Q&A with: Richard Curtin, CTO & Co-Founder of OKdo on the new Rock range.

Richard Curtain, OKdo Global SVP Technology

"OKdo is a business built on partnerships. We're working with some of the best technology companies on the planet to bring the latest products and innovations to more people around the world, wherever they are on their SBC and IoT journey."

We’re battling availability shortages of semiconductors, and our partners at OKdo have introduced an exciting addition to their range of single-board computers. The ROCK series is a robust, customisable, high-performing range of single-board computers (SBC). We spoke with their co-founder and CTO, Richard Curtin, about the latest solutions introduced by OKdo, aimed to tackle supply chain constraints and drive SBC design innovations – the ROCK boards. 

Question: What is ROCK? 

Answer: ROCK is a range of reliable and low-power single-board computers developed in collaboration between OKdo and Radxa. It offers industry-grade capabilities, hardware and performance in a similar form factor as other popular SBC boards. The team at OKdo has developed a robust supply chain meaning that the board is in stock now…and will remain in stock.

These versatile boards have been formed with our customers in mind, they have high-performing hardware, as standard and what’s more, the ROCK boards can be fully customised to suit your application. This brings huge financial and environmental benefits during current supply chain challenges, allowing professional design engineers to leverage cutting-edge technology for developing high-volume end products.

This proposition offers professionals, industrial OEMs, IoT enthusiasts, hobbyists, PC DIY enthusiasts and makers a reliable and capable platform for bringing their ideas and projects to life, supporting the most extraordinary next-generation technology applications. 

The ROCK collection of boards are designed around processors provided by Rockchip, a semiconductor company based in China. They have sales of billions of dollars in China or the APAC region, they have a very modest market share position in Europe and North America. Nevertheless, they’ve gained an outstanding reputation outside of Asia and continue to grow and expand globally and with OKdo the possibilities are endless.

What’s great about using the publicly available processors from Rockchip is that they offer detailed product information, such as comprehensive datasheets. If you are a professional user and you’d like to internalize the technology, the bill of materials (BOM) used by Rockchip is openly available in the market. 

Question: What are the advantages of the ROCK range of boards?

Answer: One of the greatest advantages of the Rockchip that is used on the ROCK range is the diversified model they use to produce their wafers in fabs. Considering the supply chain constraints that Taiwan Semiconductors have had lately, there is a significant risk of stock shortages when the production of semiconductors is solely located in Asia or in one wafer fab. 

Rockchip, on the other hand, use several different fabs to produce their wafers, meaning that they have been able to navigate the supply chain challenges better than some other semiconductor companies. This was one of the main attraction points when we initiated the design, manufacture and distribution partnership with Radxa, a Rockchip design partner, to solve our customers’ problems. 

Question: Who are the ROCK boards designed for?

Answer: The ROCK products have been designed by a talented engineering team from Radxa in China in collaboration with the team of OKdo engineers.  They’ve approached their engineering by putting the customers first and considering how they can provide everybody, from education and makers to industrial customers, with scalable, robust platforms using next-generation technology. It has been another key differentiator that laid the foundation of our partnership with Radxa and Rock Chip. 

We are also expanding our semiconductor design strategy with some of the largest semiconductor suppliers in the world to provide our customers with the performance they need as standard. We’re really excited about this range and look forward to seeing what more of the Design Spark community does with it. 

If you're interested in being one of the first to try the range, register your interest in becoming one of our ROCK Stars (a.k.a BETA testers here.  Alternatively, reach out to one of our expert engineers to learn more about how these boards can help your operation take off here.