XuanTie C906: RISC-V-based chip debuts on a board for $ 12.5

The fabless T-Head, a subsidiary of the Chinese giant Alibaba Group, and Allwinner, have produced a single-core processor called XuanTie C906, based on RISC-V, with an integrated MMU, and that will be used in a Sipeed SBC board that will only cost $ 12.5.

Back in July 2019, Alibaba Group surprised with a RISC-V-based SoC design that was the most powerful to date. It was the XuanTie 910 with 16 cores at 2.5Ghz. Now, with this collaboration with Allwinner, it has produced another fruit, the Xuan Tie C906 at 1Ghz and that supports RV64GCV. Enough to be able to run Debian GNU / Linux without problems. Although, like other designs, it lacks a 3D GPU.

All in a computer module format built by Allwinner and that siped used for your badge. An SBC that if you are interested will reach the market in about two or three months. According to the partners involved, no less than 50 million units will be shipped. It will be aimed at consumer electronics, for industrial control, and for the smart home.

For more details, T-Head has posted some technical characteristics chip:

• XuanTie C906 SoC:
  • ISA RISC-V (RV64GCV)
  • 22nm fabrication node
  • 5-stage pipeline
  • 64KB of L1 for instructions and data.
  • Interrupt controller
  • 4.0-bit AXI 128 bus
  • 1Ghz clock frequency
  • Single core
  • 2.4 / Mhz DMIPS (O2) and 3.8 / Mhz performance in CoreMark (o3). If compared to the 7.1 / Mhz of CoreMark achieved by XuanTie 910 and the 5.1 / Mhz of SiFive U74 IP (from the motherboard HiFive Unmatched), it's not bad at all.
• More SBC Specifications (based on the limited information available at the moment):
  • CNXSoft posted a render of the SBC and you can see that it offers 64MB to 256MB DDR in PoP module.
  • There could be other versions with different costs.
  • I / O with HDMI, RGB, DVP, and MIPI ports.
  • MicroSD card slot
  • USB host and OTC
  • GMAC enabled for GbE port.
  • There would be optional WiFi / Bluetooth version.
• Operating System:
  • Based on Debian GNU / Linux, a Chinese distro called TinaOS.

Now, in addition to the SBC boards ARM-based cheap, you can also count on these other RISC-Vs. And I'm sure more will arrive soon ...