Recently most development around AllWinner, at least for Linux, is focusing on AllWinner A20, and there are several AllWinner A20 board and development platforms available on the market such as Cubieboard2, A20-OLinuXino, IBOX and more. But apart from the team at Free Electrons, few people seem to be working on AllWinner A31, so there are few development platform available, if we exclude consumer products such as tablets and Android TV Boxes. There’s now an AllWinner A31 development board thanks to Mixtile LOFT-Q board, which also comes in LOFT Kit to make a complete mini PC with enclosure.
Mixtile LOFT-Q specifications:
- SoC – Allwinner A31 quad core ARM Cortex-A7 processor with PowerVR SGX544 MP2 GPU
- System Memory – 2GB 64-bit DDR3
- Storage – 8GB eMMC (ver 4.51), SATA III connector for 2.5″ drives, and SD card Slot
- Video Output – HDMI 1.4 up to 1080p
- Audio I/O – HDMI, 1 headphone/TOSLINK composite jack, 2 onboard MIC
- Connectivity – 10/100/1000M Ethernet, WiFi 802.11 a/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and Zigbee (
TBC– Confimed) - USB – 4x USB 2.0 host post, 1x micro USB 3.0 device port
- Debugging – UART debug connector, JTAG connector
- Expansion header – 180-pin header with access to I2C, SPI, LCD, MIPI DSI, RGB/LVDS, CSI, MIPI CSI, ADC, CTP, RTP, SPDIF-OUT, SPDIF-IN, GPIO, etc…
- Sensor – Acceleration sensor, IR receiver
- Misc- Battery slot for RTC
- Power – 12V/4A (48W)
The company says the board is running an open source version of U-Boot and the Linux Kernel, the board can decode 4K videos, and support Blu-ray video playback. It can be used as an external USB hard drive when connected via the micro USB 3.0 port. The binary images and source code are not there yet, but they should eventually show up in http://www.mixtile.com/downloads/, as they did with their previous Garage board powered by Exynos 4412. Documentation for the previous board appears to be limited, but they still released the schematics (PDF).
The board will also be available as part of a kit called LOFT Kit adding a tempered glass cover, an aluminum frame and baseplate, 2 silicon rubber pads and a thermal pad, an hard disk holder, a 12V/4A power adapter, and an assembly manual.
There’s no word about pricing nor availability at this stage, but you can find some more information on Mixtile website, and the board will probably first show up for sale on that taobao store.
Thanks to Nanik for the tip.
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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allwinner a31 specs dont have usb 3 nor sata bus, how did they get them?
@nixzero
There’s no SATA, but A31 does support USB 3.0 – http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/12/09/allwinner-a31-and-a20-processors-details/
They must have done SATA with a USB to SATA chip.
yes, zigbee on board. Mixtile and radxa are friends 🙂
@cnxsoft
that says “compliant with usb3 power specs”, not the same as supporting usb3.
and I’ve searched all info for existant tablet and tv boxes, none of them report usb3 – only one of yours review but its not confirmed by official specs.
its quite strange that nobody used usb3 before if a31 supported it, it would have looked good in specs thus be a good marketing point.
yahaooo~ it seems very cool & cute, but why can’t find it in amazon.com?? taobao store means nothing to mi :(((
I found the board is based on Samsung 4412 instead of allwinner A31 on Mixtile website, . is there anything wrong there?
@david
There were two boards. Mixtile Garage, already available, with Exynos 4412, and Mixtile LOFT-Q with AllWinner A31.
They’ve removed LOFT-Q from their site. Not sure why.
It’s still on theri FB page: https://www.facebook.com/mixtile/posts/715490338473140?stream_ref=10
They also say it will be available later this month directly or via SeeedStudio: http://www.mixtile.com/cn/questions/how-can-i-buy-a-loft-q
thank you!
On Seedstudio -> http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/Mixtile-LOFTQ-p-2326.html
Looks like it has space for a SATA drive inside? Ticks the SATA + 1Gb ethernet boxes… what is Linux support on A31 like these days?
I can’t for the life of me understand why they didn’t stick a SATA port on this.