Up to now at least three boards based on Allwinner A80 processor were available: A80 OptimusBoard by Merrii, pCDuino8 by Linksprite, and Cubieboard4 by Cubitech, and the first two boards are basically the same. Merrii has now introduced a new board which they call “A80 Hummingbird H8”, with more features and ports including HDMI, VGA and eDP video outputs, LVDS / MIPI DSI display interfaces, MIPI CSI camera interface, an RTC with battery and more.
Merri H8 specifications:
- SoC – AllWinner A80 octa-core processor with 4x Cortex 15, 4x Cortex A7 cores in big.LITTLE configuration with Imagination Technologies PowerVR GC6230 GPU compliant with OpenGL ES 3.0/2.0/11, OpenCL 1.1, and DirectX 9.3
- System Memory – 2GB DDR3
- Storage – 8GB internal storage (Sandisk SDIN7DU2 iNAND Flash), micro SD slot up to 32 GB
- Video Output/ Display Interfaces
- HDMI 1.4 up to 4K UHD resolution
- VGA port
- eDP v1.2 up to 2560×1600 @ 60 Hz
- MIPI DSI, LVDS, LCD RGB interfaces via expansion connectors
- Audio – HDMI, headphone jack, built-in microphone, speaker header. AC100 Codec
- Camera I/F – MIPI CSI
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n & Bluetooth 4.0 (AP6330 module)
- USB – 1x USB 3.0 OTG, 2x USB 2.0 host ports
- Debugging – UART
- Expansion – Via 2x headers on the side shared with display and camera interfaces.
- Misc – IR receiver, reset and power LEDs, reset, power on and u-boot buttons, RTC with battery
- Power management – AXP806, AXP809 PMIC
- Power Supply – 12V via power barrel or input header, LCD power header (12V/5V), and connector for external LiPo battery
- Dimensions – N/A
Based on my experience with A80 OptimusBoard, Merrii does not always provide full documentation and source code for their board. But either A80 OptimusBoard came out a little too earlier, or Merrii has decided to improve, as some documentation (mostly in Chinese), and source code has been released on their forums.
Most downloads are available via Baidu, which can be slow, and for some, difficult to use if you live outside of China, so mininodes re-uploaded the product brief and user’s manual.
Other downloads include:
- A80 HummingBird H8 Android image (Android 4.4.2 with Linux 3.4.39)
- A80 HummingBird H8 Lubuntu images for SD card or internal boot (I guess)
- A80 HummingBird H8 SDK (5.51 GB) – a80_hummingbird_20141015ok.tar.gz (password: 96qo)
I’m not sure when the board will be available, and but it should eventually show up on Merrii Aliexpress store.
Via Mininodes.
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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Is it true that powerVR has the worst Linux support ever ?
http://libv.livejournal.com/2014/11/21
I am struggling for a driver for A80 gpu by nearly 2 months , if you check back some comments on other A80 products you will notice them.
I have chase even with Jean – Luc on PowerVR and myself at allwinner for at least a closed source ko gpu driver … guess what … no answer back … at least the fact / answer like “we do not have such thing” … but nothing.
Regarding GPU drivers:
You can pester Alex Voica (Marketing, for Imagination Technologies) on Reddit.
Here is his account, http://www.reddit.com/user/alexvoica so check comments/posts.
He has been promoting a MIPS developer board on Reddit (ImgTec owns MIPS) and since ImgTec also own the developer board, they are the ones that provide the GPU drivers.
For other developer boards, ImgTec says that you can get any drivers from the vendor, not ImgTec.
ImgTec says that for at least Hardkernel, they offered to license the GPU drivers without any cost (but Hardkernel eventually did not go through with a product).
@Simos
I’ve contacted him and several marketing people from Allwinner in a single email a few days ago. He replied separately about the same as you mentioned, so I’m still waiting for what Allwinner has to say.
Hmm, Hardkernel planed to make a board with a SoC using PowerVR? I did not know that. But if true, that means the board vendor should be working on GPU drivers porting, not the SoC company?
Geekbuying sells it for $150 -> http://www.geekbuying.com/item/H8-Humingbird-Kit-Allwinner-A80-Octa-Core-Development-Board-System-4G-8G-64-Core-GPU-5G-2-4G-Wifi-H-265-1000M-Ethernet-339138.html