However, few are as notable as Pine64.
What Is Pine64?
Pine64, or Pine Store Limited, is a Hong Kong-based company founded in 2015.
ImageCredit:Pine64
The company’s first offering was the Pine A64 which sought to compete with the Raspberry Pi 2.
The project was funded via a Kickstarter campaign that managed to raise up to $1.7 million dollars.
The PinePhone is one of the most popular Linux smartphones on the market.
Image Credit: Pierre LeCourt/Flickr
All in all, the PinePhone is a competent take on an open-source smartphone.
The name is based on two mathematical constants, Pi, and Eulers numbere.
Their next project, the Star64 SBC, isreported to be launchedsometime this month before the next community update.
It will be available in two versions, one with 4GB and another with 8GB of RAM.
This processor has four SiFive FU740 CPU cores running at 1.5GHz and features an Imagination BXE-4-32 GPU.
The JH7110 processor is an improvement over the JH7100 that powers StarFives VisionFive SBC.
It addresses some of the bugs associated with the JH7100 such as the power-off issues and connectivity problems.
Performance is also considerably improved, and the graphics processing unit allows the board to better handle graphical workloads.
The 12V power plug can also be used for powering other devices directly from the board.
Also, there is onboard 128MB NOR flash memory.
Many Pine64 products have been released with hardware bugs that have yet to be fixed.
RISC-V is also still in its infancy and has a less vibrant and flourishing software ecosystem than other architectures.
Pine64 has become known for building hardware and leaving software support to the user community.
In the software-driven world we live in, adoption hinges largely on software support.
For this product to succeed, Pine64 needs to provide much more official support.
Also, competition is heating up in the RISC-V SBC space.
Another major issue you may encounter with this product is the size of the community.
Advanced users will have an easier time finding their way around.
The Star64 RISC-V SBC is a suitable choice for anyone who wants to experiment with open-source architecture.
It is also ideal for developers who want to build their own custom applications.
We have covered thedifference between RISC design and RISC-V architectureif youd like to know more.
Is the Star64 SBC the Raspberry Pi Biggest Challenge?
The Star64 is a worthy challenger to Raspberry Pi’s hold on the SBC market.
