CubieBoard6 is an upgraded product of CubieBoard2 which was launched as early as 2013. CubieBoard2 is a very tiny, low cost, and richly functional open-source hardware, some people call it embedded single board computer as well. In order to reused the CubieBoard2’s hardware ecosystem, CubieTech tried their best to make it be compatible with CubieBoard2 in hardware, such as board shape, the board size, interface locations, and the function of expansion pins. Even so, a small number of the expansion pins are not identical in function, since these two boards adopt the different main chips.
In CubieBoard6 CubieTech adopts S500 main chip from Actions Technology Co. Ltd, which is a very cost-effective Quad-Core application processor. What’s the most important thing is that Actions is willing to support open source world without considering the early cost.
In 2017, the Quad-Core processor is becoming the main requirement of various embedded devices. The S500 which integrated Cortex-A9 Quad-Core CPU and PowerVR SGX544 GPU is a very good solution choice. Functionally, CubieTech make it support 2GB LPDDR3 that has the big capacity but with smaller size. CubieTech makes it support Wifi & Bluetooth in the same board size with the CubieBoard2, it’s a rare product in open source hardware industry. In order to meet more and more mobile applications, CubieBoard6 also supports 3.7V Li-Po battery power supply, which makes it doubly fewer competitors.
What needs to be emphasized is software aspect, with the strong support from Actions team, the Linux drivers of exclusive hardware IPs in the S500 main chip are not acephalous issues any more, such as GPU, VPU, Decoder, Encoder etc… So that it can offer you more and more mature Linux distributions even for commercial purposes with the open-source community promotions.
| SoC | Actions S500 |
| CPU | ARM Cortex-A9 Quad-Core 1.2GHz (32-bit) |
| GPU | PowerVR SGX544 |
| RAM | 2GB LPDDR |
| Storage | 8GB eMMC on-board with MicroSD Card Slot |
| SATA | Support 2.5 inch HDD/SSD up to 4TB |
| Wi-Fi & Bluetooth | 2.4G/5.8G Dual Band 300Mbps Bluetooth 4.0 + EDR |
| USB | USB HOST Port x2, and USB Device port x1 |
| Ethernet | 100M RJ45 |
| Display | HDMI Port A, HDMI V1.4a, support 1080P@60Hz resolution |
| Audio | 3.5mm jack, HDMI |
| IR | Infrared remote receiver Philips standard |
| Power | DCIN 5V@2.5A power, Support USB power input |
| Battery | Support 3.7V Li-Po battery power the board |
| RTC | Support RTC circuit and RTC rechargeable battery 3.0V |
| Keys | Power key, ADFU key for reflashing the ROM/Image |
| LEDs | Power LED x 1, User LED x 2 |
| Expansion Pins | I2C, CSI for camera, FM-IN, ADC, CVBS output, Audio output, RGB, LVDS, Mipi DSI, SPI, HSIC, INT GPIO |
| Suggest Distributor | CubieTech |
| Est. Price | $75 |
