Raspberry Pi Alternatives
February 29, 2012 our world has changed a bit for the better. The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the start of sales of small single-board computers under the brand Raspberry Pi. At the beginning of sales, it was not easy to buy a device, but gradually the market became saturated and from July 2012 you could finally just go to the store and buy or order the first Malinka via the Internet, the Raspberry Pi Model B is a single-board Linux computer with a 700 MHz processor, 0.5 GB RAM, USB, Ethernet and 26-pin GPIO, allowing you to connect external cards, input-output devices and actuators. The device, built on a relatively inexpensive four-layer board, with a low cost, with a price for the final consumer of $ 35, made so well that the alpha version of Raspberry Pi Model B won the “Hardware Design” nomination at ARM TechCon 2011.
The computer developed, the family grew. While the main branch received more powerful processors and modern stuffing (so, in the model 3B + there is a quad-core 64-bit processor with a clock frequency of 1.4 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, four USB ports, Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2) In addition, the Raspberry Pi Zero family was developed with a reduced to 65 Ă— 30 mm board and a price of only $ 5 ($ 10 for the Raspberry Pi Zero W version with Wi-Fi 802.11n).
Recently, the Raspberry Pi Foundation introduced a new version of its mini computer - the Raspberry Pi 4. The Quartet announced a quad-core 64-bit Cortex-A72 processor with a clock speed of 1.5 GHz as part of the SoC Broadcom BCM2711, two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0, Bluetooth 5.0, support two monitors. GPU VideoCore VI is capable of handling 4K video stream with 60 fps. Now you can finally choose the amount of RAM - 1, 2 or 4 GB LPDDR4 SDRAM.
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Sold by millions of copies, the Raspberry Pi became the ancestor of a whole new market for portable single-board computers and an example for a number of alternative developments. Let's take a look, using Raspberry Pi 3B + as a starting point (Raspberry Pi 4 is not yet available for purchase, I hope the Quartet will be available soon) that competitors can offer us, the evolution of which threw them into sometimes quite unusual ecological niches, and how much we, as buyers, will have to pay for these surveys. In descriptions of competing computers, we, if possible, will try to mention all the available hardware advantages of the participants; this makes the description somewhat dryish, but then you can definitely choose a computational core for your future project.
It differs from the Raspberry Pi 3 for the better by the presence of 2 GB of RAM and the Mali-450 GPU video accelerator built into the SoC AllWinner H5, which allows you to play 2K video. Among the interesting features worth noting the presence of an IR receiver; The board can be controlled from the remote control or from some models of cellular phones with integrated IR LED, for example, Redmi Note 7. Of non-standard equipment, there is also a built-in microphone and CSI video interface that supports video stream up to 1080p at 30 fps.
The 98 Ă— 60 mm board contains space for a memory card slot (up to 32 GB), Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n, Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB (three USB 2.0 Host and one USB 2.0 OTG) and forty-contact GPIO-comb. There is even a separately derived UART with TTL levels, so that you can watch the details of the Linux boot in the terminal. From the audio equipment, besides the microphone mentioned above, there is also a line-out and audio output to HDMI. The video accelerator supports OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1. Among the supported operating systems are Ubuntu, Debian and Android 5.1.
In general, I must say that Orange Pi remains one of the most successful competitors of Raspberry. Orange also became the progenitor of a whole line of multi-type single-board computers, including the Orange Pi 4G-IOT (with GSM / GPS / LTE module on board) and the Orange Pi Zero (can optionally be powered from PoE, so you can drop it into the far Ethernet segment network, even without bringing a separate power).
UPD : about the cons specifically Orange Pi 2G-IOT is a separate article id_potassium_chloride . Be alert!
Together with Orange, Banana, developed by the Chinese company SinoVoip, is another “fruit” branch that has grown well after the appearance of Raspberry. Following in the wake of the Raspberry, Banana consistently produced the models Banana Pi M1, M1 Plus, M2 Plus, M2 Ultra, M2 Zero, M3.
The current flagship of the Banana Pi M3 is based on the eight-core Allwinner A83T SoC (ARM Cortex-A7 processors, PowerVR SGX544MP1 graphics processor), which can be accelerated to 1.8 GHz and running in an environment of 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of flash memory. In addition to Gigabit Ethernet, two USB, Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n, Bluetooth 4.0 and HDMI, SATA is present on the board. Just like the Orange Pi Prime, the M3 has an IR receiver, CSI video interface, debug UART, microphone, line-out, and HDMI audio output. Unlike Orange, Banana has a MIPI DSI display interface, combined with I2C for the touch screen. Naturally, there is a forty-contact GPIO-comb.
The single-board computer Rock64 is already equipped with 4 GB of RAM, serving 64-bit ARM Cortex A53, the video subsystem is able to cope with the flow of 4K at a frequency of 60 fps. The device is powered by POE. The graphics subsystem ARM Mali 450MP2 corresponds to OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenVG1.1. On Rock64, the Debian OS, Cent OS, Fedora and Android 8 are ported, in general, it should be noted that the developers and enthusiasts of this computer have ported a large number of OS based on Linux to it. Rock64 has a rich, detailed documentation and a lively, active community, so, given the good hardware specifications and sparing prices, this single-player is a good contender for replacing the Raspberry Pi 3 in projects with increased hardware requirements.
The Rock64 developers generously poured 64 GPIO pins, bringing even Ethernet signals to them, so if you plan on doing control of the extensive external peripherals on a single-board device, take a closer look at this computer more closely. In addition, there is USB3.0.
Rock64 has an older brother, the ROCKPro64 , built on the eight-core 64-bit Rockchip RK3399 (four ARM Cortex A53 plus two ARM Cortex A72), with 4 GB of LPDDR4 and two USB 3.0. PINE64, a manufacturer of Rock64 and ROCKPro64, is generally a worthy example of a DIY-built business. The guys are on the road, beaten by pioneers like Sparkfun or Adafruit, who have shown that they can supply their developments with a complete set of design documentation and still be a commercially profitable enterprise.
Tinker is built on a SoC Rockchip RK3288 base with a quad ARM Cortex-A17 processor and runs on Tianks based on Debian, you can install Android. The Mali-T760 MP4 video processor supports OpenGL ES 3.1, OpenCL 1.1, Renderscript and Direct3D 11.1.
Comb GPIO received color-coded, so that when connecting external devices will be a little more error. A small passive radiator, glued to the processor case, which is purchased separately from competing boards, is already carefully included in the standard package.
The Asus Tinker board S had a younger brother, the Asus Tinker board without onboard flash memory, but it didn’t have much success and has now almost disappeared from sale.
Renegade, or the Renegade Libre Computer ROC-Rk3328-CC, is structurally designed to be as similar to the Raspberry as possible; for example, you can place the ROC-Rk3328-CC directly in the case purchased for Malinki.
SoC RK-3328 is built on the basis of a quadruple 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 processor with an operating frequency of up to 1.5 GHz. SoC is the same as in Rock64, so here you also have the same Mali 450MP2 GPU with an operating frequency of 500 MHz. When ordering, you have the opportunity to vary the amount of RAM, you can choose 1 GB DDR4 (then the computer will cost you $ 35), 2 GB for $ 50 or 4 GB for $ 80. From operating systems currently available are Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 9, OpenMediaVault 4, Station OS and Android 7.1.
Like the Asus Tinker board (without the S index), the Renegade does not have onboard flash memory, you will have to use a microSD card slot or an eMMC interface.
Libre Computer is one of the manufacturers who showed good growth in a new business niche created with the advent of Raspberry Pi. In addition to Renegade, in the summer of 2018, Libre Computer began production of the Renegade Elite single-board computer Libre Computer ROC-Rk3328-CC Renegade Elite based on the SoC Rockchip RK3399 with a six-core processor (two ARM Cortex-A53 cores and four ARM Cortex-A53) and GPU ARM Mali- The T860 MP4 has two USB 3.0 Type-C ports, a 60 pin PCIe slot, 128 MB of onboard memory, and a 60 pin GPIO comb. Renegade Elite has optional PoE support and can run on Linux 4.19 or Android 8.
Given its relatively low price, the Odroid H2, built on the base of the 64-bit 4-core Intel Celeron Gemini Lake J4105, may well claim a piece of the market niche occupied by single-board computers based on ARM processors. If you like the x86-compatible solutions, perhaps this small motherboard with a size of 110 Ă— 110 mm, with passive cooling, Intel UHD Graphics 600 GPU, PCI-E gen2 bus and dual SATA 6 GB / s you will like.
According to the Intel specification, the maximum RAM size is 8 GB (SO-DIMM DDR4 2400 MHz, not included, purchased separately, as well as for any “PC”), but the manufacturer Odroid H2 claims that it stuck two strips of 16 GB each (total 32 GB) and everything worked fine. Of course, the board supports Windows 10 / Linux x64, DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.3, OGL ES 3.0, OpenCL 2.0.
As an alternative to the Odroid H2, you can consider the UDOO X86 (there are options on the Intel Pentium N3710 2.56 GHz and Intel Celeron N3160 2.24 GHz).
You do not need to be Dr. Xavier from the People X franchise to hear right now the mental cries of some readers: “What kind of ...! Where is “Malinka” and where is “Arduinka”? It's all the same how to compare a cheetah with an E. coli! ”. Yes, yes, that's right, Raspberry Pi and Arduino are located in significantly different market niches, but if you look at the summary tables at the end of the article, you will find one point that makes these two very diverse developments together. And this item is the price. Yes, for the Arduino Mega 2560 Rev3 they ask for $ 31, and for the Arduino Uno WiFi Rev2 (as the most smartest readers guessed, the board is equipped with Wi-Fi) you will have to pay $ 42.
Let's take a look at the hardware stuffing of this “single-board computer” (or is it still necessary to omit the quotes?). 8-bit microcontroller ATmega2560 with a clock frequency of 16 MHz, 256 KB of flash memory (of which 8 KB is occupied by the bootloader), 8 KB of RAM and 4 KB of non-volatile memory. From the communication capabilities, instead of the usual single-board computers Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, in the case of the Arduino Mega 2560, we will have to mention four UARTs, one of which is connected to the built-in USB-UART converter. The converter itself, by the way, is also implemented on the AVR, ATmega8U2-MU microcontroller, but this is not critical, there are options with specialized FTDI chips. In general, the characteristics of the board (such as the permissible current of 20 mA per output or the ability to configure 15 GPIO as PWM outputs) predictably repeat the characteristics of the microcontroller on which it is built. The manufacturer itself positions the Arduino Mega as a good basis for hobby projects related to 3D printing and robotics.
In the Arduino world, there is a counterpart of the Raspberry Pi Zero microcomputer, this is the Arduino Nano board. Built on the basis of the ATmega328P microcontroller, with dimensions of 18 Ă— 45 mm, the device boasts 2 kilobytes of operational and 32 kilobytes of flash memory, 16 MHz of clock memory and 22 GPIO contacts, 6 of which can work as PWM outputs.
In general, the Arduino series is fairly simple in its hardware, so even I, being somehow in a hobby-melancholic state of mind, sat down and drew (with the help of Altium Designer) my own version of the Arduino Nano. Improved noise immunity by including a USBLC6-4SC6 USB protection assembly, modifying the USB-UART converter in accordance with the “AN-146 USB Hardware Design Guide for FTDI ICs” and minor modifications to the circuit in accordance with “AVR042: AVR Hardware Design Considerations”. Added a gamma radiation sensor on PIN-diodes ("Why? Because I can!"). To prevent the high-voltage power supply of the radiation sensor from being dragged outside, a small voltage multiplier controlled by a microcontroller was added. The description of the resulting board is here , and you can download the full project archive (with all Altium sources and libraries) here .
In general, of course, it is somewhat strange that the Arduino did not wither after the heyday of Raspberry and its clones. I think that the popularity of the Arduino is not the least reason for the “shot” of the AVR architecture developed by Atmel. Not to say that the market for 8-bit microcontrollers was empty, there was a fairly good choice between i51 and PIC, 16-bit MSP430 was available for energy-saving solutions.
But the AVR series microcontrollers, combining a successful new RISC architecture, which executes instructions for 1 clock cycle (which was undoubtedly a blow to the breathing i51, which followed instructions for 12 clock cycles) and just in time dropped in price for the built-in flash memory, was really supernova even against the backdrop of not weak old-timers. As I remember, with what pleasure I was repeatedly flashing a flash AVR microcontroller; There was no JTAG in it, and it was impossible to look at the registers directly during operation, but compared to the H1830BE51 pairing with an ultraviolet erased PROM, it was just a frightening future.
It may be the case in the Arduino IDE, which facilitates the development of software or in a friendly community of Arduino-compatible developers. In any case, supporters of Raspberry have something to think about. Maybe the entry threshold for development on modern ARM processors of the A series is too high, and therefore many developers, especially those with a hobby focus, are not ready to spend so much time on mastering all the intricacies of working with modern processors. Let's hope that there will be something like STM32CubeMX (software for STM32 microcontrollers of the ARM Cortex-M0 series ... Cortex-M4, greatly simplifying the controller's initial setting) and electronics enthusiasts are also slowly migrating to the Raspberry camp.
I will not bore the reader with a further listing of all possible alternatives to Raspberry Pi. I think you understand the main thing - there are alternatives, and variants of various hardware configurations and price categories are available for ordering: from boards with a price tag of up to $ 50 and hardware stuffing, very similar to the original Raspberry, to more expensive devices, the price of which gradually increases along with hardware capabilities.
In pursuit of the considered single-board computers in passing, in the telegraph style I will mention such developments as the Odroid-C2 ($ 59); Odroid-XU4 ($ 80, can be supplemented with the OGST gaming case Console Case for Odroid XU4 for $ 25); Pine A64-LTS ($ 32); NanoPi NEO4 ($ 45); Cubieboard4 CC-A80 with GPU PowerVR G6230 ($ 130); Nvidia Jetson Nano on a quad Tegra X1 ($ 140); BeagleBoard X15 with two Ethernet ports and a PowerVR GPU combination with 4 GB of RAM ($ 263); LattePanda Alpha on the Intel Atom X5-Z8350 processor ($ 240); Hikey 960 on the Kirin 960 eight-core with four ARM Cortex A73 cores, accelerated to 2.3 GHz and four ARM Cortex A53 with a frequency of up to 1.8 GHz ($ 268) and BBC micro: bit as a possible Arduino replacement ($ 15).
Summary table, basic parameters
Summary table, memory and interfaces
In recent years, a lot of interesting things are happening on the single-board computer market. New models are constantly appearing and disappearing in all niches, starting from Arduino, affecting Raspberry and ending with motherboards compatible with 8th generation Intel processors. For example, right now on Kickstarter there is a campaign of UP Xtreme, an Intel-compatible motherboard, and the development of the promising Galileo platform, on the contrary, has been curtailed. The developers of Renegade Elite, by the way, also raised funds for launching production through the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. So if you want to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of single-board computers, sometimes go over the sections of the “Technology” crowdfunding sites.
The computer developed, the family grew. While the main branch received more powerful processors and modern stuffing (so, in the model 3B + there is a quad-core 64-bit processor with a clock frequency of 1.4 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, four USB ports, Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2) In addition, the Raspberry Pi Zero family was developed with a reduced to 65 Ă— 30 mm board and a price of only $ 5 ($ 10 for the Raspberry Pi Zero W version with Wi-Fi 802.11n).
Recently, the Raspberry Pi Foundation introduced a new version of its mini computer - the Raspberry Pi 4. The Quartet announced a quad-core 64-bit Cortex-A72 processor with a clock speed of 1.5 GHz as part of the SoC Broadcom BCM2711, two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0, Bluetooth 5.0, support two monitors. GPU VideoCore VI is capable of handling 4K video stream with 60 fps. Now you can finally choose the amount of RAM - 1, 2 or 4 GB LPDDR4 SDRAM.
')
Sold by millions of copies, the Raspberry Pi became the ancestor of a whole new market for portable single-board computers and an example for a number of alternative developments. Let's take a look, using Raspberry Pi 3B + as a starting point (Raspberry Pi 4 is not yet available for purchase, I hope the Quartet will be available soon) that competitors can offer us, the evolution of which threw them into sometimes quite unusual ecological niches, and how much we, as buyers, will have to pay for these surveys. In descriptions of competing computers, we, if possible, will try to mention all the available hardware advantages of the participants; this makes the description somewhat dryish, but then you can definitely choose a computational core for your future project.
Orange pi prime
It differs from the Raspberry Pi 3 for the better by the presence of 2 GB of RAM and the Mali-450 GPU video accelerator built into the SoC AllWinner H5, which allows you to play 2K video. Among the interesting features worth noting the presence of an IR receiver; The board can be controlled from the remote control or from some models of cellular phones with integrated IR LED, for example, Redmi Note 7. Of non-standard equipment, there is also a built-in microphone and CSI video interface that supports video stream up to 1080p at 30 fps.
The 98 Ă— 60 mm board contains space for a memory card slot (up to 32 GB), Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n, Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB (three USB 2.0 Host and one USB 2.0 OTG) and forty-contact GPIO-comb. There is even a separately derived UART with TTL levels, so that you can watch the details of the Linux boot in the terminal. From the audio equipment, besides the microphone mentioned above, there is also a line-out and audio output to HDMI. The video accelerator supports OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1. Among the supported operating systems are Ubuntu, Debian and Android 5.1.
In general, I must say that Orange Pi remains one of the most successful competitors of Raspberry. Orange also became the progenitor of a whole line of multi-type single-board computers, including the Orange Pi 4G-IOT (with GSM / GPS / LTE module on board) and the Orange Pi Zero (can optionally be powered from PoE, so you can drop it into the far Ethernet segment network, even without bringing a separate power).
UPD : about the cons specifically Orange Pi 2G-IOT is a separate article id_potassium_chloride . Be alert!
Banana Pi M3
Together with Orange, Banana, developed by the Chinese company SinoVoip, is another “fruit” branch that has grown well after the appearance of Raspberry. Following in the wake of the Raspberry, Banana consistently produced the models Banana Pi M1, M1 Plus, M2 Plus, M2 Ultra, M2 Zero, M3.
The current flagship of the Banana Pi M3 is based on the eight-core Allwinner A83T SoC (ARM Cortex-A7 processors, PowerVR SGX544MP1 graphics processor), which can be accelerated to 1.8 GHz and running in an environment of 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of flash memory. In addition to Gigabit Ethernet, two USB, Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n, Bluetooth 4.0 and HDMI, SATA is present on the board. Just like the Orange Pi Prime, the M3 has an IR receiver, CSI video interface, debug UART, microphone, line-out, and HDMI audio output. Unlike Orange, Banana has a MIPI DSI display interface, combined with I2C for the touch screen. Naturally, there is a forty-contact GPIO-comb.
Rock64
The single-board computer Rock64 is already equipped with 4 GB of RAM, serving 64-bit ARM Cortex A53, the video subsystem is able to cope with the flow of 4K at a frequency of 60 fps. The device is powered by POE. The graphics subsystem ARM Mali 450MP2 corresponds to OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenVG1.1. On Rock64, the Debian OS, Cent OS, Fedora and Android 8 are ported, in general, it should be noted that the developers and enthusiasts of this computer have ported a large number of OS based on Linux to it. Rock64 has a rich, detailed documentation and a lively, active community, so, given the good hardware specifications and sparing prices, this single-player is a good contender for replacing the Raspberry Pi 3 in projects with increased hardware requirements.
The Rock64 developers generously poured 64 GPIO pins, bringing even Ethernet signals to them, so if you plan on doing control of the extensive external peripherals on a single-board device, take a closer look at this computer more closely. In addition, there is USB3.0.
Rock64 has an older brother, the ROCKPro64 , built on the eight-core 64-bit Rockchip RK3399 (four ARM Cortex A53 plus two ARM Cortex A72), with 4 GB of LPDDR4 and two USB 3.0. PINE64, a manufacturer of Rock64 and ROCKPro64, is generally a worthy example of a DIY-built business. The guys are on the road, beaten by pioneers like Sparkfun or Adafruit, who have shown that they can supply their developments with a complete set of design documentation and still be a commercially profitable enterprise.
ASUS Tinker board S
Tinker is built on a SoC Rockchip RK3288 base with a quad ARM Cortex-A17 processor and runs on Tianks based on Debian, you can install Android. The Mali-T760 MP4 video processor supports OpenGL ES 3.1, OpenCL 1.1, Renderscript and Direct3D 11.1.
Comb GPIO received color-coded, so that when connecting external devices will be a little more error. A small passive radiator, glued to the processor case, which is purchased separately from competing boards, is already carefully included in the standard package.
The Asus Tinker board S had a younger brother, the Asus Tinker board without onboard flash memory, but it didn’t have much success and has now almost disappeared from sale.
Libre Computer Renegade and Renegade Elite
Renegade, or the Renegade Libre Computer ROC-Rk3328-CC, is structurally designed to be as similar to the Raspberry as possible; for example, you can place the ROC-Rk3328-CC directly in the case purchased for Malinki.
SoC RK-3328 is built on the basis of a quadruple 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 processor with an operating frequency of up to 1.5 GHz. SoC is the same as in Rock64, so here you also have the same Mali 450MP2 GPU with an operating frequency of 500 MHz. When ordering, you have the opportunity to vary the amount of RAM, you can choose 1 GB DDR4 (then the computer will cost you $ 35), 2 GB for $ 50 or 4 GB for $ 80. From operating systems currently available are Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 9, OpenMediaVault 4, Station OS and Android 7.1.
Like the Asus Tinker board (without the S index), the Renegade does not have onboard flash memory, you will have to use a microSD card slot or an eMMC interface.
Libre Computer is one of the manufacturers who showed good growth in a new business niche created with the advent of Raspberry Pi. In addition to Renegade, in the summer of 2018, Libre Computer began production of the Renegade Elite single-board computer Libre Computer ROC-Rk3328-CC Renegade Elite based on the SoC Rockchip RK3399 with a six-core processor (two ARM Cortex-A53 cores and four ARM Cortex-A53) and GPU ARM Mali- The T860 MP4 has two USB 3.0 Type-C ports, a 60 pin PCIe slot, 128 MB of onboard memory, and a 60 pin GPIO comb. Renegade Elite has optional PoE support and can run on Linux 4.19 or Android 8.
Odroid H2
Given its relatively low price, the Odroid H2, built on the base of the 64-bit 4-core Intel Celeron Gemini Lake J4105, may well claim a piece of the market niche occupied by single-board computers based on ARM processors. If you like the x86-compatible solutions, perhaps this small motherboard with a size of 110 Ă— 110 mm, with passive cooling, Intel UHD Graphics 600 GPU, PCI-E gen2 bus and dual SATA 6 GB / s you will like.
According to the Intel specification, the maximum RAM size is 8 GB (SO-DIMM DDR4 2400 MHz, not included, purchased separately, as well as for any “PC”), but the manufacturer Odroid H2 claims that it stuck two strips of 16 GB each (total 32 GB) and everything worked fine. Of course, the board supports Windows 10 / Linux x64, DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.3, OGL ES 3.0, OpenCL 2.0.
As an alternative to the Odroid H2, you can consider the UDOO X86 (there are options on the Intel Pentium N3710 2.56 GHz and Intel Celeron N3160 2.24 GHz).
Arduino Mega 2560
You do not need to be Dr. Xavier from the People X franchise to hear right now the mental cries of some readers: “What kind of ...! Where is “Malinka” and where is “Arduinka”? It's all the same how to compare a cheetah with an E. coli! ”. Yes, yes, that's right, Raspberry Pi and Arduino are located in significantly different market niches, but if you look at the summary tables at the end of the article, you will find one point that makes these two very diverse developments together. And this item is the price. Yes, for the Arduino Mega 2560 Rev3 they ask for $ 31, and for the Arduino Uno WiFi Rev2 (as the most smartest readers guessed, the board is equipped with Wi-Fi) you will have to pay $ 42.
Let's take a look at the hardware stuffing of this “single-board computer” (or is it still necessary to omit the quotes?). 8-bit microcontroller ATmega2560 with a clock frequency of 16 MHz, 256 KB of flash memory (of which 8 KB is occupied by the bootloader), 8 KB of RAM and 4 KB of non-volatile memory. From the communication capabilities, instead of the usual single-board computers Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, in the case of the Arduino Mega 2560, we will have to mention four UARTs, one of which is connected to the built-in USB-UART converter. The converter itself, by the way, is also implemented on the AVR, ATmega8U2-MU microcontroller, but this is not critical, there are options with specialized FTDI chips. In general, the characteristics of the board (such as the permissible current of 20 mA per output or the ability to configure 15 GPIO as PWM outputs) predictably repeat the characteristics of the microcontroller on which it is built. The manufacturer itself positions the Arduino Mega as a good basis for hobby projects related to 3D printing and robotics.
In the Arduino world, there is a counterpart of the Raspberry Pi Zero microcomputer, this is the Arduino Nano board. Built on the basis of the ATmega328P microcontroller, with dimensions of 18 Ă— 45 mm, the device boasts 2 kilobytes of operational and 32 kilobytes of flash memory, 16 MHz of clock memory and 22 GPIO contacts, 6 of which can work as PWM outputs.
In general, the Arduino series is fairly simple in its hardware, so even I, being somehow in a hobby-melancholic state of mind, sat down and drew (with the help of Altium Designer) my own version of the Arduino Nano. Improved noise immunity by including a USBLC6-4SC6 USB protection assembly, modifying the USB-UART converter in accordance with the “AN-146 USB Hardware Design Guide for FTDI ICs” and minor modifications to the circuit in accordance with “AVR042: AVR Hardware Design Considerations”. Added a gamma radiation sensor on PIN-diodes ("Why? Because I can!"). To prevent the high-voltage power supply of the radiation sensor from being dragged outside, a small voltage multiplier controlled by a microcontroller was added. The description of the resulting board is here , and you can download the full project archive (with all Altium sources and libraries) here .In general, of course, it is somewhat strange that the Arduino did not wither after the heyday of Raspberry and its clones. I think that the popularity of the Arduino is not the least reason for the “shot” of the AVR architecture developed by Atmel. Not to say that the market for 8-bit microcontrollers was empty, there was a fairly good choice between i51 and PIC, 16-bit MSP430 was available for energy-saving solutions.
But the AVR series microcontrollers, combining a successful new RISC architecture, which executes instructions for 1 clock cycle (which was undoubtedly a blow to the breathing i51, which followed instructions for 12 clock cycles) and just in time dropped in price for the built-in flash memory, was really supernova even against the backdrop of not weak old-timers. As I remember, with what pleasure I was repeatedly flashing a flash AVR microcontroller; There was no JTAG in it, and it was impossible to look at the registers directly during operation, but compared to the H1830BE51 pairing with an ultraviolet erased PROM, it was just a frightening future.
It may be the case in the Arduino IDE, which facilitates the development of software or in a friendly community of Arduino-compatible developers. In any case, supporters of Raspberry have something to think about. Maybe the entry threshold for development on modern ARM processors of the A series is too high, and therefore many developers, especially those with a hobby focus, are not ready to spend so much time on mastering all the intricacies of working with modern processors. Let's hope that there will be something like STM32CubeMX (software for STM32 microcontrollers of the ARM Cortex-M0 series ... Cortex-M4, greatly simplifying the controller's initial setting) and electronics enthusiasts are also slowly migrating to the Raspberry camp.
I will not bore the reader with a further listing of all possible alternatives to Raspberry Pi. I think you understand the main thing - there are alternatives, and variants of various hardware configurations and price categories are available for ordering: from boards with a price tag of up to $ 50 and hardware stuffing, very similar to the original Raspberry, to more expensive devices, the price of which gradually increases along with hardware capabilities.
In pursuit of the considered single-board computers in passing, in the telegraph style I will mention such developments as the Odroid-C2 ($ 59); Odroid-XU4 ($ 80, can be supplemented with the OGST gaming case Console Case for Odroid XU4 for $ 25); Pine A64-LTS ($ 32); NanoPi NEO4 ($ 45); Cubieboard4 CC-A80 with GPU PowerVR G6230 ($ 130); Nvidia Jetson Nano on a quad Tegra X1 ($ 140); BeagleBoard X15 with two Ethernet ports and a PowerVR GPU combination with 4 GB of RAM ($ 263); LattePanda Alpha on the Intel Atom X5-Z8350 processor ($ 240); Hikey 960 on the Kirin 960 eight-core with four ARM Cortex A73 cores, accelerated to 2.3 GHz and four ARM Cortex A53 with a frequency of up to 1.8 GHz ($ 268) and BBC micro: bit as a possible Arduino replacement ($ 15).
Summary table, basic parameters
| Model | SoC | CPU | Graphics | Kernels | Frequency | The size | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi 3B + | Broadcom BCM2837B0 | ARM Cortex A53 | Broadcom VideoCore IV | four | 1.4 GHz | 85.6 Ă— 56.5 mm | $ 35 |
| Raspberry pi zero | Broadcom BCM2835 | ARM1176JZF-S | Broadcom VideoCore IV | one | 1.0 GHz | 65 Ă— 30 mm | $ 5 |
| Raspberry Pi Zero W | Broadcom BCM2835 | ARM1176JZF-S | Broadcom VideoCore IV | one | 1.0 GHz | 65 Ă— 30 mm | $ 10 |
| Banana Pi M3 | Allwinner A83T | ARM Cortex-A7 | PowerVR 544MP1 | eight | 1.8 GHz | 92 Ă— 60 mm | $ 68 |
| Banana Pi M2 Zero | Allwinner H2 | ARM Cortex-A7 | Mali400 mp2 | four | 1.0 GHz | 60 Ă— 30 mm | $ 18 |
| Rock64 | Rockchip rk3328 | ARM Cortex A53 | Mali 450MP2 | four | 1.5 GHz | 56 Ă— 85 mm | $ 45 |
| Asus Tinker board S | Rockchip rk3288 | ARM Cortex-A17 | Mali T760 MP4 | four | 1.8 GHz | 54 Ă— 86 mm | $ 92 |
| Libre computer renegade | Rockchip RK-3328 | ARM Cortex-A53 | Mali 450MP2 | four | 1.5 GHz | 85 Ă— 56 mm | $ 80 |
| Libre Computer Renegade Elite | Rockchip rk3399 | ARM Cortex-A72 + Cortex-A53 | Mali-T860 | 6 | 2.0 GHz | 120 Ă— 72 mm | $ 100 |
| Odroid H2 | - | Intel Celeron J4105 | Intel UHD Graphics 600 | four | 2.3 GHz | 110 Ă— 110 mm | $ 111 |
| Arduino mega | - | ATmega2560 | - | one | 16 MHz | 53 Ă— 102 mm | $ 31 |
Summary table, memory and interfaces
| Model | Ram | Flash | GPIO | USB | Ethernet | Wi-Fi | Bluetooth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi 3B + | 1 GB | MicroSDHC slot | 40 | four | 1000 Mbps | 802.11 b / g / n / ac 2.4 / 5 GHz | 4.2 LS BLE |
| Raspberry pi zero | 512 MB | MicroSDHC slot | 40 | one | - | - | - |
| Raspberry Pi Zero W | 512 MB | MicroSDHC slot | 40 | one | - | 802.11 b / g / n | 4.1 BLE |
| Banana Pi M3 | 2 GB LPDDR3 | 8 GB eMMC | 40 | 3 (2 Ă— 2.0, 1 Ă— OTG) | 1000 Mbps | 802.11 b / g / n | four |
| Banana Pi M2 Zero | 512 MB DDR3 | MicroSDHC slot | 40 | 1 Ă— USB 2.0 OTG | - | 802.11 n | four |
| Rock64 | 4 GB LPDDR3 | 128 MB | 64 | 3 (3.0, 2.0, OTG) | 1000 Mbps | 802.11 b / g / n | four |
| Asus Tinker board S | 2 GB LPDDR3 | 16 GB eMMC | 40 | 4 Ă— USB 2.0 | 1000 Mbps | 802.11 b / g / n | four |
| Libre computer renegade | 4 GB DDR4 | - | 40 | 3 (1 Ă— 3.0, 1 Ă— 2.0) | 1000 Mbps | - | - |
| Libre Computer Renegade Elite | 4 GB DDR4 | 128 MB | 60 | 5 (2 Ă— 3.0, 3 Ă— 2.0) | 1000 Mbps | - | - |
| Odroid H2 | 2 slots DDR4 SO-DIMM | 128 MB (BIOS), eMMC slot | - | 4 (2 Ă— 3.0, 2 Ă— 2.0) | 2 Ă— 1000 Mbit / s | - | - |
| Arduino mega | 8 kb | 256 kb | 54 | USB-UART converter | - | - | - |
In recent years, a lot of interesting things are happening on the single-board computer market. New models are constantly appearing and disappearing in all niches, starting from Arduino, affecting Raspberry and ending with motherboards compatible with 8th generation Intel processors. For example, right now on Kickstarter there is a campaign of UP Xtreme, an Intel-compatible motherboard, and the development of the promising Galileo platform, on the contrary, has been curtailed. The developers of Renegade Elite, by the way, also raised funds for launching production through the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. So if you want to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of single-board computers, sometimes go over the sections of the “Technology” crowdfunding sites.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/457666/
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