Milk-V Unveils Its Third RISC-V Board in a Month: The $9 Dual-Core Linux-Capable Milk-V Duo
Inspired by the Raspberry Pi Pico, the Milk-V Duo packs two Linux-capable RISC-V cores into a compact breadboard-friendly footprint.
RISC-V startup Milk-V has announced yet another development board built around the free and open source instruction set, this time a compact development device clearly inspired by the Raspberry Pi Pico: the $9 Milk-V Duo.
"Milk-V Duo is an ultra-compact embedded development platform based on the [SOPHGO] CV1800B chip," the company explains of its latest hardware design. "It can run Linux and RTOS [Real-Time Operating Systems], providing a reliable, low-cost, and high-performance platform for professionals, industrial ODMs [Original Design Manufacturers], AIoT [Artificial Intelligence of Things] enthusiasts, DIY hobbyists, and creators."
The compact board is very clearly inspired by the Raspberry Pi Pico, borrowing the same overall layout and handy castellated pins which make it suitable for breadboard use and surface mounting as as module. Rather than an RP2040 microcontroller with its two Arm Cortex-M0+ cores running at up to 133MHz, though, the SOPHGO CV1800B at its heart offers two RISC-V cores running at up to 1GHz, alongside 64MB of RAM.
There's no Wi-Fi on the device, as standard, though an optional add-on board provides a wired 10/100 Ethernet connection. In addition to a selection of general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, though, the Milk-V Duo offers a camera connector and a microSD slot for storage, alongside a USB Type-C connector for data and power.
This marks the third board Milk-V has announced in the last month, after unveiling a high-end 64-core board capable of supporting up to 128GB of RAM and a more compact quad-core design which mimics the physical layout — and rough specifications — of the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. Thus far, however, the company does not appear to have begun shipping any of the devices to end users outside China.
It's also the cheapest board the company has yet unveiled, priced at just $9 fully assembled — though at the time of writing was only available to order for purchasers located on the Chinese mainland with international stock "coming soon."
More information is available on the Milk-V website.