Why Rockchip Sucks

November 13 2025

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Context: This is concluded from my time at FUTO working on bare metal rockchip code

Documentation

• In both the RK3399 and RK3588, exactly 67% of subsystems¹ on the chip are documented²
  • RK3399 TRM only covers 33 out of 49 subsystems
  • RK3588 TRM only covers 89 out of 132 subsystems
• Rockchip's SGRF³ is the most important register file that is undocumented. Configuring it is necessary in order to enable shared memory, which is needed in order to get a framebuffer working.
• RK3399 eMMC documentation is missing CMD_INDEX field from the EMMCCORE_CMD register (which is the most important field in the whole IP)
• Samsung HDMI/eDP Combo PHY docs are missing a lot of registers from the register map⁴

Design

• RK3588 GRF, CRU, and PMU is split into a dozen different register files and not organized in any way or set up for strided access
  • Offsets and bitfields have to be hardcoded in a map in order to setup PLLs and change iomux settings
• Why does VOP2 need 2 different layer systems? What does 'ESMART' stand for? Why is the TRM so vague?
• It's impossible to configure iomux for a rockchip i2c controller to be used for HDMI. Instead, a completely separate DesignWare I2C driver has to be written specifically for HDMI
• HDMI 2.1 DesignWare IP is used - supports a lot of features and is difficult to get working
• RK3588 has a ton of variants and derivatives (RK3588S/RK3588J/RK3576...) and supporting them all is difficult

Ecosystem

• Joshua Reik burned out from working on ubuntu-rockchip for various reasons, but mainly because he couldn't get in touch with Rockchip for assistance⁵, after working on Rockchip boards for free
• edk2-rk3588 maintainer (Mario) moved on from the project because:
  • Rockchip refuses to adopt standards properly or upstream hardware support
  • Board vendors refuse to offer assistance to the community working on their hardware for free
  • Most board vendors do the bare minimum for people to buy their product and leave their customers in the dark after that
• "I was told Rockchip no longer considers RK3588 to be an “open source” chip. In practice, that means Rockchip no longer contributes RK3588 code to open-source projects and they also decided not to sell RK3588 directly to SBC vendors."⁸
  • Rockchip is still consistently contributing RK3588 code to the kernel
  • Rockchip has refused to make any documentation at all available for the RK3588 ⁹
  • Opinion: Rockchip is insane if they ever considered RK3588 'open source' in the first place
• Rockchip and their vendors (Orange Pi, Banana Pi, Radxa, Cool-Pi, etc) release boards and products with subpar hardware support
  • Some boards require custom kernels and bootloaders
  • Some boards use nonstandard hardware that requires additional kernel work to get working
• Rockchip employees are still working on upstreaming support for RK3588, years after release ⁶
• Rockchip is shifting focus to Edge AI, Automotive, Robotics, and smart audio solutions ⁷