Asus subsidiary development board Up Core achieves Kickstarter target

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The developer board Up Core from Asus subsidiary Aaeon has reached the Kickstarter goal of 10,000 euros in a short time, after it was put on the crowdfunding site on Thursday. The board, in fact a Raspberry Pi clone, has a quad core and can be ordered for 69 euros.

According to the maker, the UP Core is the smallest quadcore x86 board in the world: the dimensions are 56.5x66mm. The motherboard weighs 40 grams and contains a 64bit Intel Atom x5 Z8350 quadcore that runs at 1.44GHz and has a turbo up to 1.92GHz. The Up Core gets 2 or 4 GB of ram and 32 or 64 GB of emmc 5.0 storage.

The board is also equipped with two USB 2.0 ports, a USB 3.0 port and an HDMI connection. In addition, there is a DSI/eDP and two MIPI-SCI camera ports with support for a 2- and an 8-megapixel camera. There is wifi and bluetooth 4.2 available and the Up Core works as a standalone with a monitor, keyboard, mouse and a power supply. Windows 10 is supported, as are Ubuntu, Linux, and Android 6.0, among others.

At the bottom of the Up Core is a 100-pin I/O connector. This is intended for two expansion boards that also become available and can be stacked on top of the Up Core. With the first expansion board, high-speed signals such as PCI Express, a Gigabit Ethernet port or USB 3.0 can be added. The other board is for adding low-speed signals such as RS-232/422/484, I2C, I2S and gpio.

In 2015, the manufacturer already made the first version of the development board, called the ‘Up’. A second version was released at the end of last year, the UP². This new version offered more connectivity and had a more powerful soc.

The Kickstarter campaign will run until July 1. A copy of the Up Core can be ordered for 69 euros; later it will be 75 euros. The plates will probably be delivered in August. For higher prices, copies can be ordered that contain more memory. These more expensive models are usually delivered in September or October. The Kickstarter page states that the signs will only ship in select countries; it is unclear which countries are involved.

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