Radxa CM3S: Single-board computer with numerous IO options can be easily integrated

Radxa is offering a new single-board computer, the CM3S, which is a Compute Module, i.e. a single-board computer in the form of a flat circuit board and not in the classic form. Such a board can be integrated particularly well into compact projects, but the connections are not available in their usual form. A carrier board is therefore a necessary addition: prefabricated carrier boards are available for this purpose, which should allow creators to create their own customized circuit board.

The Radxa CM3S is based on the Rockchip RK3566, which has four Cortex A55 computing cores with a clock frequency of 1.8 GHz. An ARM Mali G32-2EE GPU is also on board, as is an NPU with an INT8 performance of 1 TOPs, which can be used to accelerate TensorFlow, for example.

The board comes in various RAM configurations, such as LPDDR4 RAM of 1, 2, 4 or 8 GB. Depending on the model selected, the eMMC storage measures 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 GB, although the model is also available without eMMC storage. WiFi in the 2.4 GHz band and Bluetooth 5.0 are supported, and the single-board computer has a single USB 2.0 connection. A PCIe 2.0 connection with one lane and a speed of 5 GBit/s can also be utilized, although this connection has to be shared with any SATA 3.0 connection in use.

HDMI is available for image display and MIPI DSI is also supported. Cameras can be connected via MIPI CSI. Audio devices can be used via I2S and PDM, and arrays consisting of several individual microphones are also supported. The 67.6 x 30 millimeter board can also connect external sensors and actuators, usually with a corresponding carrier board, and up to 60 GPIO connections are supported. Various Linux distributions can be used, including Debian and Ubuntu. 

The Radxa CM3S is already available for purchase here.