Hong Kong-based single-board computer maker Pine64 is reportedly about to take on Raspberry Pi with its upcoming Ox64, according to CNX Software.
The Ox64 will be built on RISC-V architecture to directly challenge the Raspberry Pi Pico W. While Pine64 has not yet made an official announcement, a wiki post does give us a fairly detailed hint at what to expect.
Its CPU features two Alibaba T-head cores, one 62-bit and the other 32-bit, and the machine has 64MB of DRAM (compared with the Pico W’s 264Kb). It also uses a Bouffalo Lab AI engine for video and audio detection and recognition.
Pine64 Ox64 specs
In terms of connectivity, like the Raspberry Pi Pico W, there’s built-in Wi-Fi. The Ox64 uses the same Wi-Fi 4 standard and only connects to 2.4GHz channels. While Wi-Fi 6 is beginning to gain serious traction in household devices, Wi-Fi 4 should be sufficient for most microcontroller users.
There’s also Bluetooth 5 with support for Bluetooth Low Energy, and for smart home aficionados, Zigbee (specifically IEEE 802.15.4).
Onboard storage is capped at 128Mb/16MB, however there’s support for SDHC/SDXC microSD cards. Further expansion comes courtesy of a USB 2.0 port, 26 GPIO pins dotted around the outside of the module with SPI, I2C and UART functionality, and a USB-C port for power.
Like the Raspberry Pi Pico W, the Ox64’s footprint measures 51x21mm. It is slightly thicker than the Pico W, though, at 19mm (compared with 3.9mm for the Pico W or 12.9mm for the Pico WH).
Little is known about the future applications of the Ox64, though it’s likely to support a Linux operating system, including many of the Raspberry Pi distros that are readily available. It’s also expected to come in at under $10/£10, much like its key rival.
TechRadar Pro has reached out to the company for further information on the Ox64 and will update this article accordingly.
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Via Tom's Hardware
