PINE64 Exhibits Off the First Star64 RISC-V Single-Board Laptop Prototypes, Targets a Launch in Weeks

PINE64 has revealed the primary photos of its upcoming Star64 RISC-V single-board pc, a quad-core 64-bit Linux-capable gadget it hopes will supply competitors to StarFive’s crowdfunded VisionFive 2.

“Simply three months after the board’s preliminary announcement immediately I get the privilege of unveiling the prototype – and I hope you’ll admit that it appears to be like mighty cool,” says PINE64’s Lukasz Erecinski within the firm’s newest group replace. “Star64 is the primary true RISC-V SBC from us (I imply, except you actually contemplate the Pinecil a SBC), however as I wrote final month it definitely isn’t the final RISC-V piece of {hardware} you’ll be seeing from us.”

The corporate confirmed off the Star64’s preliminary board design late final month, after having teased the board the month earlier than. The corporate’s newest unveiling confirms the finalized specs — together with the usage of the StarFive JH7110 system-on-chip with 4 1.5GHz 64-bit RISC-V cores, additionally discovered on board StarFive’s personal VisionFive 2 single-board pc, a follow-up to the unique VisionFive design and its JH7100 chip.

The discharge of {hardware} imagery, although, unveils extra concerning the board’s total capabilities — together with the presence of two gigabit Ethernet ports in a stacked format, a single full-size HDMI port making use of the JH7110’s Creativeness Applied sciences BXE-2-32 GPU, three USB 2.0 ports, a USB 3.0 port, and a PCI Specific slot for add-on {hardware}. As anticipated, there’s additionally a 40-pin Raspberry Pi-style general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) header to the highest fringe of the board, whereas the radio module contains help for 2 exterior antennas — one for Wi-Fi 6 and the opposite for Bluetooth 5.2.

Elsewhere on the board are connectors for a MIPI Show Serial Interface (DSI) with contact panel help, Digital camera Serial Interface (CSI), eMMC storage, and a 12V DC energy jack. “Equally to the RockPro64 and Quartz64, the 12V port on the Star64 can be utilized for powering different {hardware} straight from the board – a well-liked instance is powering one or a number of SSDs linked to a PCIe SATA adapter,” Erecinski notes.

“I am going to add that, at the very least in idea, the Star64 would make an amazing NAS due to its SoC’s low thermals and idle energy. I’m trying ahead to seeing NAS-focused Linux or BSD* OSes out there for the board.”

On the subject of software program, Erecinski has confirmed that Debian and Fedora are each being ported to the StarFive JH7110 — however that whereas the Star64 can be made out there on the market in 4GB and 8GB RAM variants “in just a few weeks time,” PINE64 will accomplish that focusing on early adopters and builders wanting to get their palms on {hardware} for their very own porting efforts and with out official working system pictures.

“Given the curiosity within the Star64 and the SoC powering [it],” Erecinski says, “I hope to see useful distributions out there for the board quickly after launch.”

Extra data is obtainable on the PINE64 web site.