Rk3399: Everything You Need to Know About It

Contents

1 What Is an Rk3399?
2 Rk3399 Features
3 RK3399 Specs
4 Applications
5 Orange Pi RK3399
6 Rounding Up

What Is an Rk3399?

In 2016, RK3399 came into existence and earned its high performance and low-power consumption reputation.

Interestingly, the RK3399 works for various computing, smart devices, and personal mobile internet devices. Also, it can build some PCs and SBCs with its advanced computing capabilities.

In truth, the RK3399 operates on the “Big. Little architecture.” In addition, it integrates two powerful ARM Cortex CPUs and a Mali GPU for excellent graphical performance.

Indeed, the RK3399 also offers powerful video decoders to play videos at high frame rates. In addition, it supports an operating system with full SDK/API features, making it possible to create an Android application environment.

Moreover, there is much more powerful hardware with RK3399 that offers optimized performance. Because of the presence of the RK3399, this hardware can handle AI digital signage and POS machines.

Rk3399 Features

As we mentioned earlier, the RK3399 has different powerful features that make it an excellent option for your computing needs. Let’s take a closer look at these features:

CPU

The RK3399 features two ARM Cortex processors, including

Dual-core ARM Cortex-A72 MPCore processor
Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 MPCore processor

Both processors offer high-performance, low-power consumption, and a cached application process.

The RK3399 also features two CPU clusters, including one big cluster and one small cluster. For the big cluster, we have the dual-core Cortex-A72, which is responsible for the RK3399’s high performance. On the other hand, the little cluster uses the quad-core Cortex-A53 and handles the RK3399’s low-power consumption.

In addition, the RK3399 features a full implementation of the ARM architecture v8-A instruction set. It also supports ARM Neon Advanced Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) for accelerating media and signal processing.

Interestingly, there’s also a CC1500 feature that ensures the memory between the two clusters stays coherent. Also, the Cortex-A72 factors in a 48KB L1 instruction cache and a 32KB L1 data cache.

Similarly, the Cortex A53 factors in a 32KB L1 instruction cache and a 32kb L1 data cache separately. Both Cortexes integrate with a 4-way set associative.

Moreover, the Big cluster has a 1MB unified cache, while the small cluster features a 512KB unified L2 cache. It also supports trust zone technology.

GPU

The RK339 features an ARM Mali-T860MP4 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2/3.0, DirectX11.1, OpenCL1.2, and other software that improve graphical performance. It also has an embedded four shader core that shares a hierarchical tiler.

Video

Interestingly, the RK3399 supports a real-time video decoder with various formats like;

MPEG-1
MPEG-2
MPEG-4
VC-1
MVC
VP8
VP9
H.264
H.265

MPEG-1, 2, 4, MVC, and VP8 support up to 1080 pixels at 30 FPS (1920 x 1088).

Also, H.264, VP9, and H.265 support up to 2160 pixels at 60fps (4096×2304).

H.263 only supports up to 576 pixels at 60fps (720×576). Asides from that, the RK3399 has video encoder support for MVC, H.264, and VP8.

Camera Interface and Image Processor

You can get one/or two MPI-CSI and an embedded double ISP installed. Also, the input resolution of one ISP is 13M pixels.

Memory

Rk3399 uses three memory interfaces, and they include

The Dynamic Memory interface
eMMC interface
SD/MMC interface

Also, the Dynamic Memory Interface is compatible with the following JEDER standard:

DDR3 (1866)
DDR3L(1866)
LPDDR3 (1866)
LPDDR4 (SDRAM)

It also supports two channels, each having 16 or 32 bits of data width. You can also select up to two ranks for each channel with a 4 GB RAM space.

Moreover, the eMMC interface is fully compliant with the JEDEC specifications for eMMC 5.1 and eMMC 5.0. It also supports four operating modes: legacy, HS400, DDR50, and HS200.

In addition, the SD/MMC interface has two interfaces that you can configure as SDIO or SD/MMC. Plus, this interface is compatible with MMC v 4.51 and SD 3.0.

Display

In truth, the RK3399 has two embedded VOPs that output from the following display interfaces:

One HDMI port
One or Two MIPI-DSI ports
A DP port and an eDP port

Each interface supports AFBC functions that cooperate with the GPU.

The HDMI interface has a single physical layer that supports operations with HDMI 1.4 and 2.0. It also supports HDCP 1.4/2.2.

In addition, the MIPI interface has three embedded MIPI PHY, with MIPI0 only working for DSI and MIPI2 working for CSI 2.

On the other hand, the eDP interface remains compliant with the eDPTM version 1.3 and upwards specifications. DisplayPort Interface also stays compliant with the specifications for DisplayPort V 1.2 and HDCP2.2 compliant.

System Component

Indeed, the RK3399 features fourteen on-chip 64-bit timers for non-secure applications and twelve for secure applications. In addition, the RK3399 has four on-chip PWMs, and three Watchdogs with 32 bits counter width.

Check out the pictures below for other useful RK3399 features:

RK3399 Features

RK3399 Specs

Here are the specifications of the RK3399:

Processor	Rockchip RK3399
Market (Main)	The Rockchip RK3399 is a single-board computer.
Family	The RK3399 is one of the many products in the RK3300 family.
Cores	It comes with six cores.
ISA	The RK3399 uses an ARMv8-A (64-bit).
Threads	You can get up to six threads on the RK3399.
Turbo frequency	The turbo frequency maxes out at 2.0 GHz.
Microarchitecture	It uses the Cortex-A72 and Cortex-A53 architecture.
Base frequency	The RK3399’s base frequency is 1.5 GHz.
Cache memory	You can have a total of 1.512 MB cached memory on the RK3399
Core High-performance	It has 2x ARM (Cortex-A72) at 2.0 GHz
Energy Core	2x ARM (Cortex-A53) at 1.5 GHz for low power consumption
Memory capacity (Max)	4GB
GPU integrated graphics	The RK3399 uses the ARM Mali-T860 MP4 GPU
Memory channels (Max)	Maximum of two memory channels.
Memory types	It uses the LPDDR4 SDRAM or the LPDDR3-1866 memory type.
Socket Type	SoC socket
Security	Features support for Trust zone

Other specifications include:

Applications

Here are some applications that the RK3399 can handle perfectly:

Digital signage

Kiosk

Internet of Things
Networking
Visualization and rendering
Industrial control
Video processing
Security applications
Networking applications

Orange Pi RK3399

The Orange Pi is an open-source SBC capable of running an Android 6.0 image file. It works based on the RK3399 and offers 2 GB or 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM. It also shares this ram with the GPU.

The Orange Pi is an excellent way for anyone to start tinkering with technology. It’s also easy to use, and you can use it to build various projects. Here are some of the things you can create with the Orange Pi RK 3399: