Charbax is now at the China Sourcing Fair in Hong Kong, meeting and interviewing lots of Chinese companies. One of the companies I’ve been following is AllWinner because of their low-cost ARM Cortex processors, found in many Android devices, which somewhat support Linux.
In the video below, we first learn they have shipped 1 million A31 in the last 4 months, A31s and A20 processors have been available since the end of March for phablets, and A20 price is supposed to be very close to A10. So products based on AllWinner A10 could be upgraded to AllWinner A20 for just a few dollars more as both SoC are (nearly) pin to pin compatible. By the way, if you’re interested in the Cubieboard, you may want to see this.
We then go through lots of devices based on AllWinner SoC, albeit too fast to get many details, but the list may still be interesting for further research:
- A20 and A31 tablets.
- A31s phablets / small screen tablets (Up to 8″).
- 13.3″ tablet powered by AllWinner A31.
- Mini PC / HDMI TV dongles.
- One Gamepad powered by AllWinner A31s made by ibenX.
- AllWinner A10-based Projector.
- 13.3″ Android Laptop based on AllWinner A20 (Available at the end of the month).
- WITS-Tech development board/kit for AllWinner A31.
- Micro-projector with battery powered by AllWinner A20.
- What looks like an industrial device made by XYGALA (pronounced X-Y Gala). Although it looks related to automotive infotainment, I don’t really know what it does, but If you’re interested, the device is quickly shown in the autoplay video on their website (in Chinese).
- A mobile amplifier & karaoke system.
One marketing person working for AllWinner also said the company is thinking about ChromeOS and Linux / Ubuntu support, but I felt like she said that to dodge the question. AllWinner has already released the full SDK for AllWinner A31 to a British company that sounds like “RH”, and the SDK is now available for download to anybody. I’ve never heard of this SDK or company, maybe somebody can help me out in the comment section. I just know the kernel and datasheet are available via sunxi-linux. Tsvetan Usunov, Olimex founder, suggested RH may be for Rhombus Tech, the company that does the open-source EOMA-68 CPU modules. It’s all good, and they already have all documentation, source code, and hardware files. However, nothing has been released yet, or I haven’t looked at the right place.
Via ARMdevices.
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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Fair is in Hong Kong. I live in Shenzhen and could not go this time because my stupid visa does not allow me to back if I go there…
@Javi
OK. I always thought HKTDC Electronics was in HK, and the China Sourcing Fair in Shenzhen. The only excuse I have is that I’ve *only* lived in Shenzhen for 2 years, and in Hong Kong for 5 years…
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
Shenzhen is better for live if you love electronics, but the fairs (at least 2) of Hong Kong are better than Shenzhen fair (maybe in november, I have been there 2 years ago… but can not remember well).
@Javi
If you have a HK working visa, it’s quite easy to get a 6-month or 1 year F visa to China, at least it was the case when I stayed there, and it’s easy to get to Shenzhen.
Here is the report for a20 on cubieboard. what works: serial, usb host, usb otg, 100M ethernet, hdmi, vga, ir, uSD card. mali and cedarx not tested yet. we will ship cubieboard with a20 to developers soon. 😀
I am expecting sata to work without much of an issue, any hope of getting the gigabit ethernet going and probably more ram?
At the kind of price point the cubieboard has, it starts becoming a very viable option for a LOT of different projects.
@hipboi
Thanks for the great job. Cubieboard is a really great developer board it will be even better with a more powerful processor. Btw does A20 supports CAN?
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) I always come to China with F visa (even for 1 year multientry last time), but this time they gave me a L visa for 3 months one entry in Spain. I must extend the visa or maybe go to HK and apply there… as I know lots of people are claiming because this in europe. Chinese authorities said, this is caused because our treatment to the chinese people for apply an europe visa is hard, so now they are doing the same. I’m not agree with them, lots of chinese people wants to go to europe… Read more »
‘The source code has been released to a british company’. All of it? ‘Yes’, GPU? ‘We don’t have GPU, so no’. And it ends there… to bad, he should have asked about the cedar sources!