Lichee Pi 4A is a single board computer (SBC) powered by Alibaba TH1520 T-Head quad-core RISC-V 1.8GHz Xuantie C910 processor with an Imagination GPU and 4 TOPS NPU for AI that can rival the Raspberry Pi 4 in performance and features.
We previously mentioned the Lichee Pi 4A (LPi4A) in our article on the Sipeed LM4A RISC-V System-on-Module, but at the time we only had a few benchmarks for the board and no pictures and specs on the SBC. Sispeed has now released more detailed photos and specs and is taking “pre-orders”. So let’s take a look.
Lichee Pi 4A specs compared to Raspberry Pi 4 specs.
| Litchi Pi 4A | Raspberry Pi 4B | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | T-head TH1520, 12nm, 4x RISC-V C910 @ 1.8GHz | Broadcom BCM2711B0, 28nm, 4x ARM Cortex-A72 @ 1.5GHz |
| Memory | 4, 8, 16 GB 64-bit LPDDR4X-3733 | 1, 2, 4, 8 GB 32-bit LPDDR4-2400 |
| Storage room | MicroSDOU card 16, 32, 64 or 128 GB eMMC flash |
MicroSD card |
| GPUs | GPU imagination OpenGL ES3.0/3.1/3.2 OpenCL 1.1/1.2/2.0 Vulcan 1.1/1.2 50.7GFLOPS, fill 3168M pixels/s |
Broadcom VideoCore VI OpenGL ES3.1 Vulcan 1.0/1.2 32 GFLOPS |
| NPU | 4 TOPS @ INT8 (1GHz) Supports Tensorflow, ONNX, Caffe |
N / A |
| Pin up | 1x HDMI 2.0 up to 4Kp60 4-lane MIPI DSI up to 4Kp50 |
2x HDMI 2.0 up to 4Kp60 2-way MIPI DSI 3.5mm AV port |
| Camera | 1x 4-lane MIPI CSI 1x 2-way MIPI CSI |
2-way MIPI CSI |
| Video | H.265 and H.264 @ 4Kp75 decoding H.265 and H.264 @ 4Kp40 encoding |
H265 4Kp60fps decoding H264 1080p60 decoding H264 1080p30 encoding |
| audio | headphone jack Stereo speaker Microphone PDM |
headphone jack |
| Network | 2x Gigabit Ethernet Wi-Fi 4 or 6 + Bluetooth 5.0 |
1x Gigabit Ethernet WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 |
| USB | 4x USB 3.0 Type-A 1x USB 2.0 Type-C |
2x USB 3.0 Type-A 2x USB 2.0 Type-A |
| I/O header | 20-pin GPIO header | 40-pin GPIO header |
| Power | 5V via DC 5.5mm jack or USB Type-C External PoE |
5V via USB Type-C up to 3A 5V via GPIO header up to 3A Power over Ethernet via PoE HAT |
The TH1520 was advertised up to 2.5 GHz, but now seems to be down to 1.8 GHz. Software support will include Debian, OpenWrt, and Android in Q1 2023, with more operating systems expected to be supported over time. Here again are some benchmarks that were shared in the initial announcement about the LM4A module.
Whether the Lichee Pi 4A or the Raspberry Pi 4A is faster will depend on a given application since the platforms are close in the imperfect Dhrystone and CoreMarks benchmarks. RISC-V performance is also likely to improve as the software ecosystem matures. The Imagination GPU should be faster than the VideoCore VI based on the GFLOPS numbers provided in the specs, but we still don’t know which exact GPU will be used.
The company had already introduced a 7-module cluster board based on LM4A at the time of the first announcement, but it will also release the Lichee Router 4A based on the Lichee Pi 4A SBC, a 6-inch Lichee Phone 4A and a 10.1-inch Lichee Pad 4A all equipped with the LM4A module.
There is no official price on the product pagebut you can pre-order any of the items mentioned in this article by purchasing one or more $10 coupons that will offer a $20 discount once the products launch in Q1 2023. We are receiving pricing guidelines on TwitterAs Sipeed says, the 8GB RAM Lichee Pi 4A will cost around $99 and the 16GB RAM model for around $140.
Thanks to Jim and Mark for the tip.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 on a part-time basis, before stepping down as director of software engineering and starting writing daily news and reviews full-time later in 2011.
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