Sipeed Launches Several MAIX RISC-V 64 Development Boards for Edge Computing

According to Sipeed, the MAIX series of development boards are the first RV64 AI platforms for edge computing, which are designed for low-power AI applications, including facial recognition, object recognition, audio processing, and a host of others.

Sipeed offers a trio of boards under the MAIX header, the low-cost entry board MAIX Bit, the MAIX M1 Dan Dock (dock suit), and the full-featured MAIX GO Suit — all built around the same Kendryte K210 64-bit RISC-V SoC with 8Mb of SRAM, and onboard KPU (Neural Network Processor).

The MAIX Bit is the smallest of the series, and beyond the SoC, the board packs an APU with support for 8X mics (up to 192KHz sample rate), and an FPIOA (Field Programmable I/O Array) capable of mapping functions to the board’s 48-GPIOs. It is also equipped with a micro SD slot (8Mb SPI Flash), MCU LED FPC display connector, DVP FPC camera connector, and 1X USB Type-C port for power and programming.

The MAIX M1 Dan Dock (dock suit) places the Kendryte K210 64-bit RISC-V processor on a 72-pin development board that’s outfitted with an FPC24P socket for an LCD display (comes with a 2.4-inch LCD), and an FPC2P socket for an OV2640 camera (comes with the camera). It also packs a micro SD slot for additional storage, onboard high-speed DAC, USB Type-C port, and a power amplifier IC for external speakers.

Sipeed’s MAIX GO Suit is the flagship of the group, and maintains the Kendryte K210 processor, while adding a micro SD slot for extra expansion, an M12 lens DVP camera, I2S microphone array/speaker connector, USB Type-C port, all pins out via through holes, onboard STM32F103C8 MCU-based JTAG/UART for debugging, and a lithium management clip. It comes with an optional 2.8-inch LCD display as well.

Sipeed even provides a series of add-ons to accompany each board — including microphone modules, display modules, and microphone array. On the software side, the MAIX series supports the original SDK, FreeRTOS SDK base on C/C++, and MaixPy. It also has love for tiny-yolo mobilenet-v1, and TensorFlow Lite.

Sipeed is currently crowdfunding their MAIX 64-bit RISC-V boards on Indiegogo with pledges starting at $5 (and up) for the MAIX Bit, $15 (and up) for the MAIX DAN Dock (dock suit), $22 (and up) for the MAIX GO Suit, and $7 to $12 for the add-on modules.