So what SoC will it be?
Hi Khadas Members,
This news may come as a shock to some of you, so carefully put down your morning coffee and read this sentence three times:
The Khadas VIM3 SBC which will officially launch this June 24th, will not use the Amlogic S922X SoC.
You’re probably feeling confused now. However, we’ve had to make this decision for several reasons, the most notable of which will be mentioned below:
5.0 TOPS NPU:
The main reason why VIM3 won’t use the S922X, is the lack of an NPU. It has been mentioned a few times on our forum and social media, that your VIM3 will have an NPU to accelerate tasks involving neural network processing, for artificial-intelligence applications.
NPUs are useful for optimising tasks such as facial recognition, object detection, voice recognition, etc. Unlike our previous NPU attempt, the RK3399Pro, Amlogic’s new SoC will be produced with the same 12nm process and is pin-to-pin compatible with the S922X; for good thermal and PCB space-usage efficiency.
You may already be familiar with Google’s Cloud TPUs, complex power-hungry nodes designed to “train neural networks” deep within cloud data centers. However can such intensive training be performed in an SBC? The short answer is yes. The NPU in a VIM3 is able to perform both training and inference learning locally.
This breakthrough in NPU technology makes VIM3 ideal for A.I applications located at the edge of IoT networks; reducing latency and improving the security of A.I workloads, as they can be trained and executed locally on VIM3 devices, rather than having to be uploaded into a centralised cloud where data may be compromised by 3rd parties.
In the coming weeks, we will help developers by updating Khadas Docs with more instructions on how to install neural network tool-kits like Tensorflow, on your VIM3:
Which SoC Will VIM3 Use:
We have already confirmed the SoC, however we can only tell you what it is in next week’s announcement. Gouwa is quite confident that members who have already reserved their VIM3 last week, will be ecstatic when they hear the good news.
What we can tell you, is that on launch day the VIM3’s SoC will be pin-to-pin compatible with the S922X with the addition of MIPI-CSI and an NPU; all S922X software can be run on it directly, without any modifications.
VIM3 Contest:
The contest to reserve a VIM3 at $69.99 and $99.99 will end on 24th June, so you only have another 5 days left to grab this discount price. If you haven’t yet reserved a VIM3 yet for yourself and your friends, do join the contest here: https://khadas.com/vim3.
Be reminded that your VIM3 discount coupon will be valid from 24 June to 22 July, however no new discount coupons will be issued after 24 June - so these 5 days are your last opportunity to reserve a VIM3 at $69.99 (Basic) and $99.99 (Pro), respectively.
Response has been good so far, and we hope that you will be thrilled. :)
Good luck!
Khadas Team
One more thing...
VIM3 v11, What’s New:
We’ve just completed a VIM3 v11 small production run of 100 units.
Fixed VIM3 v10 bugs.
Added a VIN connector to the bottom-side for power input.
Added M-Register (eMMC) & S-Register (SPI Flash).
Adjustment of silkscreen printing of logos and graphics.
Updated v11 Specifications, DXF, Schematic, and PCB Drawing.
