FriendlyElec Releases SOM-RK3399 Development Kit for AI Applications

FriendlyElec has launched a new SoM-RK3399 Development Kit based on Rockchip’s powerful SoC and is targeted for AI and computer vision applications. Last year, the company dropped a pair of open source SBCs designed around the same chip, the NanoPi M4, along with the NanoPi Neo4, meant to take on the Raspberry Pi 3 with its less powerful Broadcom BCM2837 SoC.

On the CPU board end, the SOM-RK3399 can be run as a standalone SBC, and beyond the 64-bit hexa-core RK3399 with Mali-T864 GPU, the board is outfitted with 2Gb of dual-channel DDR3 RAM, and 16Gb (32Gb/64Gb optional) of eMMC 5.1 Flash. Connectivity options include Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1 (dual mode), and a dual antenna interface.

The SOM-RK3399 is equipped with a pair of USB Type-C ports, 2X USB 2.o ports, a single USB 3.0 host interface, HDMI 2.0a, Display Port (over USB Type-C), a 4-lane LCD eDP connector, and one or two 4-Lane MIPI-DSI. There’s also PCIe X4 (compatible with PCIe 2.1/dual-mode operation), plus 14X GPIO (6X 1.8V/8X 3.3V), I2S, 2X I2C (1.8V/3.3V), 2X PWM, UART / SPI, ADC, IR-RX, SPDIF_TX, and 3X 1.8V ADC inputs.

FriendlyElec’s SOM-RK3399 DEV Kit Carrier Board boasts a wealth of features — an M.2 slot for NVMe-style SSDs, and a mini-PCIe slot for connecting 4G/LTE modules. There’s even MIPI CS12/MIPI-DSI1/MIPI CSI1 connectors, 4X USB 3.0 ports, 3X USB 2.0 4-pin connectors, HDMI Input/output ports, mic/headphone jacks, IR/accelerometer, and a micro SD card slot.

Rounding out the Carrier Board’s specs include a 10/100/1000mbps Ethernet port, 3X antenna connectors, and a host of different headers — 3X ADC, IR-IN, 2X I2C, 2X UART, 8ch-I2S, 3X GPIO, and 1X SPDIF-TX.

As with FriendlyElec’s other RK3399-based boards, the SOM-RK3399 Development Kit can take advantage of Android 7.1 with RKMC (Kodi), Android 8.1 with NN SDK (for leveraging GPU acceleration for AI applications), Lubuntu 16.04, FriendlyCore 18.04, and Armbian. FirendlyElec is currently offering the SOM-RK3399 standalone SBC Board for $75, or packaged with the Carrier Board for $120. There are a host of add-ons as well, such as various-sized touchscreen displays, MIPI camera modules, and more.