ASUS announces its first RISC-V based single-board computer

ASUS introduces its first RISC-V based single-board computer. The Tinker V, that is the name of the device, will initially have support for Linux Debian and Yokto. The SBC is aimed at industrial IoT developers.

The ASUS Tinker V is the first RISC-V based single board computer the company offers. The SBC has a Renesas RZ/Five SoC with a single AndesCore AX45MP-RISC-V core that runs at a clock speed of 1GHz. Furthermore, the Tinker V has 1GB of DDR4 memory and the single-board computer can optionally be equipped with 16GB of eMMC storage.

The Tinker V also offers two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports, two can bus headers, two RS-232 ports, a micro SD card reader and a twenty-pin GPIO header. ASUS aims the single-board computer at IoT developers, which means the SBC has no display connections. The power supply is controlled via a DC connection. ASUS will start shipping Tinker V samples in Q2, writes Phoronix. The company does not yet mention a specific release date or suggested retail price.

RISC-V is an instruction set architecture originally developed by the Computer Science Division of the University of California. This isa is open source, which means that chip designers can design chips based on this isa free of charge. Other risk architectures, such as those from Arm, are only licensed for a fee. Several companies are active around the RISC-V-isa. At the beginning of this year, Google Android provided support for RISC-V. Later this year, Intel and SiFive will release a single-board computer based on a RISC-V SoC. Intel previously invested a billion dollars in the instruction set architecture.