radxa ROCK5B 8K Pico ITX Single Board Computer Owner's Manual

the Radxa ROCK 5B+ stands as an upgraded version of the Radxa ROCK 5B, presenting itself as a compact single‑board computer (SBC) endowed with a myriad of cutting‑edge features, characteristics, and expansion possibilities. Catering to manufacturers, IoT enthusiasts, hobbyists, gamers, PC users, and anyone seeking an ideal platform with outstanding performance and reliability, the ROCK 5B+ from Radxa emerges as the preferred choice. Radxa offers various options for LPDDR5 memory configurations on the ROCK 5B+ board:

16GB
24GB

32GB

Note: The actual board layout or components’ location may change during the time but the main connectors type and location will remain the same

Features

Hardware

Rock chip RK 3588 SoC

Quad Cortex®‑A76 @ 2.2/2.4GHz and a quad Cortex®‑A55 @ 1.8GHz based on Arm® DynamIQ™ configuration
Arm® Mali™ G610MC4 GPU supporting:
- OpenGL® ES1.1, ES2.0, and ES3.2
- OpenCL® 1.1, 1.2 and 2.2
- Vulkan® 1.1 and 1.2
- Embedded high performance 2D image acceleration module

NPU supporting INT4 / INT8 / INT16 / FP16 / BF16 and TF32 acceleration and computing power is up to 6TOPs
64bit LPDDR5 RAM 5500 MT/S options:
- 4GB
- 8GB
- 16GB
- 24GB
- 32GB
Onboard eMMC options:
- 16GB
- 32GB
- 64GB
- 128GB
- 256GB
Able to provide 4 display outputs via two HDMI, one DP (type C) and one MIPI DSI

H.265 / H.264 / VP9 / AV1 / AVS2 video decoder up to 8K@60fps
H.264 / H.265 video encoder up to 8K@30fps

Interfaces

IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax Wireless LAN (Wi‑Fi 6)
BT 5.2 with BLE
1x back USB Type‑C™ port for power input
1x front USB Type‑C™ port supporting:
- DP display up to 4Kp60
- USB 3.0 OTG / HOST
1x Micro SD Card Slot
2x Standard HDMI output ports, one supporting display up to 8Kp60 resolution, one supporting up to 4Kp60
1x Standard HDMI input port, supporting up to 4Kp60 display input
2x USB2 Type A HOST ports
2x USB3 Type A HOST ports
1x 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port with PoE support (Additional PoE HAT Required)
2x M.2 M Key Connectors with PCIe 3.0 2‑lane support
1x M.2 B Key Connectors

2x Camera port (2x four‑lane MIPI CSI or 2x two‑lane MIPI CSI)
1x MIPI LCD port (four‑lane MIPI DSI)
1x Headphone Jack with Microphone Input

Miscellaneous
- 1x RTC Battery Connector
- 1x Fan Socket with PWM Control
- 1x Power button
- 1x Recovery button
- 1x Maskrom button
- 1x RGB power/status/user LED
- 2x Heatsink Mounting Holes
40 pin 0.1” (2.54mm) header supporting a wide range of interface options:
- 2 x UART
- 2 x SPI bus
- 2 x I2C bus
- 1 x PCM/I2S
- 1 x SPDIF
- 1 x PWM
- 1 x ADC
- 6 x GPIO
- 2 x 5V DC power in/out
- 2 x 3.3V power out

Software

ArmV8 Instruction Set

Debian/Ubuntu Linux support
Android 12 support
Open Fyde OS(Chromium OS fork) support

RKNPU2 NPU software stack
Hardware access/control library for Linux/Android

Mechanical Specification

Electrical Specification

Power Requirement

The ROCK 5B+ supports various power supply technologies including smart power adapter as well as fixed voltage:

USB Type‑C PD Version 2.0 with 9V, 12V, 15V and 20V input support

Power adapter with fixed voltage in 5V to 20V range on the USB Type‑C port
5V Power applied to the GPIO PIN 2 & 4

The recommended power source should be able to produce, at least, 24W without a M.2 SSD or 40W with a M.2 SSD.

GPIO Voltage

GPIO	Voltage Level	Tolerance
All GPIO	3.3V	3.6V
SARADC_IN	1.8V	1.98V

Operating Conditions

The ROCK 5B+ has been designed to operate between 0°C to 50°C.
This temperature range was defined based on typical usage where the efficient use of Arm big. LITTLE technology can automatically select which processor core to utilise for a given task, the result of which is minimal heat generation and responsive user experience.
The ROCK 5B+ is built on a high‑performance mobile chipset which is designed to operate for extended durations on batteries with efficiency at its core. As with all electronic devices heat is a by‑product of operation which increases with performance and workload; during basic use cases such as web browsing, editing text or listening to music the SoC will automatically select the smallest processors available or dedicated hardware accelerators to reduce heat generation thus reserving the higher performance processors and thermal window for demanding tasks as and when required.

The SoC (RK3588) is specified to limit its maximum internal temperature to 80°C before throttling the clock speeds to maintain reliability within the allowed temperature range. If the ROCK 5B+ is intended to be used continuously in high performance applications, it may be necessary to use external cooling methods (for example, heat sink, fan, etc.) which will allow the SoC to continue running at maximum clock speed indefinitely below its predefined 80°C peak temperature limiter.

Peripherals

GPIO Interface

The ROCK 5B+ offers a 40 pin GPIO expansion header which provides extensive compatibility with a wide range of accessories developed for the SBC market.

GPIO Alternate Functions

Function5	Function4	Function3	Function2	Function1	Pin#	Pin#	Function1	Function2	Function3	Function4	Function5
				+3.3V	1	2	+5.0V
I2S1_SDO2_M0 I2C7_SDA_M3		PWM15_IR_M1 CAN1_TX_M1 GPIO4_B3			3	4	+5.0V
I2S1_SDO1_M0 I2C7_SCL_M		PWM14_M1 CAN1_RX_M1 GPIO4_B2			5	6	GND
SPI1_CS1_M1 I2C8_SDA_M		UART7_CTSN_M1PWM15_IR_M0 GPIO3_C3			7	8	GPIO0_B5	T2_TX_M0I2S1_MCLK_M1 I2C1_SCL_M0
				GND	9	10	GPIO0_B6	UART2_RX_M0I2S1_SCLK_M1 I2C1_SDA_M0
		SPI1_CLK_M1 UART7_RX_M1 GPIO3_C1			11	12	GPIO3_B5	PWM12_M0 CAN1_RX_M0 UART3_TX_M1 I2S2_SCLK_M1
		SPI1_MOSI_M1 I2C3_SCL_M1 GPIO3_B7			13	14	GND	SPI4_CS1_M1 UART8_RTSN_M1I2S3_SDI
		SPI1_MISO_M1 I2C3_SDA_M1 UART7_TX_M1 GPIO3_C			15	16	GPIO3_A4
				+3.3V	17	18	GPIO4_C4	I2C7_SDA_M1 UART9_RTSN_M0SPI3_MISO_M0PWM5_M2
	UART4_RX_M2 PDM1_SDI3_M1SPI0_MOSI_M2GPIO1_B2				19	20	GND
		PDM1_SDI2_M1SPI0_MISO_M2GPIO1_B			21	22	SARADC_IN4
	UART4_TX_M2 PDM1_CLK1_M1SPI0_CLK_M2 GPIO1_B				23	24	GPIO1_B4	SPI0_CS0_M2 PDM1_CLK0_M1UART7_RX_M2
				GND	25	26	GPIO1_B5	SPI0_CS1_M2 UART7_TX_M2
PWM7_IR_M3 SPI3_CLK_M0 UART7_CTSN_M0I2C0_SDA_M1 GPIO4_C6					27	28	GPIO4_C5	I2C0_SCL_M1 UART9_CTSN_M0SPI3_MOSI_M0PWM6_M2
	UART1_CTSN_M1I2C8_SDA_M2 PWM15_IR_M3 GPIO1_D7				29	30	GND
UART1_RX_M1 I2C5_SDA_M3 SPDIF_TX_M0 PWM13_M2 GPIO1_B7					31	32	GPIO3_C2	PWM14_M0 UART7_RTSN_M1I2C8_SCL_M4 SPI1_CS0_M
			PWM8_M0 GPIO3_A7		33	34	GND
2S2_LRCK_M1 UART3_RX_M1 CAN1_TX_M0 PWM13_M0 GPIO3_B6					35	36	GPIO3_B1	PWM2_M1 UART2_TX_M2
			REFCLK_OUT GPIO0_A0		37	38	GPIO3_B2	PWM3_IR_M1 UART2_RX_M2 I2S2_SDI_M1
				GND	39	40	GPIO3_B3	UART2_RTSN I2S2_SDO_M1

Network

ROCK 5B+ provides a 10/100/1000/2500 Mbps RJ45 connector for wired networking. When equipped with an additional PoE module or HAT, the ROCK 5B+ can be powered through an Ethernet cable connected to the RJ45 port, leveraging the capabilities of a PoE‑enabled switch or router.

Camera and Display Interfaces

The ROCK 5B+ is equipped with two four‑channel MIPI CSI camera connectors and one four‑ channel MIPI DSI connector. These connectors are specifically designed for Radxa camera and monitor accessories. Moreover, they offer backward compatibility, allowing the use of standard industrial camera and monitor peripherals through Radxa adapter FPC cables.

USB

The ROCK 5B+ is equipped with a USB 3.0 OTG Type‑C port and supports a DP interface, which allows for a maximum resolution of 4Kp60.
Furthermore, the ROCK 5B+ features two USB 2.0 HOST ports and two USB 3.0 HOST ports, all of which are Type‑A connectors. The combined output power for these four ports is 2A.

HDMI Output

The ROCK 5B+ is equipped with two standard HDMI output ports, both featuring CEC sup‑ port and HDMI 2.1 compatibility. These ports offer impressive resolutions, delivering 8Kp60 and 4Kp60, respectively.

HDMI Input

The ROCK 5B+ features a single standard HDMI input port, supporting HDMI 2.1 input with a resolution of 4Kp60.

Audio Jack

The ROCK 5B+ supports high quality analogue audio output via a 4‑ring 3.5mm headphone jack. The analog audio output can drive 32 Ohm headphones directly. The audio jack also supports microphone input as default.

M.2 Connector

At the back of the circuit board, there are two M.2 M Key connectors, offering a total of two dual‑channel PCIe 3.0 interfaces. Each M.2 M Key connector on the board features a standard M.2 2280 mounting hole, allowing the installation of M.2 2280 NVMe solid‑state drives. It’s important to note that M.2 SATA solid‑state drives are not supported.

Fan Connector

The ROCK 5B+ has a 2 pin 1.25mm header that enables users to connect a 5V fan (or other peripheral). The fan can be PWM controlled without speed feedback

Availability

Radxa guarantees availability of the Radxa ROCK 5B+ until at least September 2032.

Support

For support please see the hardware documentation section of the Radxa Website and post questions to the Radxa forum.

Note: Some SIM card slots configured with the product are not used. If a SIM card slot is used, it will be retested and a new certification will be applied for.

FCC Warning

FCC Caution: Any changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance could void the user’s authority to operate this equipment. This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:
(1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation. This device and its antenna(s) must not be co-located or operating in conjunction with any other antenna or transmitter. 15.105 Information to the user.
(b) For a Class B digital device or peripheral, the instructions furnished the user shall include the following or similar statement, placed in a prominent location in the text of the manual:
Note: This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to part 15 of the FCC Rules.
These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio communications. However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception, which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:

Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna.

Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver.
Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected.
Consult the dealer or an experienced radio/TV technician for help.

This equipment complies with FCC radiation exposure limits set forth for an uncontrolled environment. This equipment should be installed and operated with minimum distance 20 cm between the radiator and your body.

Documents / Resources

radxa ROCK5B 8K Pico ITX Single Board Computer [pdf] Owner's Manual
ROCK5B, ROCK5B 8K Pico ITX Single Board Computer, 8K Pico ITX Single Board Computer, ITX Single Board Computer, Single Board Computer, Board Computer, Computer

References

User Manual

Revision Control Table

Introduction