 32k dcache32-bit 320MHz RV32 E907 RV32IMAFCP I think. 32k icache, 16k dcache. FPU. Proprietary packed SIMD.32-bit 150MHz RV32 E902 RV32EMC Details are short on this. Low Power. Might be intended to be dedicated to the WIFI/BT? Monitoring sleep?728 KB SRAM -- good for real-time code64 MB PSRAM -- for running Linux (or whatever you want)16 MB SPI flash (or 2 MB for $2 lower price)SD card slotQuoteAbsolutely! Kind of the whole point.

author: DC1MC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2023, 02:47:35 pm
content: Hello everybody, now that the semiconductor crisis is no more, and the Ox64 are available again, I want to hit two new (to me) birds with one cheap stone, and that is zig-bee and RISC-V.I know that there are around a number of RISC-V enthusiasts and I think this is the cheapest device with RISC-V 64bit that runs Linux (if I'm wron please correct me) and has integrated the whole trifecta: Wi-Fi, BLE and Zig-bee.So my question before spending 21USD for 2pcs and shipping to DE, dis someone manged to use the RF part, especially the zig-bee, does the BSP/SDK already offers something or is not there yet ?Any advice and suggestions from people that used these boards are most welcome.Cheers,DC1MC

author: tabemann
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2023, 09:39:28 pm
content: What I must say is that, when I get around to porting zeptoforth to RISC-V, it certainly won't support his board. The design is just far too asymmetric, not only for designing a reasonable multitasker for, and zeptoforth's multitasker is designed specifically for symmetric multitasking, but also for anything reasonable at all - just the fact that they chose three different architectures, one for each core, rules it out.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 12:11:14 am
content: Quote from: DC1MC on April 15, 2023, 02:47:35 pmIt sure is, for the moment.There have been Kendryte K210 around for about four years for similar prices that kind of in theory could run Linux on their dual 400 MHz 64 bit CPUs with FPU and MMU, but they only have 8 MB RAM which is not enough for any kind of standard Linux distro and you'd have to take a huge axe to Buildroot or similar to make it fit. Also they are old enough they implement RISC-V priv architecture 1.9.1, which is not compatible with what eventually got ratified (1.10 is), and the page table entries and other things are different. They run xv6 and FreeRTOS fine.The 64 MB RAM on the BL808 is *just* enough to boot a standard unmodified Debian or Fedora distro in console mode (via UART), run gcc or emacs etc.Buildroot or Yocto etc is a cinch.You could get one of the smaller cores to bitbang VGA on a GPIO if you really wanted to :-)I don't know how the wireless support is at present.I ordered a couple of them on Mar30, but I've been away from home since Easter (Apr7) so they're probably waiting for me already.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 12:17:32 am
content: Quote from: tabemann on April 15, 2023, 09:39:28 pmOf *course* you're not going to try to multitask one program across 2 or 3 cores. Why would you even think such a thing? Only the fastest core is 64 bit and with an MMU. The smallest core only has 16 registers and no FPU.I don't see why that would prevent you running your multitasking forth on the big Linux core. Or one of the others if you preferred.

author: PCB.Wiz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 01:57:51 am
content: Quote from: tabemann on April 15, 2023, 09:39:28 pmThat makes no sense (as above).It is common these days for a small dedicated core to support RF side, which is largely an almost-ROM blob to users.eg The latest SiLabs parts use ARM as the main core and RISC-V as the RF-handler.This chip uses a 64b main core, and the two smaller support cores are optimised for their real-time work loads, not full OS

author: tabemann
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 03:49:08 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 16, 2023, 12:17:32 amThe key thing is that in this arrangement the other cores are really only useful for running blobs. Of course, that is probably the intention here, so you'd run your WiFi/BLE/Zigbee blob on one of the 32-bit cores, as has been mentioned.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 05:04:36 am
content: I am not sure what you mean by "only run blobs". If you just mean that it's not practical to transparently move execution contexts between cores then that is true. But you could certainly do something like run Linux on the 64 bit core and run your zeptoforth system on one or both of the small 32 bit cores with serial or message passing interface between the "host" and the "microcontrollers" that lets you communicate with the realtime processors. That is, assuming all the documentation is available.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 05:16:09 am
content: Quote from: tabemann on April 16, 2023, 03:49:08 amIn normal usage a "blob" is something you don't have access to the source code for, which is not at all the case here. You can certainly generate and run your own code on any of the cores, whether ahead of time or JIT.The differences between the cores are very minor. It might take 1% or2% more code in a JIT to allow code to be generated for any of the three.

author: DC1MC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 05:22:41 am
content: Speaking of "blobs", has anybody found the zigbee blob or example in the SDK , I've only seen a Wf-Fi examplea, but that was it ?

author: tabemann
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 05:45:28 am
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on April 16, 2023, 05:04:36 amApparently the same code, as I have now been informed, provided one compiles to the lowest common denominator, can be executed on all three cores, and zeptoforth itself has no need for 64-bit or greater than 16 registers (64-bit cells would be a waste of RAM, and on ARM Cortex-M at the present it does not even use all 16 registers that are available to it). That would eliminate much of the issues I would have with this design. Note that my goal isn't to move execution contexts transparently between cores - zeptoforth on the RP2040 expressly doesnotdo this for the very reason that one would in many cases want to put all the non-time-critical functionality on one core, and all the time-critical functionality on the other, and transparently load-balancing across cores would defeat this.

author: tabemann
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 05:47:59 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on April 16, 2023, 05:16:09 amBy "blob" in this context I meant code that is an opaque binary that is included in other code which zeptoforth would not be aware of the inner workings of, i.e. just a large block of arbitrary precompiled bytes to be loaded onto one of the cores.

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 09:23:22 am
content: Interesting IC, Do we have the price info on actual chip?

author: DC1MC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2023, 10:05:21 am
content: Quote from: ali_asadzadeh on April 16, 2023, 09:23:22 amFrom their forums:https://bbs.bouffalolab.com/t/bl808-en"Temporarily not available for sale.""Do not sell for individual."the latest in this product line is a BL808D that seems to even have a rudimentary graphical block, no discussion about BL808C that are in Ox64, but maybe they're compatible.Also BL808x not showing up anymore on their product portfolioand no mention of any other zigbee capable chips.So this seem to be the current situation, but they've jumped on the Matter bandwagon.Cheers,DC1MC