Linux kernel patches were posted today for enabling Linux to boot on the LicheeRV Nano, a mini single board computer that comes in at a mere 22.86 x 35.56 mm. As interesting as the size with this SBC is the Sophgo SG2002 SoC that features a mix of RISC-V and ARM cores.

The LicheeRV Nano is a very petite SBC powered by the Sophgo SG2002 SoC and features 256MB of DDR3 memory, a mix of connectivity options, and can be used for a variety of embedded purposes.

The Sophgo SG2002 features a 1GHz C906 RISC-V CPU cire as well as a 1GHz Arm Cortex-A53 core, but only one or the other can be used at a time. At boot time the initialization has to be done to using either the primary RISC-V or ARM core. There is also a 700MHz C906 RISC-V core as a secondary core. Plus the SG2002 also has an NPU with 1 TOPS capabilities.

There is a Debian spin for the LicheeRV Nano as well as patches for enabling this mini ARM/RISC-V SBC elsewhere. Hitting the Linux kernel mailing list today are the basic patches for enabling this board to boot on a mainline Linux kernel.

[1]This patch series provides the basic enabling of the LicheeRV Nano with SG2002 chip to be able to boot to a basic shell. We'll see if they get reviewed and are in order for mainlining in Linux v6.11 later this summer.

The LicheeRV Nano is available on the likes of AliExpress for around $9 USD.



[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240527-sg2002-v1-0-1b6cb38ce8f4@bootlin.com/