Amlogic C302X, C305X, and C308X Arm SoCs target Smart IP cameras

Amlogic C302X and C305X are dual-core Arm Cortex-A35 processors, while the C308X is a dual-core Cortex-A55 processor with all SoCs designed for Smart IP cameras with the integration of an AI accelerator up to 4 TOPS, and 1080p30 H.264/H.265 video encoding.

I was first informed about Amlogic C302/C305/C308 SoCs for Smart cameras as far back as June 2019, or about four years ago, but there wasn’t enough information to write anything about those at the time. But I’m now seeing more details about the camera SoCs, now named C302X, C305X, and C308X, so it’s a good time to have a closer look.

Amlogic C302X

Amlogic does not have a product page for this model, so I need to rely on a recent commit in the Linux Kernel mainline list to extra some information. The Amlogic S302X is a dual-core Cortex-A35 processor found in the Amlogic AW409 development board (likely internal and never to be made publicly available). An analysis of the device tree file reveals the board comes with 256MB of memory, and the commit adds support for features like Timers and UART communication. But that’s about all information I could find at this stage.

Amlogic C305X

We have many more details for the C305X processor including the specifications:

• CPU – 2x Arm Cortex-A35
• NPU – 2 TOPS
• DSP – HiFi-4 audio DSP
• Video processing – 5M @ 30fps + 1080p30 H.264/H.265 encoder
• ISP – 3A, 3DNR, LSC, HDR, WDR, GDC, Auto Capture
• Memory – 32-bit DDR3(L)/DDR4 and LPDDR4 SDRAM
• Storage – eMMC, SLC NAND, SPI NOR flash, SPI NAND flash
• Camera interface – 4-lane/2-lane MIPI-CSI
• Audio – 2x ADC, 2Ch PDM, 2x built-in DAC, 2x I2S
• Security Engine – AES/DES/TDES/RSA
• Process – 11nm

That’s basically the information from the product page. Nothing is said about OS support, but I would assume it runs Linux like the C302X.

Amlogic C308X

The C308X is the processor we have the most information with specifications and a development kit.

Amlogic C308X specifications:

• CPU – 2x Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.5 GHz
• NPU – 4 TOPS
• DSP – Dual-core HiFi-4 Audio DSP
• Video processing – 4Kp30 + 1080p30 H.264/H.265 encoding
• ISP – 3A, 3DNR, LSC, HDR, WDR, GDC, Auto Capture
• Memory – 32-bit DDR3(L)/DDR4 and LPDDR4 SDRAM
• Storage – eMMC, SLC NAND, SPI NOR flash, SPI NAND flash
• Camera interface – 2-lane/4-lane MIPI CSI
• Audio – 2x ADC, 4-ch PDM, 2x built-in DAC, 2x I2S
• Security Engine – AES/DES/TDES/RSA
• Process – 12nm

Considering the C305X and C308X have basically the same interface, I’d expect them to be software compatible, except the C308X comes with a more capable CPU, AI accelerator, and audio DSP, and the SoC can handle up to 4K video encoding. That’s a little odd that both processors have different manufacturing processes, but that’s what the product page says.

There’s also a C308X AI-IPC development kit on the web that aims to replace/compete with Hisilicon Hi3519A/Hi3519AV100 Smart cameras.

Specifications:

• SoC – Amlogic C308X dual-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.5GHz with 4 TOPS (INT8) VPU that also supports 12.8 GFLOPS FP16 or 6.4 GFLOPS FP32, and works with Tensorflow, Tensorflow lite, Darknet, ONNX, Caffe, Caffe2, Pytorch, and Keras frameworks
• System Memory – 2GB DDR4-2666
• Storage – 8GB eMMC flash (up to 64GB as an option)
• Camera
  • Sony IMX334 4K camera sensor
  • Up to 8MP capture via 4-lane MIPI-CSI2 mode or 2x 2-lane MIPI-CSI2
  • Support for high-power white LED or night vision infrared LED
• Audio – 1x MIC input, 1x audio output
• Networking
  • 100Mbps Ethernet PHY
  • Optional WiFi (not multiplexed with SDIO)
• USB – 1x USB 2.0 OTG
• Expansion – SDIO, SPI, I2C, 2x 10-bit SAR ADC, 1x PWM, RS485 interface with lightning protection design,  RS232, alarm input;
• Misc – Button, RTC circuit, LED lights
• Power Supply – 12V DC 1
• Power consumption – 3.5W, excluding LED lights
• Temperature Range – -25°C – 70°C

The software development kit (SDK) is said to include U-boot, Linux 4.19, a rootfs, a Linux camera app, and deep learning toolkits (acuity-toolkit and DDK6.4.3_NeuralNetworkTool). They claim that image processing is much better than in the powerful Amlogic A331D processor found in some AI cameras such as the Jevois Pro.

More details may be found on Ruten, where the C308X camera kit is sold for 11,500 NTD (about $370 US), as well as in a post on Zhuhi social network.

As a side note, the Linux kernel commit also mentioned an Amlogic C308L processor, but I could not find any details about that one. I can only assume it’s a light version of the C308X, or a typo…

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