Zero/hardware/zero

 Radxa Zero >  Hardware >  Main Board

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This hardware user manual provides information about the features and details available on Radxa Zero board.

Power

The Radxa Zero is designed as a low power consumption Single Board Computer, it supports the following power input:

- USB PD or QC power adapter which support 5V, 1A or larger output

- Power adapter with fixed 5V voltage

- USB port on PC or laptop

- 5V Power from the GPIO PIN 2 & 4

The max power consumption of Radxa Zero without USB peripheral is 3.3W.

Processor

The SoC used in Radxa Zero is Amlogic S905Y2. The main system CPU is a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU with unified L2 cache to improve system performance. In addition, the Cortex-A53 CPU includes the NEON SIMD co-processor to improve software media processing capability. The graphic subsystem consists of two graphic engines and a flexible video/graphic output pipeline. The ARM G31 MP2 GPU handles all OpenGL ES 3.2 Vulkan 1.0 and OpenCL 2.0 graphic programs, while the 2.5D graphics processor handles additional scaling, alpha, rotation and color space conversion operations.

Networking

Radxa Zero supports wireless network via the on board WiFi/BT modules.

For Radxa Zero 512MB or 1GB ram model, it comes with AP6212 module. The wireless module complies with IEEE 802.11 b/g/n standard and it can achieve up to a speed of 72.2Mbps with single stream in 802.11n draft, 54Mbps as specified in IEEE 802.11g, or 11Mbps for IEEE 802.11b to connect to the wireless LAN. It also provides Bluetooth V4.0(HS) with integrated Class 1.5 PA and Low Energy (BLE) support.

For Radxa Zero 2GB or 4GB model, it comes with AP6256 module. The wireless module complies with IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac standard and it can achieve up to a speed of 433.3Mbps with single stream in 802.11ac draft to connect to the wireless LAN. It also supports Bluetooth V5.0+EDR with integrated PA for Class 1.5 and Low Energy (BLE).

Optional on board antenna or external antenna(SKU with T variant) are supported by the Radxa Zero. The u.FL connector is TBD.

USB

The Radxa Zero has two USB C connector. One is for USB 2.0 OTG and power. One is for USB 3.0 HOST. The USB 2.0 OTG is also used for power input. The USB OTG can also be used for USB boot from PC.

The USB 3.0 type C supports 5Gbps/s speed and double side plug, a USB C hub is recommend to use with it for USB A, Ethernet expansion. The USB 3.0 type C doesn't support DP alt mode, ie no display.

TF Card Interface

The TF card can be used as a system storage or an external storage. When it's used as a system storage, you had better choose the ones with storage space larger than 8GB. When it's used as an external storage, you can choose the ones with storage space up to 128GB. When the TF card is inserted into the TF card slot , the device will be automatically recognized by the system.

The TF card interface pin specification shows below.

Pin#	Name
1	SDMMC0_D2
2	SDMMC0_D3
3	SDMMC0_CMD
4	VCC3V3_SYS
5	SDMMC0_CLK
6	GND
7	SDMMC0_D0
8	SDMMC0_D1
9	SDMMC0_DET_L
10	GND
11	GND
12	GND
13	GND

eMMC (Not available on 512MB or 1GB model)

The high performance eMMC module is equipped on Radxa Zero 2GB and 4GB model. The eMMC module offers 8GB/16GB/32GB/64GB/128GB options. The eMMC meets eMMC 5.0 and HS400 mode.

HDMI

The Radxa Zero is equipped with one micro HDMI connector. For HDMI, the maximum resolution is 4k@60Hz. Any HDMI monitor should work as a display for the zero. HDMI port supports Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) function. Using zero connected to a TV that supports CEC, you can use the cec application such as cec-client tool to control the inputs and the TV itself.

The HDMI interface pin specification shows below.

Pin#	Name
1	HDMI_TX2P
2	GND
3	HDMI_TX2N
4	HDMI_TX1P
5	GND
6	HDMI_TX1N
7	HDMI_TX0P
8	GND
9	HDMI_TX0N
10	HDMI_TXCP
11	GND
12	HDMI_TXCN
13	PORT_CEC
14	NC
15	DDC_SCL
16	DDC_SDA
17	GND
18	VCC5V0_HDMI
19	HDMI_HPD

General purpose input-output (GPIO) connector

Radxa Zero has a 40-pin expansion header. Each pin is distinguished by color.

Check GPIO for details.