The folks at BeagleBoard.org are taking aim at the emerging AI space with a new single-board computer designed for computer vision and other “deep learning” applications.
The new BeagleY-AI is a credit card-sized computer that’s about the same size and shape as a Raspberry Pi Model B, and even features a similar 40-pin connector, which means it should work with many Raspberry Pi cases and accessories. But the BeagleY-AI stands out thanks to its Texas Instrument AM67A processor.
While the chip’s CPU isn’t all that impressive (it has a 1.4 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor), and it has just 4GB of LPDDR4 memory.
But the BeagleY-AI features two “general-purpose C7x DSP (Digital Signal Processors) with MMA (Matrix Multiply Accelerators)” for up to 4 TOPS of AI performance, as well as an unspecified GPU and “video and vision accelerators and other specialized processing capability.”
There are also “multiple ARM Cortex-R5 cores for low-power, low-latency GPIO controls,” and plenty of input and 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 displays
- 2 x MIPI-CSI camera connectors
- 1 x microSD card reader
- 1 x Gigabit Ethernet port with support for an optional PoE+ add-on card for power over Ethernet
The board also has a BeagleBoard.org BM3301 module with support for WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.
BeagleBoard.org is positioning the board as a solution for robotics, automation, computer vision, or other applications. Like all of the company’s products, the plan is also to make this an open source product – while documentation is currently listed as “coming soon,” you can expect hardware and mechanical design specifications to be released soon. Some information is already available at OpenBeagle.org though, and in terms of software, there’s already a Debian-based operating system image available for the BeagleY-AI.
The BeagleY-AI should be available soon for around $70 from retailers including Seeed Studio and Newark.
via BeagleBoard.org announcement (and forum), CNX Software, LinuxGizmos, and Hacker News