Banana Pi is expanding its compute module lineup with the BPI-CM7, a 5.5 x 4.0 cm (2.2 x 1.6 inch) system-on-module built around the Allwinner H618 SoC. The module pairs a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor clocked at up to 1.5 GHz with an Arm Mali-G31 GPU, onboard LPDDR4 memory, eMMC storage, and Wi-Fi 5 with Bluetooth 5.0, all connected to a carrier board through two 100-pin board-to-board connectors. Published layout images show a 2 GB/32 GB configuration, though Banana Pi says memory and storage capacities will vary by SKU.
The H618 is a well-traveled chip in the SBC world, already powering boards like Sipeed's Longan Pi 3H, the Avaota C1, and Banana Pi's own BPI-M4 Zero. Putting it on a compute module opens the door to custom carrier board designs for embedded applications, kiosks, or lightweight home automation setups. The companion BPI-CM7IO carrier board breaks out the module's I/O into familiar connectors: two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, HDMI, 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, a microSD slot, a 40-pin GPIO header, and USB-C for power. It also adds a mini-PCIe-style socket (over USB 2.0) with an adjacent SIM card slot, plus composite video and stereo line output on a four-pin header.
On the software side, Banana Pi documents an Armbian 24.11.1 image based on Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS running a Linux 5.4.125 legacy sunxi64 kernel. That is a dated kernel for a 2026 launch, though it reflects Allwinner's vendor BSP rather than the state of mainline support. The H618 has had basic mainline Linux support since kernel 6.0, with NAND controller support merged as recently as kernel 6.19, so users willing to run a mainline build can get a much more current kernel on this hardware. Pricing and availability for the BPI-CM7 and its carrier board have not been announced.
