Sipeed Takes RISC-V Into the Gaming Arena with the Nintendo Switch-Like Lichee Pocket 4A
Inspired by the Nintendo Switch, this touchscreen-and-controller handheld console comes with four T-Head C910 cores and a 4 TOPS NPU.
Embedded hardware specialist Sipeed has unveiled a new carrier for its high-performance Lichee Module 4A (LM4A) RISC-V system-on-module (SOM), and this one's a little unusual: it's the company's answer to the Nintendo Switch or Valve Steam Deck, and dubbed the Lichee Pocket 4A.
Sipeed teased the LM4A SOM back in December last year, promising a RISC-V device which could go toe-to-toe with the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B — the newest and most powerful Raspberry Pi model at the time, prior to the launch of the Raspberry Pi 5 a few months ago — and come out ahead in a range of performance metrics. Earlier this year, it also showed off four carriers for the module — including a compact mini-tower cluster, a tablet computer, and a compact netbook-style clamshell laptop.
The Lichee Pocket 4A, brought to our attention by Liliputing, joins the family as the first LM4A-based device to concentrate on gaming. It's no surprise to find the device mimicking the rough layout of a Nintendo Switch or Valve Steam Deck handheld console, with a wide-format 7" 1280×800 capacitive-touch central screen and removable analog-and-digital controllers to either side.
Internally, the device is powered by the user's choice of LM4A SOM with either 8GB or 16GB of LPDDR4X memory and 32GB or 128GB of eMMC storage. Regardless of model chosen, the processor powering the gadget remains the same: the 64-bit T-Head TH1520, which features four C910 cores built around the free and open RISC-V instruction set architecture running at up to 2.4GHz — though Sipeed's earlier testing was limited to 1.8GHz. The chip also includes an Imagination Technologies BXM-4-64 graphics processor and a neural coprocessor offering a claimed 4 TOPS of compute for on-device machine learning applications.
Elsewhere in the device is a wired gigabit Ethernet connection, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 radios, two USB 3.0 Type-A and one USB 2.0 Type-C ports, a microSD Card slot for storage expansion, stereo speakers and a MEMS microphone with 3.5mm headphone jack, and — unusually — a five-megapixel Omnivision OV5693 camera sensor. Everything is powered by a 6Ah battery, though the company has not shared expected runtimes.
The Lichee Pocket 4A, which will launch with support for Debian Linux or an unspecified version of Android, is now up for pre-order on the Sipeed website — though the company is only accepting $10 deposits against an as-yet unannounced retail price.