Examining the Jetson AGX Orin Development Kit

April 18, 2022

Editor Bill Wong checks out the development kit built around NVIDIA's Jetson AGX Orin module.

I took a quick look at NVIDIA's Jetson AGX Orin Development Kit built around NVIDIA's Jetson AGX Orin module (Fig 1). The form factor is compatible with the earlier Jetson AGX Xavier, but the Orin can deliver eight times the performance at 275 TOPS. The development kit provides a way to get started with the module.

1. The Jetson AGX Orin Development Kit includes a carrier board and case with an M.2 socket that can handle an NVMe SSD.

The Jetson AGX Orin module (Fig. 2) is built around a CPU, GPU, and accelerators designed to handle machine-learning (ML) models. The CPU complex includes a dozen, 64-bit Arm Cortex-A78AE v8.2 cores that have access to a 3-MB L2 and 6-MB L3 cache. The GPU incorporates NVIDIA's new Ampere architecture. It includes 2,048 NVIDIA CUDA cores and 64 Tensor cores.

In addition, there are two NVIDIA Deep Learning Accelerators (NDLAs) v2.0 along with a PVA v2.0 vision accelerator. The module adds 32 GB of 256-bit LPDDR5 DRAM with a 204.8-GB/s bandwidth. Nonvolatile storage includes 64 GB eMMC 5.1. The M.2 socket on the kit's carrier board can be utilized to extend the on-module storage.

The smaller M.2 E-key is used for the Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth support. There are two antennas; one is hidden in a cover that also hides the PCI Express (PCIe) socket. On top of that, a 40-pin header provides access to interfaces like I²C, CAN, and serial ports.

2. The Jetson AGX Orin (left) has a smaller counterpart, the Jetson Orin (right).

NVIDIA's software tools and stacks compatible with ML frameworks like PyTorch and TensorFlow are what make Jetson AGX Orin so compelling (Fig. 3).

3. NVIDIA's software tools and stacks are what makes the Jetson AGX Orin so impressive.

I will be taking a closer look at these tools and stacks in a future hands-on article. In the meantime, check out the Kit Close-up video above.

More videos about the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin Development Kit

Getting Started with the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit

NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin: Next-level AI Performance for Next-Gen Robotics

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.