The folks at BeagleBoard.org are setting their sights on new areas of AI with a new single-board computer designed for computer vision and other “deep learning” applications.
new Beagle Y-AI is a credit card-sized computer about the same size and shape as the Raspberry Pi Model B, and also has a similar 40-pin connector, so it should work with many Raspberry Pi cases and accessories. But BeagleY-AI stands out thanks to its Texas Instrument AM67A processor.
The chip’s CPU isn’t all that great (it has a 1.4 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor), but it has just 4 GB of LPDDR4 memory.
However, BeagleY-AI uses two “general-purpose C7x DSPs (digital signal processors) with MMAs (matrix multiplication accelerators)” for up to 4 TOPS of AI performance, as well as unspecified GPUs and “video and vision accelerators and and other specialized processors. processing power. ”
It also has “multiple ARM Cortex-R5 cores for low-power, low-latency GPIO control” and rich input/output features, including:
- 1 x 16-pin PCIe Gen 3 single lane FPC connector
- 1 x 40 pin GPIO expansion header
- 4 x USB 3.0 ports (5 Gbps)
- 1 x USB 2.0 Type-C port (480 Mbps data and 5V power input)
- 1 x Micro HDMI port
- 1 x MIPI-DSI display connector
- 1 x OLDI (LVDS) connector for touchscreen display
- 2 x MIPI-CSI camera connector
- 1 x microSD card reader
- 1 Gigabit Ethernet port supporting optional PoE+ add-on card for Power over Ethernet
The board also features a BeagleBoard.org BM3301 module that supports WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.
BeagleBoard.org positions this board as a solution for robotics, automation, computer vision, or other applications. Like all of the company’s products, it plans to be an open source product. The document is currently listed as “coming soon,” but hardware and mechanical design specifications are expected to be released soon. However, some information is already available on his OpenBeagle.org, and as for the software, a Debian-based operating system image already exists that can be used with BeagleY-AI.
BeagleY-AI will be available soon from retailers like Seeed Studio and Newark for around $70.
BeagleBoard.org announcements (and forums), CNX Software, LinuxGizmos, via Hacker News
