Rockchip-powered boards are now offered by the UK-based online retailer OKdo, which may suit Raspberry Pi enthusiasts looking for alternatives to the in-demand minicomputer.
Under the "Rock" brand, a manufacturer based in Fuzhou, China, Rockchip creates well-known Raspberry Pi substitutes such the Rock Pi 4.
The long-standing partnership between RS Group, owner of OKdo, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation has ended after over ten years, according to the news, which was made public by eeNews Europe.
Why does this matter?
Because of its engineering know-how, technology, ecosystem partners, supply chain, and international distribution channels, OKdo claims the move will increase the availability of configurable single-board (CSB) PCs.
The ROCK 4 SE, a less expensive variation of Radxa's ROCK 4C Plus board that utilises the RK3399-T six-core ARM CPU, is part of the product line.
The motherboard includes an ARM T860MP4 Mali GPU with 4GB of 64bit LPDDR4 RAM, two Cortex-A72 cores with a performance capability of 1.5GHz, four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.0GHz, and two Cortex-A72 cores.
Given the severe shortages of Raspberry PI over the past year, today's news may be welcomed news for hardware hackers or those merely want to advance their python development skills.
Eben Upton, the head of the Raspberry Pi foundation's trading division, called the shortages "extremely awful" in an interview with The Verge(opens in new tab).
"We sold the same amount of Raspberry Pis last year as we did the year before, but we entered last year with a customer backlog of roughly 500,000 units and we left last year with a customer backlog of several million units," he continued.
Raxa, a Rockchip design partner, is particularly well-suited, in the opinion of Richard Curtin, co-founder and chief technology officer of OKdo, to withstand the storm of the supply chain problem.
When semiconductor production is concentrated in Asia or in a single wafer fab, there is a considerable danger of stock shortages, according to Curtin. This is because Taiwan Semiconductors has recently had supply chain issues.
The usage of many wafer types by Rockchip, he continued, "was one of the key selling elements when we started the design, production, and distribution cooperation with Radxa."
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