[HN Gopher] Milk-V Mars: RISC-V credit card size SBC
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Milk-V Mars: RISC-V credit card size SBC
Author : vmoore
Score : 67 points
Date : 2023-06-20 17:53 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (milkv.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (milkv.io)
| PlutoIsAPlanet wrote:
| How does it boot?
|
| Or is RISC-V going to follow the same problems as the ARM SBC
| system where each board has an obscure and unique boot process
| meaning images need to be carefully pre-built with who knows what
| installed for each board.
| jchw wrote:
| I don't know about interrupts/device tree/etc. but at least for
| the boot process itself, UEFI/EDK2 was ported to RISC-V. (I
| actually learned this because I was looking up information
| about the Windows PE format and was surprised to see
| relocations support for RISC-V; they needed to add support for
| it to the PE specification since PE is the native binary format
| of UEFI!)
| camel-cdr wrote:
| I'm not certain, but I think that's what opensbi is for:
| https://github.com/riscv-software-src/opensbi
| imtringued wrote:
| All SBCs are useless to me...
|
| How am I supposed to encode vp8 in real time with them?
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| All desktop computers are useless to me...
|
| How am I supposed to fit one in my pocket?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Not every machine is suited to every usecase. It might not be
| useful to you for the one specific use you've picked, but it's
| still useful to a lot of people.
| synergy20 wrote:
| there are so many SBCs these days.
|
| if you use them for hobby projects, many of them are fine.
|
| if you ever want to convert your project to something commercial,
| I would still consider raspberry pi and beaglebone instead based
| on software maturity and community support and their ecosystem at
| large.
|
| I really like NXP's i.MX6/8/9 chips, I wish there are some i.MX
| SBCs as popular as RPi and Beagles, for both hobby and commercial
| applications.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| >if you ever want to convert your project to something
| commercial
|
| Surely at that point you would just treat the SBC as a
| reference design and fab your own boards?
| parl_match wrote:
| A lot of commercial projects based on SBCs are relatively
| niche. It's very common to see things like lighting
| controllers, hobbyist stuff, etc, that's in the run size of
| 500 at the very most, basically be a raspberry pi with a
| custom hat in a custom plastic case. That can sustain a
| medium sized business.
|
| Designing and fabbing your own boards doesn't always make
| sense until you're on a version 2, or 3.
| synergy20 wrote:
| use CM4 modules with your own carrier board makes sense
| when you're building 500+.
|
| I read somewhere if you're building more than 10,000
| devices, it's better to design the whole PCB board on your
| own. Before that volume, using SOM modules for time to
| market could be more reasonable.
| selectronics wrote:
| >if you ever want to convert your project to something
| commercial, I would still consider raspberry pi and beaglebone
| instead based on software maturity and community support and
| their ecosystem at large.
|
| Seconding this for the Beaglebone Black (including the
| Industrial variant). FreeBSD support and onboard Ethernet set
| it apart from some alternatives.
| freedomben wrote:
| I would tend to agree, but the supply limitations of the Pis
| has made me re-think that. I've heard with commercial
| agreements you can sometimes get Pis easier, but for launching
| a new product I'd be terrified that my growth would be
| hampered/limited by availability of the Pi
| hhh wrote:
| I have had zero problems getting pis for the past 3 years,
| but we generally pre-buy supply in bulk (500+)
| dismalpedigree wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what is the channel for making a purchase
| like this? I am in that ballpark in terms of supply for
| CM4s.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > if you ever want to convert your project to something
| commercial, I would still consider raspberry pi and beaglebone
|
| Last time I checked, Broadcom forced you to integrate their
| compute modules into your product because there was no way they
| would sell their CPUs alone, no matter how many of them one
| would be willing to buy. That is not normal in the industrial
| world. As an example, the Allwinner H3 used in a lot of boards
| is $5 each for 1000+ pieces at Alibaba, or $10 at Olimex in the
| EU in single quantity. It's also well documented.
| https://linux-sunxi.org/H3
|
| Things may be different with the RP2040, which is a very
| interesting part, but that chip has nothing in common, except
| the name, with the ones running the bigger Linux capable
| Raspberries.
| synergy20 wrote:
| I will just use SOM modules from RPi for products, carrier
| board is relatively easy to design
| xhrpost wrote:
| I feel like there are ton of SBC designs out there. Many are
| still in Kickstarter/Launch phase. Others are sold-out. And the
| few that aren't sold out are selling for much higher than their
| reference price.
| leonheld wrote:
| > I wish there are some i.MX SBC
|
| You can buy a Toradex, Variscite or PHYTEC module and pop a
| binary distro like Debian in there very easily.
|
| Disclosure: I work for one of the companies above.
| synergy20 wrote:
| I wish those SOM vendors can produce smaller and cheaper
| carrier boards with their popular SOM installed, basically
| becomes a SBC with SOM, so I can start with them before
| buying more SOMs down the road.
|
| RPi did the right way in my opinion: its (cheap) SBC format
| gains attention widely, then it started to sell its own SOM
| in large volumes.
| [deleted]
| IshKebab wrote:
| Thickest credit card I've ever seen!
| sschueller wrote:
| Yes, I am quite disappointed because I thought from the
| headline that it would actually fit in my wallet.
| mandelken wrote:
| I wonder what graphics chip this is using?
| gh02t wrote:
| Looks to be Imagination BXE-4-32 GPU, courtesy of
| https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/08/29/starfive-jh7110-risc...
| .
| meepmorp wrote:
| Apparently not recently discussed here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377439
| glutamate wrote:
| Different board, same company
| gnabgib wrote:
| This MILK-V reposts are getting terious. Three new RISC-V
| boards, competing with forms of mATX (Pioneer), Pi Zero
| (Duo), and Pi (Mars). Pioneer[0][1][2][5], Duo [2][3][7][8],
| Mars [4][5][6] (and now this)
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36009946 (73pts, 14
| comments) [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36064138
| (2pts, 0 comments) [2]:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36064183 (18pts, 2
| comments) [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36080912
| (5pts, 6 comments) [4]:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36115253 (2pts, 1
| comment) [5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36144188
| (27pts, 20 comments) [6]:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36148815 (3pts, 0
| comments) [7]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36188793
| (69 points, 26 comments) [8]:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377439 (197 points,
| 107 comments)
| BasedAnon wrote:
| How does this thing stack up against the Pine64's Ox64?
| rjsw wrote:
| The linked system uses the same SoC as the Pine64 STAR64, so it
| will be a lot faster than a Pine64 Ox64, the Milk-V Duo is
| similar to the Ox64.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| has video, usb & ethernet. missing price & benchmarks, though
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| Is this available in India? I'd buy but won't risk the customs
| dance.
| appleflaxen wrote:
| What happens with customs if you buy something like this?
| notorandit wrote:
| Coming soon...
| f001 wrote:
| I love the PoE support! I wish more SBCs and even nuc/nuc-clones
| would start adding support! It's nice being able to consolidate
| power supplies/deploying to places where only ethernet is present
| (which anyone can deploy legally unlike AC wires)
| adriancr wrote:
| although not ideal, external gigabit POE splitters are ~10
| euros
| accrual wrote:
| This is super cool! It has a little bit of everything I'd want in
| a small project board - PoE, mini PCIe, RPi case compatibility,
| lots of RAM.
|
| OpenBSD has some support for the StarFive chip, so perhaps this
| device could run OpenBSD in the future:
|
| https://www.openbsd.org/riscv64.html
| sylware wrote:
| Overkill for my keyboard controller, but finally I get 40 GPIOs
| with native RV64.
| m00x wrote:
| You'd get better latency out of an ESP32-S2 or even a CH569
| MCU.
| krilovsky wrote:
| This is definitely not the first RISC-V SBC at this size (the
| Sipeed Nezha SBC[0] launched over two years ago based on the
| Allwinner D1, and the ARIES FIVEBerry[1] launched almost a month
| ago based on the Renesas RZ/Five). It's not even the first SBC
| with that specific SoC, as StarFive (the company behind the
| JH7110 SoC used by this SBC) launched the VisionFive 2 SBC[2] on
| KickStarter back in September, and Pine64 had the STAR64 since
| last year as well.
|
| As for PoE support, the presence of the 4-pin header on the board
| suggests that it's optional, and requires the help of something
| like the PoE+ HAT[3], same as on the VisionFive 2 and the RPi.
|
| [0] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nezha-your-first-64bit-
| ri...
|
| [1] https://www.aries-embedded.com/evaluation-kit/cpu/rzfive-
| ren...
|
| [2] https://www.starfivetech.com/en/site/boards
|
| [3] https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/poe-plus-hat/
| st3fan wrote:
| Is it available? No.
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(page generated 2023-06-20 23:00 UTC)