Geniatech Unveils the Raspberry Pi-Inspired StarFive JH7110-Powered XPI-7110 RISC-V SBC

Embedded electronics specialist Geniatech has launched a Raspberry Pi-inspired single-board computer built around the StarFive JH7110 RISC-V system-on-chip — albeit with significantly reduced performance compared to competing implementations.

"RISC-V, as an emerging instruction set architecture, has triggered extensive attention and research worldwide due to its open, flexible and efficient features," the company claims of the inspiration behind its release. "Capturing this technological trend keenly, Geniatech has worked hand in hand with StarFive for in-depth research and development to launch this innovative Raspberry Pi-like product."

The Geniatech XPI-7110, brought to our attention by Linux Gizmos, is based on the StarFive JH7110, a system-on-chip that has won support in other boards from PINE64, Milk-V, and even StarFive itself. Oddly, though, Geniatech's implementation has a noticeably lower specification than existing boards: two 64-bit SiFive U74 cores running at 1GHz, where its rivals have four running at 1.5GHz. The specifications, in fact, put it toe-to-toe with the earlier dual-core JH7100 — but the presence of an Imagination BXE-4-32 graphics processor, missing from the JH7100, marks it as a true dual-core speed-reduced variant of the JH7110.

Elsewhere on the board is 2GB of LPDDR4 memory, with options available up to 8GB, and 16GB of eMMC flash, with options up to 256GB. There's a single wired gigabit Ethernet port next to four USB Type-A ports — one USB 3.0 and three USB 2.0. There's on-board dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 radios, a single 4k-capable HDMI output, one each MIPI Display Serial Interface (DSI) and Camera Serial Interface (CSI) connectors, an infrared receiver, a 40-pin general-purpose input/output (GPIO) port plus dedicated UART pins, and a microSD slot for external storage.

Geniatech itself admits that the board borrows heavily from the Raspberry Pi design language, though it's not a slavish copy: the HDMI port is full size, for starters, and the USB Type-C power input located closer to the middle of the board. There's also no mention of Power-over-Ethernet compatibility. On the software front, Geniatech promises a Debian-based Linux distribution — though it may be possible to massage one of Canonical's official Ubuntu images for other JH7110-based boards on there with a little effort.

Geniatech has not made pricing for the board public, and is instead asking interested parties to get in touch through its website for a quotation.