Toradex Luna Is a “Pro Consumer” Edge AI SBC with Synaptics SL1680 SoC

Toradex Luna SL1680 is a pro-consumer Edge AI SBC

Toradex, a company known for its industrial hardware and accessories, is now targeting new audiences with the launch of the Toradex Luna SL1680 Edge AI SBC. This credit-card-sized SBC adopts Raspberry Pi’s form factor but is designed for “Pro Consumers” and light industrial applications. It is powered by a Synaptics SL1680 quad-core Cortex-A73 processor and features a built-in 7.9 TOPS NPU for Edge AI workloads.

Most embedded companies like Toradex focus strictly on the B2B market, often ignoring individual developers. The Luna SL1680 changes this approach by offering a board that bridges the gap between hobbyist devices and rugged industrial hardware. It offers a wider operating temperature range (-25°C to +85°C) and robust eMMC storage, making it suitable for applications where a standard Raspberry Pi might fail, but a full industrial computer is too expensive.

Toradex Luna SL1680  Edge AI SBC Block Diagram

Toradex Luna SL1680 Specifications:

• SoC: Synaptics SL1680
  • CPU: Quad-core Arm Cortex-A73 @ up to 2.1 GHz
  • GPU: Imagination PowerVR Series9XE GE9920 (OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 1.2)
  • AI Accelerator: 7.9+ TOPS NPU (TensorFlow Lite via SyNAP toolkit)
  • VPU:
    • Decode: 4K@60 AV1, H.265/HEVC, H.264, VP9/8, MPEG-2
    • Encode: 1080p@60 H.264, VP8
• Memory: Up to 4GB 32-bit LPDDR4 @ 4266 MT/s
• Storage:
  • Up to 256GB eMMC
  • MicroSD card slot
  • Onboard EEPROM
• Display:
  • Micro HDMI
  • 22-pin 4-lane MIPI DSI
  • Up to two independent displays
• Camera:
  • Micro HDMI input
  • 2× MIPI CSI (4-lane + 2-lane)
• Audio:
  • I2S and PDM via 40-pin header
  • Digital audio over HDMI
• Networking:
  • Gigabit Ethernet with optional PoE
  • Wi-Fi/Bluetooth via M.2 Key-E
• USB:
  • 4× USB 3.0 Type-A
  • USB-C for power and recovery
• Expansion:
  • M.2 Key-E (PCIe/SDIO/UART/PCM)
  • 40-pin GPIO (I2C, SPI, UART, PWM, ADC)
• Debug: UART header, JTAG test points
• Misc:
  • Power button
  • Fan header
  • RTC with battery connector
  • Boot mode jumpers
• Power: 5V via USB-C; optional PoE
• Dimensions: 85 × 56 × 17 mm
• Operating Temperature: −25 °C to +85 °C

Pro Consumer vs. Industrial: Readiness scales with price

The board runs Torizon, an embedded Linux distribution based on the Yocto Project. Toradex provides a VSCode extension to help developers get started quickly with templates for Python, C/C++, .Net, and UI frameworks like Qt and LVGL. The company also mentions that the Synaptics SL1680’s NPU is optimized for TensorFlow Lite inferencing using the Synaptics SyNAP toolkit. This allows the board to handle local AI tasks, such as object detection or image segmentation, without needing cloud connectivity. The inclusion of an HDMI Input port (alongside the output) is a notable feature, useful for video processing applications.

Toradex Luna SL1680 Top View

The Toradex Luna SL1680 will be available starting at $105. While this is more expensive than a base Raspberry Pi 5, the price includes the onboard eMMC storage, the NPU, and industrial-grade reliability. More details, along with a 57-page-long datasheet canbe found on the products page.

Images used courtesy of Toradex.com