The Star64 is a new RISC-V based single board computer (SBC).
the community of Pine64 released A few days ago, through an announcement the availability of the STAR64 single-board computer, which stands out for being built with the StarFive JH7110 quad-core processor (SiFive U74 1.5GHz) based on RISC-V architecture and it is equipped with two GbE LAN ports, one HDMI port, one PCIe slot, etc.
The STAR64 Wiki page specifies that this SBC is powered by the StarFive JH7110 Quad-Core SiFive U74 64-bit (up to 1,5GHz) CPU and Imagination Technology BX-4-32 GPU with support for OpenCL 3.0, OpenGL ES 3.2, and Vulkan. 1.2.
As we mentioned at the beginning, The interesting thing about this board is the RISC-V base, For those unfamiliar with architecture, this is a free hardware Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) based on a RISC (Reduced Instruction Set) design.
Unlike most instruction sets, RISC-V's is free and open and can be used royalty-free for any purpose, allowing anyone to design, make, and sell RISC-V chips and software. While not the first open architecture ISA, it is significant in that it is designed to be useful across a wide range of devices. The instruction set also has a substantial body of supporting software, which avoids a common weakness of new instruction sets.
On the part of the STAR64 features it is mentioned that the board is equipped with:
- SoC: StarFive JH7110 with
- CPU: Quad-core 64-bit RISC-V processor (SiFive U74: RV64GC) up to 1,5 GHz
- GPU: Imagination BXE-4-32 GPU @ up to 600 MHz supports OpenCL 3.0, OpenGL ES 3.2 and Vulkan 1.2 graphics technologies and also supports GPU visualization for up to 8 virtual GPUs, compression and decompression algorithm On-Fly Frame Buffering (TFBC) and a tile Deferred rendering architecture based on 3D graphics workloads.
- 4Kp60 H.265/H.264 Video Decoder
- 1080p30 H.265 Video Encoder
- System memory: 4 GB or 8 GB LPDDR4
- Storage: MicroSD card slot, up to 128 GB eMMC flash module socket, 128 Mbit QSPI flash
Video output - HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp30 (according to Wiki)
- 4-lane MIPI DSI connector + touchpad connector
- Camera I/F: 4-lane MIPI CSI camera connector
- Audio: 3,5mm audio jack
Industrial - 2 Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports
- Integrated Fn-Link RTL8852BU WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module and 2 u.FL antenna connectors
- USB: 1 USB 3.0 port, 3 USB 2.0 Type A ports, 2 USB 2.0 interfaces via headers
Expansion - 2-pin color-coded "Pi40" GPIO header
- PCIe x4 slot with PCIe 2.0 x1 interface
- Miscellaneous: power button, fan header, 3-pin UART/debug header, DIP switch for boot configuration (flash, SD, eMMC, UART)
- Power Supply: 12 VDC at 3 A via a 4-pin header or power barrel connector; WCRP on board
- Dimensions – 133 x 80mm
RISC-V provides an open and flexible machine instruction system that allows microprocessors to be built for arbitrary applications without requiring fees or imposing conditions of use. RISC-V enables the creation of completely open SoCs and processors.
Currently, based on the RISC-V specification, various companies and communities under various free licenses (BSD, MIT, Apache 2.0) are developing dozens of variants of microprocessor cores, more than a hundred SoCs and already manufactured chips. RISC-V support has been around since the releases of Glibc 2.27, binutils 2.30, gcc 7, and Linux kernel 4.15.
Finally For those interested in being able to know more about the plaque as well as obtaining one of the available models, you can check the details, as well as the availability In the following link.
The Star64 is available in two different RAM configurations, with 4 GB and 8 GB of RAM. Star64 Model-A SBC right now on the PINE64 online store can be had for a cost of $69.99 USD for the 4 GB RAM model and $89.99 USD for the 8 GB RAM variant.