Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 Platform with Qualcomm QCS6490 AI SoC targets robotics, IoT and embedded applications
Qualcomm had two main announcements at Embedded World 2024: the ultra-low-power Qualcomm QCC730 WiFi microcontroller for battery-powered IoT devices and the Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 Platform hardware and software solution designed for IoT and embedded applications based on the Qualcomm QCS6490 processor that we’re going to cover today.
While it’s the first time I’ve heard about the QCS6490, we already mentioned the 5G modem-equipped QCM6490 in our article about the Fairphone 5 smartphone. While the QCM6490 supports Android “with long-term support for OS upgrades, security updates, and enterprise”, the QCS6490 found in the RN3 Gen 2 platform runs “Qualcomm Linux” with an LTS kernel and an IoT software stack. As an IoT processor, the QCS6490 gets a 15-year longevity period.
While the press release mentions support for Linux only, the product brief lists both Android and Linux and several SDKs: the Qualcomm Intelligent Multimedia Product SDK (for Linux), Qualcomm Intelligent Robotics Product SDK, Qualcomm Neural Processing SDK, and Hexagon SDK. Qualcomm Linux is currently available for private preview, is planned for wider availability to developers in the coming months, and is maintained by Foundries.io which Qualcomm just acquired. The recently announced Qualcomm AI Hub with a library of pre-optimized AI models is also compatible with the new platform.