The Rockchip RK3588 processor may remain the most powerful processor from the company for a while as an updated Rockchip IoT processor roadmap reveals the new RK3576 octa-core SoC and RK3506 tri-core Cortex-A7 chip, as well as a Linux 6.1 SDK to be released in Q4 2023.

With the limited information we have, the Rockchip RK3576 looks to be a cost-down version of the RK3588 processor with eight cores, a 6 TOPS NPU, a 4K video codec, as well as PCIe and USB-C interfaces. Strangely the Rockchip RK3582 that should serve a similar purpose is not showing up in the roadmap.

The Rockchip RK3506 will target cost-sensitive Linux IoT/HMI applications with a triple-core Cortex-A7 CPU, a 2D GPU, and MIPI and RGB display interfaces. I could not find additional public information for either RK3506 or RK3576 at this stage, and all information comes from the slides used in a September 2023 presentation with OKDO, RS components, Radxa, and Rockchip themselves.

That document also includes a kernel and SDK roadmap with Rockchip planning to release Linux 6.1 SDKs/BSPs with Debian 12 between Q4 2023 and Q3 2024 for the RK3588, RK3506 (no Debian), RK3568, RK3566, RK3562, RK3399, and RK3288 with the exact expected schedule for each SoC shown in the table below.

All targets will be supported through the Buildroot 2021.11 build system, and apart from the low-end RK3506, all targets that will get a Linux 6.1 SDK update will be supported through the Yocto 4.0 build system as well. Rockchip is supposed to keep us up-to-date on its open-source website but the pages related to the Linux kernel and the software matrix have not been updated since 2019-2020. The GitHub repo for the Rockchip Linux kernel is not getting a lot of love either with the last commit dated September 30, 2022 (Linux 5.10 branch).

Thanks to Geoffrey for the tip.

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.