Award-winning embedded solutions provider AAEON has announced the launch of the RICO-MX8P, an NXP i.MX 8M Plus-powered fanless single-board built on the Pico-ITX Plus form factor.
Utilizing the i.MX 8M Plus, the RICO-MX8P leverages a platform comprised of a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor, a secondary core Arm Cortex M7, and an optional Neural Processing Unit (NPU) offering up to 2.3 TOPS of inference performance.
Equipped with an integrated Vivante GC7000 UltraLite 3D GPU, a dedicated VPU, MIPI DSI interface, and an HDMI 2.0 port, it is clear AAEON is positioning the RICO-MX8P as a candidate for multimedia applications, with digital signage, smart kiosk, and interactive Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising earmarked as potential uses. Further benefits to such use are evident from the board’s support for APIs like OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan, and OpenCL 1.2, alongside its multiformat encoding and decoding capabilities.
However, the RICO-MX8P appears to be quite a versatile board, able to rely on a combination of its processor platform and interface selection to support low-latency, entry-level industrial AI applications. The RICO-MX8P offers broad connectivity for peripheral devices, with a physical I/O populated by GbE LAN, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 (one Type-C OTG, one Type-A), and an HDMI 2.0 port.
Meanwhile, the board’s internal interfaces provide more enough versatility to support a range of industrial communication protocols, with RS-232/422/485 pin headers, UART, GPIO, and a 40-pin FPC connector. Such specs make the board suitable for deployment in industrial control systems such as PLCs and telemetry, particularly given its -20°C to 70°C temperature tolerance, light weight, and small form factor.
Expansion options for the RICO-MX8P include an M.2 2230 E-Key slot, which offers Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, while a full-size mPCIe slot grants 4G/LTE capability. These are joined by Micro SD and Nano SIM card slots (Push-Push type) for cellular network connectivity and additional storage, respectively.
