Hardware Specifications
SoC: Rockchip RK3399
CPU: big.LITTLE, dual-core Cortex-A72 (up to 2.0GHz) + quad-core Cortex-A53 (up to 1.5GHz)
GPU: Mali-T864 GPU, supports OpenGL ES1.1 / 2.0 / 3.0 / 3.1, OpenCL, DX11, and AFBC
VPU: 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265 / H264 60fps decoding, dual VOP, etc.
PMU: RK808-D PMIC, works with independent DC / DC for DVFS, software power-off, RTC wake-up, system sleep mode
Memory: Dual-channel 4GB LPDDR3-1866 or dual-channel 2GB DDR3-1866
Flash: No onboard eMMC, but has eMMC slot
Ethernet: Native Gigabit Ethernet
Wi-Fi / BT: 802.11a / b / g / n / ac, Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo module, 2×2 MIMO, dual antenna interface
Video Input: One or two 4-channel MIPI-CSI, dual ISP, up to 13MPix/s, supports simultaneous input of dual camera data
Video Output
HDMI: HDMI 2.0a, supports 4K @ 60Hz, HDCP 1.4 / 2.2
One 4-channel MIPI-DSI
Audio Output: 3.5mm dual-channel headphone jack or HDMI
Audio Input: One microphone input interface
USB 3.0: Four USB 3.0 Type-A ports
USB Type-C: Supports USB2.0 OTG and power input
microSD Slot x 1
40Pin GPIO Expansion Port
Three 3V / 1.8V I2C, up to one 3V UART, one 3V SPI, one SPDIF_TX, up to eight 3V GPIO
One x 1.8V 8-channel I2S
24Pin Expansion Port:
Two independent native USB 2.0 hosts
PCIe x2
PWM x1, PowerKey
Debugging: One debugging UART, 4-pin 2.54mm header, 3V level, 1500000bps
LED: One power LED and one GPIO controlled LED
RTC Battery: 2-pin 1.27 / 1.25mm RTC battery input connector
Power: DC 5V / 3A
PCB: 8 layers, 85mm x 56mm
Operating Temperature: -20℃ to 70℃
Quick Start
Preparation
To start your NanoPi-M4, please prepare the following hardware:
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NanoPi-M4 mainboard
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Type-C data cable
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TF card: Class10 or above 8GB microSD card
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USB to serial adapter (optional, for debugging or operation on PC)
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A 5V/3A or higher power adapter
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A display or TV that supports HDMI input (or purchase LCD accessories)
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A set of USB keyboard and mouse, a USB hub is needed when connecting more USB devices
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A computer that needs to be connected to the internet, preferably using Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit system
Quick Boot from SD Card
First, visit the official website to download the required firmware files:
You need to prepare an 8G or larger SDHC card, and the existing data on the card will be destroyed, so please back up the data on the SD card first.
| Image Files | |
| rk3399-sd-buildroot-linux-4.4-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.zip | Buildroot firmware, based on Rockchip Linux SDK, with Qt5-wayland graphical interface |
| rk3399-sd-friendlydesktop-bionic-4.4-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.zip | FriendlyDesktop desktop firmware, based on Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit, with LXDE graphical desktop |
| rk3399-sd-friendlycore-bionic-4.4-arm64-YYYYMMDD.img.zip | FriendlyCore system firmware (integrated with Qt 5.10.0), based on Ubuntu core |
| rk3399-sd-lubuntu-desktop-xenial-4.4-armhf-YYYYMMDD.img.zip | Lubuntu desktop firmware, comes with X Window graphical interface |
| Flash Utility: | |
| win32diskimager.rar | Windows utility. Under Linux, users can use “dd” |
Extract the firmware and flashing tool separately, insert the SD card (limited to 8G and above) under Windows, run win32diskimager tool as administrator, select your SD card drive letter in the win32diskimager tool interface, select the system firmware you want to flash, and click the Write button to flash.
When the SD card is finished, eject the SD card and insert it into the slot, power it on to boot.
The Android system does not support booting from the SD card. If you need to run the Android system, please purchase the eMMC accessory, and then refer to the following chapters to flash the Android system to eMMC for operation.
Serial Debugging
If you want to see more detailed information when the NanoPi-M4 starts or control it more directly, it is recommended to connect and use the debugging serial port.
Use the prepared USB to serial adapter and connection cable (to be purchased separately) to connect the development board:
| Pin# | Development Board Debugging Serial Port | USB to Serial Adapter |
| 1 | GND | GND |
| 2 | VCC5V0_SYS | NC (not connected) Note: For Matrix USB2UART adapter, switch 5V ON/OFF to OFF |
| 3 | UART2DBG_TX | RX |
| 4 | UART2DBG_RX | TX |
dmesg | grep ttyUSB
ls -l /dev/ttyUSB* sudo apt-get install minicom
minicom -sNote: The default baud rate for RK3399 debugging serial port is 1500000, some adapters may not reach this rate, and there may be exceptions (such as garbled characters) due to USB extension cables or connecting to USB hubs, check and replace if necessary.
Using FriendlyDesktop
FriendlyDesktop is a lightweight Ubuntu desktop system. It is based on LXDE and has the following features:Use Qt Hardware Decoder to Play 4K Video
FriendlyDesktop comes pre-installed with the Qt player Qt5-VideoPlayer, which has been adapted to Rockchip’s gstreamer plugin, supporting hardware decoding of 4K video. To start the player: open the menu Sound & Video on FriendlyDesktop, click Qt5-VideoPlayer. In the player interface, click the Open button in the lower left corner to load a video file into the right playback list, double-click the file in the playback list to start playing. The interface of the player is shown below, you can set full-screen playback and adjust the volume:
Open the command line terminal and enter the following command to test:
gst-player.shThe default audio will output to the headphone jack, you can use which gst-player.sh to find the location of this script and customize its playback behavior.
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