NVIDIA® released the third Jetson devkit of the series Orin. After AGX Orin, Orin NX here comes the NVIDIA® Jetson Orin NANO developer kit, the entry-level board of the latest generation of NVIDIA® Jetson embedded devices.
If you come from NVIDIA® Jetson Nano™, you must forget everything regarding this embedded device, because regardless of the name, the new Jetson Orin™ Nano is something different, beginning from the 80x improvements in AI performance.
The new Nano is more similar to the Xavier NX than the Nano Gen. 1.
The NVIDIA® Jetson Orin NANO Developer Kit sets a new standard for creating entry-level AI-powered robots, smart drones, and intelligent cameras, and simplifies getting started with the NVIDIA® Jetson platform. The Jetson Orin™ Nano Developer Kit delivers a class-leading performance of up to 40 TOPS in a compact form factor along with a full range of IO connectors making it the perfect developer kit for transforming your visionary concepts into reality.
NVIDIA® Jetson Orin™ Nano delivers the following key benefits:
- Up to 80X the AI performance of the previous generation NVIDIA® Jetson Nano™.
- Supports a wide variety of AI models, including transformers and advanced robotics models.
- Faster Time-to-Market with the NVIDIA AI software stack.
The developer kit includes a Jetson Orin Nano 8GB module and a reference carrier board that can support all Jetson Orin™ Nano and Orin™ NX modules, providing an ideal platform for prototyping next-gen edge AI products.
The Jetson Orin™ Nano 8GB module features an NVIDIA® Ampere GPU (with 1024 CUDA® cores and 32 third-generation Tensor cores) and a 6-core ARM CPU, capable of running multiple concurrent AI application pipelines and delivering high inference performance.
The carrier board included in the developer kit comes with a wide array of connectors, including two MIPI CSI connectors supporting camera modules with up to 4-lanes, allowing higher resolutions and frame rates.
Jetson Orin™ Nano Developer Kit features
- GPU: NVIDIA Ampere architecture with 1024 NVIDIA® CUDA® cores and 32 Tensor cores
- CPU: 6-core Arm Cortex-A78AE v8.2 64-bit CPU 1.5MB L2 + 4MB L3
- MEMORY: 8GB 128-bit LPDDR5 68 GB/s
- STORAGE: external via microSD slot + external NVMe via M.2 Key M
- POWER: 7W to 15W
Developer Kit Carrier Board
- Camera: 2x MIPI CSI-2 22-pin Camera Connectors
- M.2 Key M: x4 PCIe Gen 3
- M.2 Key M: x2 PCIe Gen3
- M.2 Key E: PCIe (x1), USB 2.0, UART, I2S, and I2C
- USB:
- Type A: 4x USB 3.2 Gen2
- Type C: 1x for Debug and Device Mode
- Networking: 1x Gbe Connector
- Display: DisplayPort 1.2 (+MST)
- microSD slot: UHS-1 cards up to SDR104 mode
- Others:
- 40-Pin Expansion Header (UART, SPI, I2S, I2C, GPIO)
- 12-pin button header
- 4-pin fan header
- DC power jack
- Dimensions: 100 mm x 79 mm x 21 mm (Height includes feet, carrier board, module, and thermal solution)
Developer kit contents
- Jetson Orin Nano 8GB module with heat sink and reference carrier board
- DC Power Supply
- 802.11ac/abgn wireless network interface controller
- Quick Start Guide
Up to 80X Higher AI Performance
The power-efficient Jetson Orin™ Nano 8GB System-on-Module (SoM) delivers up to 40 INT8 TOPS of AI performance within a 15-Watt power budget, an 80X speedup over the previous generation Jetson Nano Gen. 1: NVIDIA® Jetson Nano™ 0.5 FP16 TFLOPS vs Jetson Orin™ Nano 40 INT8 TOPS.
For applications requiring FP32 precision, Orin™ Nano 8GB delivers more than 5X the FP32 CUDA
TFLOPS of Jetson Nano™ and with six Arm® A78 CPU Cores, it delivers almost 7X CPU performance.
For designs with lower power requirements, the developer kit can be tuned for power profiles as low as 7W. Jetson Orin™ Nano delivers incredible energy efficiency and is almost 50X more energy efficient than Jetson Nano™ for AI performance.
A few pictures
Developer Kit Price
The NVIDIA® Jetson Orin NANO Developer Kit is priced at $499 and is available for purchase through NVIDIA® authorized distributors worldwide.
Unboxing
Conclusions
The NVIDIA® Jetson Orin NANO Developer Kit is really impressive, the declared performance is incomparable with respect to the previous families of Jetson devices, and this is only the entry-level device of the Orin™ family.
The price is certainly not affordable for all budgets, but performance comes at a price and here performance is something that only 8 years ago was unthinkable for an embedded device.
8 years ago I was one of the first to use the first Jetson, the Jetson TK1 on an autonomous robot,today it is impossible to think of an intelligent autonomous robot not equipped with an NVIDIA Jetson card.
It’s really easy now to bring AI to the edge, creating intelligent autonomous robots, capable of understanding the environment where they play and reacting accordingly in real time.
An obstacle is no more a set of filled cells on an occupancy grid, but it can be classified, and the robot can decide what to do with it in a way that is even closer to how we humans do…
I can’t wait for what NVIDIA® is going to release in the near future.
