KiwiSDR with BeagleV-Ahead RISC-V board [and now BeagleY-AI]
Has anybody already used the KiwiSDR with BeagleV-Ahead RISC-V? The BeagleV-Ahead is a new single board computer from beagleboard.org https://www.beagleboard.org/blog/2023-07-12-beaglev-ahead-announcement
According preliminary Information it should be as powerful as a raspberry Pi 4.0.
Key features:
RISC-V CPU: Alibaba T-Head TH1520 quad-core RISC-V Xuantie C910 (RV64GCV) processor, Xuantie C906 audio DSP, low power Xuantie E902 core, 50 GFLOPS Imagination 3D GPU, and 4 TOPS NPU
Storage: 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, 16GB eMMC storage, and microSD expansion slot.
Networking: 2.4GHz/5GHz WiFi, Bluetooth 5.2, and Gigabit Ethernet.
Connectivity: microHDMI, USB3 (5Gbps) microAB (host/device), and Serial debug.
Add-on board expansion: mikroBUS shuttle (UART/I2C/SPI/ADC/PWM/GPIO), 2xCSI, DSI, and BeagleBone compatible 92-pin cape header pins.
Open-Source Design: BeagleV® Ahead follows the principles of open-source hardware, allowing users to access and modify the board’s design and firmware, promoting collaboration and innovation within the RISC-V community.
Linux-Compatible: BeagleV® Ahead comes with Yocto installed out of the box with Ubuntu & Fedora working prototypes available, providing users with a familiar and robust development environment.
Best Regards,
Bela / HB9HEY
Comments
I looked at this briefly. I was surprised at how expensive it is: US$150.
Processors from China don't always have the best documentation, generally speaking. It is critical to know up front how fast the SPI interface is and know that it can work at that speed reliably. And also that the Kiwi use of the P9 header pins can be supported with no issues (e.g. GPIO/SPI on the necessary pins is available).
The BeagleV forum also hinted that there might be more boards in the future using RISC-V.
So considering how busy I am with higher priority stuff I'm inclined to wait a while and let this board be debugged by others. I went through a lot of trouble with the BBAI (and AI-64 to a lesser extent) that I am not keen to repeat.
Tanks for the fast response. I tried to find technical documentation required for porting on the beagleboard website, but I couldn't find anything useful. I hope it will be available later.
I found some documentation here: https://docs.beagleboard.org/latest/boards/beaglev/ahead/index.html
But what's also needed is the processor chip manual. That will have the SPI interface specs. Although I suppose you could just buy one and try/measure it.
The software documentation is missing, e.g., cape compatibility https://docs.beagleboard.org/latest/boards/beaglev/ahead/05-demos.html
I already have one BeagleV-Ahead, the two operating systems currently available, Ubuntu and Yocto linux are in a premature state.
It is worth following the BeagleV forum where you can see all the problems encountered by other people: https://forum.beagleboard.org/c/beaglev/15
It's a good way to judge the state of the platform.
And.... Another one: https://www.beagleboard.org/blog/2023-11-02-beaglev-fire-announcement
This looks promising at first glance: RISC-V and Kiwi-sized FPGA on the SoC. But kinda falls apart on closer inspection: e.g. RISC-V cores aren't that fast, FPGA doesn't have enough memory blocks for the current Kiwi Verilog design, US $150, new FPGA tools required with unknown subscription cost.
Very happy to see the Syzygy connector though. That's where you'd interface your SDR front end. Not the stupid Beagle headers.
But still, something to think about.
And.... Another one: https://www.beagleboard.org/boards/beagley-ai
RPi form factor. 4-core ARM A53 1.4 GHz, WiFi, USB-C.
US $70