Forlinx OK1126Bx-C: 3 TOPS Edge AI Board That Sips Power

A small camera that runs on battery for months while recognizing faces sounds like a stretch, yet the Forlinx OK1126Bx-C is engineered exactly for that scenario. The Rockchip RV1126B inside combines four Cortex-A53 cores with a 3 TOPS neural processing unit running mixed INT8/INT16 precision. Kantan.news frames the board around low power rather than raw throughput: inference performance per watt is the headline. That framing decides real deployments in smart cameras and AIoT gateways that must stay on around the clock.

The RV1126B at its heart is a clean break from the older 32-bit RV1126. The 64-bit Cortex-A53 cluster reaches 1.6GHz in the commercial variant, capped at 1.3GHz in the industrial RV1126BJ. The NPU side moves TensorFlow, PyTorch, Caffe and MXNet models on-device through the RKNN toolchain, so detection, tracking and smoke alarms run without the cloud. According to the Forlinx product page, the 120x75mm board packs Ethernet, dual camera inputs and a single display output together.

Processor and memory architecture

Memory options span 1GB, 2GB or 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM with eMMC from 8GB up to 64GB; the commercial build fixes 64GB. The OS is a Linux 6.1.141 kernel, flashed over USB OTG or TF card. Operating temperature runs -20 to +85 degrees commercial and from -40 degrees industrial. Per the Forlinx hardware manual, the SoM itself is only 56x36mm and routes every processor pin out through three 80-pin connectors. The 10-15 year availability pledge is the line industrial buyers read first.

Imaging is where this board earns its keep. The 12-megapixel image signal processor offers HDR, 3D noise reduction and de-hazing, while the 8-megapixel AI-ISP pushes intelligent enhancement up to 4096x4096. The video engine decodes H.265 and H.264 at 4K and 30 frames per second; encoding runs HEVC, H.264 and JPEG in parallel up to 12 megapixels at 30fps. Two 4-lane MIPI-CSI camera inputs carry 2.5Gbps per lane, and the parallel DVP input reaches 150MHz. Display output tops out at 1080p60 across RGB, 4-lane MIPI-DSI and BT.656/1120.

The detail developers will love is the standard Raspberry Pi 40-pin header . UART5, I2C3, I2C4 and SPI1 all break out there, so existing Pi hats and sensor modules plug straight in. Electronics-Lab notes this compatibility seriously shortens hardware validation. The single Ethernet MAC runs either as gigabit RGMII or the integrated 100-megabit PHY, never both at once. One USB 2.0 host plus one USB 2.0/3.0 OTG, Type-C debugging, an SDR104 TF slot, a battery-backed real-time clock and 7 ADC inputs round out the package.

Power draw and AOV

The power figures document the claim. Per the manual table, idle standby measures 0.44W on the SoM and 1.18W for the whole board; full CPU load reads 1.54W and 2.3W. Even the stress test stays under 2.79W total. The star is AOV sleep mode : just 0.007W with the camera attached. That means the device pre-detects while asleep and wakes over Wi-Fi. Face recognition active draws around 1.01W, so a battery surveillance post can charge by day and stand watch by night.

Serial richness courts the industrial floor. Eight UART channels up to 4Mbps, dual CAN with CAN 2.0, five I2C buses, 27 PWM outputs and 24 ADC inputs at 13-bit 2MSPS come in one package. Audio brings two differential microphone inputs and an external 4-ohm 3.3W speaker output, with one electret mic already on board. A DSMC interface for FPGA links and three SAI audio buses are included too. The mix positions the board as a general-purpose industrial control node , not just a camera card.

The SoM-plus-carrier split is clever design. The 56x36mm module exposes every function over 240 pins at 0.5mm pitch, so custom-baseboard teams only respin the carrier. In the CNX Software review of the S variant, the 40x40mm castellated S and this C complement each other: one for compact embedded builds, one for fast prototyping. Three buttons, a wake key and a boot selector ease life for field testers.

Variants and market position

One caveat on wireless: the carrier circuitry is ready, but Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are unsupported in this revision. Projects needing radios should add an external module or look at the S variant. The single-MAC Ethernet limit likewise forces an architecture decision for dual-network designs. No 3D GPU exists, only 2D acceleration, so buy this board for inference, not interface animation. These limits are the conscious price of a low power and cost budget.

The target-market list sums up its identity: power-line monitoring, smart construction, intelligent transport, in-vehicle hosts, station surveillance and smart warehousing. All share harsh environments, tight power and on-site decisions. The jump from the A7-based RV1126 at 2 TOPS to 3 TOPS with a 64-bit move shows Forlinx raising the bar. Luckfox Aura and Boardcon modules compete nearby, but the 15-row power table and -40 degree support pull Forlinx ahead on the industrial side.

In short, the OK1126Bx-C promises measured efficiency over showy numbers. 3 TOPS of inference, a 4K video pipeline, Pi-ecosystem fit and milliwatt sleep add up to a field-ready edge intelligence platform . Missing wireless and single Ethernet are the two lines to check before starting a project. Past those caveats, it stands among the most balanced options for low-power vision work.