AllWinner V10 and V15 SoCs Target Video Recording Applications

AllWinner A-series that can be found in tablets and media players are pretty well known, but AllWinner also has V-Series processors with V10 and V15. A first glance, AllWinner V10 is quite similar to AllWinner A31 with a quad core Cortex A7 CPU coupled with a PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU, and AllWinner V15 has the same CPU/GPU combo as AllWinner A10 (CortexA8/Mali-400). But AllWinner V-Series are actually video encoders targeting applications such as IP cameras, car DVRs, and sports digital video cameras thanks to features such as motion detection, video scaling, and digital watermarking.

Let’s go through AllWinner V10 specifications, and I’ll mark differences with AllWinner A31, or features not mentioned in A31 specs, in bold:

CPU – Quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 with· 256KB L1 cache, 1MB L2 cache
GPU – PowerVR SGX544MP2 compliant with OpenCL 1.1 EP and delivering up to 20GFLOPS.
Memory – 32-bit DDR3/LPDDR2 SDRAM controller, supporting up to 2GB; NAND I/F
Video
- Supports H.264 High Profile 1080p@60fps video encoding
- Digital watermarking
- Motion detection
- CBR/VBR bit rate control mode
- Supports UHD@24fps video decoding
- Supports multi-format video decoding including MPEG 1/2/4, H.264, VP8, AVS,VC-1, etc.
- Supports independent encoding and decoding
- 1/16 ~ 16x scaling
Video Input/Output
- Supports 12-bit parallel CSI and 4-lane MIPI CSI
- Supports up to 12M CMOS sensor
- Supports RGB LCD/LVDS/MIPI DSI/HDMI
- Supports one video layer and two graphic layers
- Supports scaling up to 4K x 4K
HawkView ISP
- Auto exposure/focus/white balance (AE/AF/AWB)
- Dynamic range control (DRC)
- Color enhancement
- Noise reduction
Audio Codec
- Integrated Hi-Fi 100dB audio codec
- Three integrated differential analog mic amplifiers for headset and phone
- One digital mic interface with software noise cancellation
Peripherals
- 3 x USB ports
- 4 x SD card 3.0
- RTP/CTP
- GMAC/EMAC
Package – BGA609, 18mm x 18mm, 0.65 pitch

AllWinner V10 also appears to be lacking 3840×1080 3D decoding ability found in A31, and may not have a dual band RAM interface, and no support for LPDDR3 memory. I’m not sure if A31 also supports independent encoding and decoding, or that would means Skype or Google Hangout calls are partially handled by software. AllWinner provides support for Android and Linux operating systems for the V10 and V15 processor, specifically Android 4.4 for V10. AllWinner V15 has similar features as V10 but only comes with a single Cortex A8 core, a Mali-400 GPU, supports 1080p decoding, 720p encoding, and features less peripherals. It’s also smaller with a BGA336 (14mm x 14mm) package.

I could not find any development boards, nor products based on AllWinner V10 and V15. There may be some, but the processors are seldom advertised in devices like digital cameras, and digital video recorders. I’ve asked some details to AllWinner, and I’ll update this post if I get an answer.

You can may find more information in AllWinner V10 and V15 on their respective product pages.

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.