Introduce Radxa CM3 - a drop-in replacement for the CM4

#1

Dear community,

We are happy to announce that Radxa CM3 is available as beta for open hardware projects developers.

Radxa CM3 is an SoM(System on Module) by Radxa based on Rockchip RK3566 SoC in a small form factor at 55mm x 40mm size, integrating CPU/PMU/DRAM/STORAGE/Wireless. Radxa CM3 offers out of box cost-effective solution for multiple purpose applications.

CM3 Highlights

  • Quad Cortex-A55 2GHz low power and low heat solution
  • ARM G52 2EE with OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1 support
  • Neural network acceleration engine with processing performance up to 0.8 TOPS
  • up to 8GB ram, 128GB eMMC
  • Multiple display interfaces, eDP, MIPI, HDMI with dual display support
  • High speed interfaces such as USB3.0/SATA/PCIe 2.0
  • on module WiFi 5/BT 5 support

CM3 is designed as a drop-in replacement for Raspberry Pi CM4, we have tested multiple carrier boards which are designed for the CM4 including the Raspberry Pi CM4 IO board. These carrier boards can just work with CM3 without any modifications. Additionally, CM3 has more resources such as eDP and SATA/USB3.0, we make them available on a third 100p board to board connector. The detailed comparison of CM3 vs CM4 is available:

https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock3/CM3/vsCM4

For hardware devs to make use of the additional features of CM3, we have designed a dedicated IO board as well. It has the following features:

  • Half mini-itx design, 170*85mm size, compatible with standard ATX case
  • Support multiple display interfaces, HDMI, 2x MIPI DSI, eDP, dual display at the same time
  • Support 2x MIPI CSI at the same time
  • Support x1 PCIe card, support ATX case mount
  • Up to 2x SATA(one shared with USB3.0, one shared with PCIe 2.0)
  • Support Ubuntu/Debian and Android

Radxa_cm3_io_board.jpg1000×727 255 KB

The CM3 is now available as beta for hardware developers who are working on related projects. Developers can apply a free beta hardware from the following github repository:

https://github.com/radxa/radxa-cm3-projects

If you have any questions about CM3, just ask in this thread. Happy hacking.

–Cheers, Radxa Team

8 Likes
#2

我喜欢这些新的硬件，新的开发板，赞啦！

#3

How to get CM3 to test?

#4

Nice work! What will be the approximate price?

#5

Check this:

https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock3/CM3/models

1 Like
#6

Any chance commercial developers can get their hands on a beta? Don’t mind to pay for it. Is there any more information on ETA and size of the first production run?

#7

Are you sure ? :slight_smile:
https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_FAQ/#development-time

#8

Of course software costs, but in our case, some serial buses I2S, SPI, I2C and simple filesystems will suffice. I’ll build my own skeleton RTOS from scratch in rust and that’s that. Getting to grips with all kinds of (possibly broken) Linux drivers and all the driver layers is so much hassle these days, that I’m looking to barebones dev. I don’t need proper GUI or USB support.

1 Like
#9

I am interested in buying Radxa CM3 for our project. Where I can buy it and when it will be in stock?
I am not getting any reply from radxa support email :frowning:

#10

I am much more interested in the https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock3/CM/CM3S for use with the WD SATA board https://community.wd.com/uploads/short-url/gobtNsbIEmTmSu6ZyPBRZqlTCin.pdf running AndroidTV. When/where will this be available to purchase?

#11

I found a single link https://shop.allnetchina.cn/products/radxa-rock3-computing-module-sodimm?variant=39735503880294 which states there should be a WiFi+8GB+128GB version but out of stock.

#12

They finally have a WiFi 2G/16G model in stock, so I bought one of those, even though I really want a WiFi 8/128 model.

#13

Are you planning to support the Turing Pi V2 as a flashing method? It should work out of the box with the turing pi v2 CM4 carrier boards, but currently it doesn’t

#14

As far as I know, Turing Pi V2 works with Radxa NX5. We don’t have Turing Pi V2 in hands but we sent samples to their Chinese partners and NX5 boots and works on it.

#15

So after finally receiving my Radxa CM3S, it has no OS preloaded, won’t boot in neither the WD SATA board nor the TuringPi board, can’t recognize MaskRom mode in either one, and now worse, my RPi CM3 is no longer recognized in either one. I think the Radxa CM3S ruined both boards.

#16

Hello,

It’s been 2 years. Do you have any news on nx5/cm5 module?

Thanks,
Wenzhe

#17

CM3S is compatible with Raspberry Pi CM3/CM3+, I think you install it to the wrong carrier board?

#18

Hi Wenzhe,
The samples of CM5 is ready now, and it will be in production in the next month.
And the samples of NX5 is in production now, it will also be available in the few months.

1 Like
#19

Both the WD SATA board and the TuringPi board are for RPi CM1/3. From all of what I read the Radxa CM3S was supposed to be a drop-in replacement for the RPi CM3 on its carrier boards. My intention was to use it on the WD SATA board as it neither it nor the RPi CM3 has WiFi/BT onboard where the Radxa CM3S does.

#20

I finally got it flashed!

The steps confused me a bit, not sure if it is straightforward for everything else, but simplified is:

  1. as per https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock3/install/rockchip-flash-tools, install the driver from https://dl.radxa.com/tools/windows/RKDevTool_Release_v2.86.zip
    1a. extract, run the DriverInstall.exe then click to install the driver
    1b. REBOOT!
  2. MaskROM mode (UGH)
    2a. move the TuringPi jumper from boot to flash
    2b. connect USB microB cable
    2c. HOLD the tiny MaskROM button WHILE plugging in the TuringPi power
  3. flashing debian from https://github.com/radxa-build/radxa-cm3-io/releases/
    3a. download https://dl.radxa.com/rock3/images/loader/rock-3a/rk356x_spl_loader_ddr1056_v1.10.111.bin
    3b. download https://github.com/radxa-build/radxa-cm3-io/releases/download/b27/radxa-cm3-io_debian_bullseye_xfce_b27.img.xz and extract it
    3c. run RKDevTool.exe
    3d. uncheck all but the first two lines
    3e. double-click the second line Name column and type ‘Image’
    3f. in the last column, click the blank area in line 1 to select the rk356x_spl_loader_ddr1056_v1.10.111.bin file
    3g. in the last column of the second line, click the blank area to select the radxa-cm3-io_debian_bullseye_xfce_b27.img file
    3h. click Download (yes, it really is flash, not download)

After it is done writing, it will reboot the Radxa CM3S, but nothing will be usable on the TuringPi until the jumper is moved back from flash to boot and restarted.

CM3 SODIMM Bootloader download fail