RK3566 and RK3568 are Rockchip’s latest AIoT processors, equipped with four Arm Cortex-A55 cores, Mali-G52 GPU, and rich peripherals, manufactured using a 22nm process technology, supporting Android 11 and Linux systems.
RK3566 is mainly aimed at consumer electronics such as tablets and e-readers. RK3568 is mainly aimed at the industrial application market, such as video conferencing, video encoding/decoding, smart security, commercial displays, edge computing, and other fields.
In terms of parameters:
The H.264 decoder supports 4K@30fps, H.265 decoder supports 4K@60fps, H.264/H.265 encoders support 1080p@60fps, and high-quality JPEG encoding/decoding. The embedded 3D GPU is fully compatible with OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, and Vulkan 1.1; a special 2D hardware engine maximizes display performance and ensures smooth operation. The built-in NPU supports INT8/INT16 mixed operations. Due to strong compatibility, network models based on TensorFlow/MXNet/PyTorch/Caffe and other frameworks can be easily converted.
It has a high-performance external memory interface, ensuring high-capacity and stable system memory bandwidth, supporting various memory types including DDR3, DDR3L, LPDDR3, DDR4, LPDDR4, and LPDDR4X.
The processor performance of RK3566 and RK3568 is basically consistent, with the main difference being in the expansion interfaces. Due to different market positioning, RK3566 has fewer expansion interfaces compared to RK3568, which also helps control product costs and achieve large-scale deployment.
Parameter differences between RK3566 and RK3568
-
External storage interface: RK3568 supports ECC while RK3566 does not.
-
In terms of PCI-E: RK3568 supports PCI-E 3.0 while RK3566 only supports PCI-E 2.1.
-
In terms of Ethernet interfaces: RK3568 has dual Gigabit ports while RK3566 has a single Gigabit port.
Currently, the main projects for RK3566 are learning tablets and e-readers, and Rockchip also provides a lot of technical support for these two products. For example, the AI eye protection function can provide a reading experience close to that of a book, fingertip reading function allows instant translation, supports photo question searching, and dynamic bitrate adjustment can ensure smooth video communication based on network conditions. It basically meets the main needs of the industry, effectively improving project landing speed and reducing R&D risks.
RK3568 is currently Rockchip’s main general-purpose SoC. Compared to RK3288 and RK3399, RK3568 has better power consumption performance and more diverse expansion interfaces, which can effectively reduce product costs. RK3568 is particularly suitable for video encoding/decoding products, such as video conferencing all-in-one machines, broadcast machines, self-service vending terminals, digital signage, and more. Thanks to its rich storage expansion, network interfaces, and Linux system, RK3568 can also be applied to network storage servers (NAS) and lightweight server applications.
Currently, RK3568 is officially promoted in the smart security market. RK3568’s interfaces are well-aligned with the needs of the security backend market, and Rockchip has also provided considerable support for the development of smart security products, enabling a rapid upgrade from traditional security to smart security. Thanks to the early layout of RKNN and Rock-X SDK, Rockchip’s AI development ecosystem is becoming increasingly mature, with a wealth of algorithm examples that can easily realize face comparison alarms, intelligent vehicle detection, boundary warning, fire visualization warnings, and more. The built-in 0.8TOPS NPU can also meet most algorithmic needs, and additional acceleration cards can be added through expansion ports to achieve flexible deployment from 0.8 to 30 TOPS, providing sufficient computing power for edge computing.
Related reference designs for RK3568 and RK3566, including data manuals, hardware reference manuals, schematics, and PCB design source files, have been shared by Mr. Wu on the blog’s cloud drive.
Students in need can visit Mr. Wu’s blog to obtain:
