Rockchip Says Microduck Robot Duck Uses RK3566 Chip as Orders Top USD 2.6 Million

The product's main control chip is Rockchip's (603893. SH) RK3566. At a half-year results briefing held on September 11, 2026, Wang Haimin, a Rockchip director, vice general manager and chief financial officer, said in response to an investor question that the RK3566, as a general-purpose AIoT application processor, can handle model inference, motion control, sensor processing and audio and video processing on the Microduck with a single chip, balancing performance, power consumption and cost.

On product planning, Rockchip disclosed at the briefing that its first coprocessor, the RK182X, has entered mass production in scenarios including AI televisions, commercial cleaning robots, companion robots, AI NAS, conference displays, conference smart boxes and personal assistants, with more innovative products expected to enter mass production. The RK186X, which supports the deployment of larger on-device models, will pair with the RK182X across high and low tiers to meet customer demand at different product levels. Li Shiqin, a vice general manager, said the RK182X can already perform the robot "brain" function, and that the new-generation computing coprocessor will improve in power consumption and performance and continue to iterate, with robots listed as one of the key application directions for both future flagship SoC chips and higher-compute coprocessors. The RK3572 is being promoted in target markets including tablets and mobile terminals, AI cameras, video analysis, NAS, retail equipment and digital signage, with solutions from several end customers under development.

In July 2025, Rockchip publicly introduced the product plans for its new-generation flagship chip RK3688, its sister chip RK3668 and the next-generation coprocessor RK1860. In its 2026 half-year report, the company said it was "continuously optimizing the design of the RK36 series flagship chips" without disclosing specific timelines for tape-out, sample delivery or customer design wins. At the briefing, an investor noted that leading international SoC companies generally release a flagship product once a year, said the company's pace of new product launches was slow and questioned whether research and development investment was insufficient. Rockchip responded that chip iteration cycles vary with market conditions, industry trends and chip complexity, and that the life cycle of its flagship AIoT chip platforms is typically more than 10 years; for the RK3668 and RK3688, the company has increased research and development resources and is advancing the related work.

Financial data show that Rockchip generated revenue of RMB 2.877 billion and net profit of RMB 859 million in the first half of 2026, up 40.60% and 61.73% year on year, both record highs for a comparable period. By quarter, net profit was RMB 329 million in the first quarter and RMB 530 million in the second quarter, up 26.43% and 60.95% quarter on quarter. Gross margin rose to 45.79% in the first half of 2026 from 42.29% a year earlier. Wang Haimin said the company's SoC chips generally do not include memory, so memory has a limited impact on gross margin. As of the end of the second quarter of 2026, the company's inventory had a book value of RMB 1.518 billion, mainly consisting of mid-to-high-end products as well as new and recently launched products. Cockpit chip platforms represented by the RK3588M and RK3576M have achieved scaled deployment in passenger and commercial vehicles.