Amlogic S905X Processor Specifications

[Update September 2016: Removed Video Input Unit and Gigabit Ethernet MAC, since the latest documents have removed them]

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the upcoming Amlogic S905M quad core Cortex A53 processor support 4K VP9 and 10-bit HEVC, but the silicon manufacturer seems to struggle with sticking with a name, as after the initial S908 part, they moved to S905M, before hopefully settling on Amlogic S905X, for which I received more information include a block diagram, and more detailed specifications.

These are most of the specifications currently available for Amlogic S905X processor with highlights in bold:

• CPU Sub-system –  Quad core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU up to 1.5GHz (DVFS) with Neon and Crypto extensions
• 3D Graphics Processing Unit – Penta-core ARM Mali-450 GPU up to 750MHz+ (DVFS) with two geometry/vertex processors, three pixel processors supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 and OpenVG 1.1.
• 2.5D Graphics Processor – Fast bitblt engine with dual inputs and single output, programmable raster operations (ROP) and polyphase scaling filter, etc..
• Crypto Engine – AES/AES-XTS block cipher with 128/192/256 bits keys, DES/TDES block cipher, Hardware crypto key-ladder operation and DVB-CSA for transport stream encryption,  built-in hardware True Random Number Generator (TRNG), CRC and SHA-1/SHA-2/HMAC SHA engine
• Video/Picture CODEC
  • Amlogic Video Engine (AVE-10) with dedicated hardware decoders and encoders
  • Supports multiple “secured” video decoding sessions and simultaneous decoding and encoding
  • Video/Picture Decoding
    • VP9 Profile-2 up to 4Kx2K@60fps
    • H.265 HEVC MP-10@L5.1 up to 4Kx2K@60fps
    • H.264 AVC HP@L5.1 up to 4Kx2K@30fps, H.264 MVC up to 1080p @60fps
    • MPEG-4 ASP@L5 up to 1080P@60fps (ISO-14496)
    • WMV/VC-1 SP/MP/AP up to 1080P@60fps
    • AVS-P16(AVS+) /AVS-P2 JiZhun Profile up to 1080P@60fps
    • MPEG-2 MP/HL up to 1080P@60fps (ISO-13818)
    • MPEG-1 MP/HL up to 1080P@60fps (ISO-11172)
    • RealVideo 8/9/10 up to 1080P@60fps
    • WebM up to VGA
    • MJPEG and JPEG unlimited pixel resolution decoding (ISO/IEC-10918)
    • Supports JPEG thumbnail, scaling, rotation and transition effects
  • Video/Picture Encoding
    • Independent JPEG and H.264 encoder with configurable performance/bit-rate
    • JPEG image encoding
    • H.264 video encoding up to 1080P@60fps with low latency
• Video Post-Processing Engine – HDR10 & HLG HDR processing, REC709/BT2020 processing, motion adaptive 3D noise reduction filter, advanced motion adaptive edge enhancing de-interlacing engine, 3:2 pull-down support, deblocking fliters, etc..
• Video Output
  • Built-in HDMI 2.0a transmitter including both controller and PHY with 3D, CEC, HDR and HDCP 2.2, 4Kx2K@60 max resolution output
  • CVBS 480i/576i standard definition output
• Camera Interface – 2x ITU 601/656 parallel video input with down-scalar, supports camera input as YUV422, RGB565,16bit RGB or JPEG
• Audio Decoder and Input/Output
  • Supports MP3, AAC, WMA, RM, FLAC, Ogg and programmable with 7.1/5.1 down-mixing
  • I2S audio interface supporting 8-channel (7.1) input and output
  • Built-in serial digital audio SPDIF/IEC958 output and PCM input/output
  • Built-in dual-channel audio DAC with amplifier
  • Dual-channel digital microphone PDM input
  • Supports concurrent dual audio stereo channel output with combination of I2S+PCM
• Memory and Storage Interface
  • 16/32-bit SDRAM memory interface running up to DDR2133
  • Supports up to 2GB DDR3/4, DDR3L, LPDDR2, LPDDR3 with dual ranks
  • Supports SLC/MLC/TLC NAND Flash with 60-bit ECC
  • SDSC/SDHC/SDXC card and SDIO interface with 1-bit and 4-bit data bus width supporting up to UHS-I SDR104
  • eMMC and MMC card interface with 1/4/8-bit data bus width fully supporting spec version 5.0 HS400
  • Supports serial 1, 2 or 4-bit NOR Flash via SPI interface
  • Built-in 4k bits One-Time-Programming memory for key storage (That must be where DRM / HDCP keys are programmed)
• Network
  • Integrated 10/100M PHY interface
  • Supports Energy Efficiency Ethernet (EEE) mode
• Integrated I/O Controllers and Interfaces
  • 2x USB 2.0 high-speed USB I/O, one USB Host and one USB OTG
  • Multiple UART, I2C and SPI interface with slave select
  • Multiple PWMs
  • Programmable IR remote input/output controllers
  • Built-in 10bit SAR ADC with 2 input channels
  • General Purpose IOs with built-in pull up and pull down
• System, Peripherals and Misc. Interfaces
  • Integrated general purpose timers, counters, DMA controllers
  • 24 MHz crystal input
  • Embedded debug interface using ICE/JTAG
• Power Management
  • Multiple external power domains controlled by PMIC, and internal ones controlled by software
  • Multiple sleep modes for CPU, system, DRAM, etc.
  • Multiple internal PLLs for DVFS operation
  • Multi-voltage I/O design for 1.8V and 3.3V
  • Power management auxiliary processor in a dedicated always-on (AO) power domain that can communicate with an external PMIC
• Security
  • Trustzone based Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)
  • Secured boot, encrypted OTP, encrypted DRAM with memory integrity checker, hardware key ladder and internal control buses and storage
  • Protected memory regions and electric fence data partition
  • Hardware based Trusted Video Path (TVP) , video watermarking and secured contents (requires SecureOS software)
  • Secured IO and secured clock

While we’ve now got much more details, the main features of Amlogic S905X have not changed since last month, so they’ll probably stay that way. I don’t have specific information about availability of the processor yet.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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