Cost-Effective Embedded Development: A Beginner's Guide to RK3506B

I am Lao Wen, an embedded engineer who loves learning.Follow me to become even better together!Rockchip has developed rapidly in the semiconductor chip field in recent years, achieving impressive market results in the high-performance AI processor chip sector, with very bright financial report data for 2024!Recently, I attended a technical seminar related to Rockchip and learned about the roadmap for RK chips, gaining a lot of key information.RK’s chip product line in recent years has flagship-level processors like RK3588, while RK3399/RV1109/RV1126, etc., are all powerful processor chips. However, RK seems to be relatively low-key regarding entry-level processors with medium to low performance.Starting in the second half of 2024, RK began to layout entry-level medium to low-performance processors, thus launching the RK3506, positioned as entry-level (as shown in the lower right corner of the image).From the configuration of this chip, it seems to be aimed at competing with other domestic chip manufacturers’ entry-level MPU chips.Why launch the RK3506? I estimate that RK wants to fill the product line gap for entry-level processors with this chip and further expand its market share.I searched online for information about the RK3506 and found that many manufacturers have already launched development boards for this chip, including the well-known ZhiDian YuanZi for embedded beginners.I just received this board this week, and the packaging, which consists of a plastic shell and foam lining, appears quite standard, accompanied by two Type-C data cables and two red PCB antennas.(Maker-type products, ZhiDian YuanZi seems to prefer this packaging style)As I understand, ZhiDian YuanZi launched this RK3506B development board mainly to facilitate students, geeks, and engineers for graduation projects, competitions, and solution verifications.The development board is designed in the form of a small system board + baseboard, continuing the design style of ZhiDian YuanZi’s Linux development board product line, with a matte black solder mask and gold-plated pads.Pay close attention to the design of the small system board; it does not use the conventional stamp hole or B2B interface of Linux core boards but instead uses pin headers on both sides to expose the key pins of the CPU.The small system board features two Type-C ports, exposing the debug serial port and OTG programming interface, MIPI-DSI for connecting external touch displays, two sets of 2*22 pin headers that expose most of the CPU pins, and a TF card slot at the bottom. The onboard three physical buttons are used for firmware programming, along with a power indicator and a system indicator, as shown in the figure below.This small system board has a significant advantage in that it can be powered on with just one Type-C cable and can independently connect to a MIPI-DSI screen, with system booting via TF card, exposing most of the CPU pins, and the entire small system board’s power consumption when booted independently is less than 1W.The CPU of the small system board is the RK3506B, a commercial-grade chip (the industrial-grade model is RK3506J), available in configurations of【256+256】 and【512+512】. For the configuration performance of RK3506B, please refer to the table below.Now let’s take a look at the hardware resources of the accompanying baseboard, which mainly includes a DC-12V power supply interface, two 100M Ethernet ports, two USB2.0-HOST ports, Wi-Fi/BT, user expansion IO interfaces, microphone, and headphone, as shown in the figure below.The baseboard is not designed as a large and comprehensive development board, clearly indicating that this development board is aimed at makers or student groups, and embedded engineers can also use this board for project solution verifications~As we all know, the economic situation in recent years has made many embedded beginners or maker enthusiasts concerned about the cost of entry-level learning, mainly worrying about spending hundreds or thousands on development boards that end up collecting dust without learning anything.Therefore, maker-type development boards are designed with this in mind, trying to control costs and not adding too many hardware components to the development board. This high-expandability product form can save developers a lot of costs, allowing for a very low retail price. (For specific prices, you can check online yourself.)Next, let’s take a look at the hardware details of the development board~The baseboard uses a DC-12V power supply, seemingly using the Hanyuan DC-044A terminal (which looks quite high-end), utilizing the SCT2230 DC-DC chip for 12V to 5V and 5V to 3.3V conversion, with a well-designed power circuit for sufficient filtering.Two 100M Ethernet RJ45 interfaces are placed side by side, with the ZhiDian YuanZi brand silk screen and logo on top, which should be custom components from ZhiDian YuanZi. The Ethernet chip used is the Yutai Microelectronics YT8512C, which is commonly used on many development boards.The baseboard is equipped with a module model RTL8733BU, which integrates both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth BT functions and exposes two RF antenna terminals for easy external antenna connection.Below the Wi-Fi/BT module, U1 is the Qinheng CH334R chip, a USB-HUB used to expand the USB interfaces of the development board, which provides two USB2.0-HOST interfaces.In addition, many expansion interfaces are exposed on one side of the development board, which beginners or makers often prefer to use Dupont wires to connect different hardware modules for easy verification of different software functions.The baseboard provides a headphone interface and MIC interface, using the ES8388 stereo audio codec chip, allowing for simple sound recording and multimedia audio playback.As mentioned earlier, the small system board is available in configurations of【256+256】 and【512+512】. I have the【512+512】 configuration, with the CPU and DDR3L memory (Nanya NT5CC256M16ER particles) on the front, and the back features Winbond’s NAND FLASH (W25N04KVZEIR).Above is the overall hardware configuration of the ZhiDian YuanZi ATK-DLRK3506B development board, designed simply without unnecessary complex hardware peripherals, allowing makers and embedded enthusiasts to unleash their creativity. The hardware configuration is entirely aimed at embedded beginners and maker creative design.In the next article, we will continue to explore the software supporting materials and functional testing of this development board. We welcome all enthusiasts to continue following us~Thank you for reading!