Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 5.17: So we had an extra week of at the end of this release cycle, and I’m happy to report that it was very calm indeed. We could probably have skipped it with not a lot of downside, but we did get a few last-minute reverts and fixes in and avoid some brown-paper bugs that would otherwise have been stable fodder, so it’s all good. And that calm last week can very much be seen from the appended shortlog – there really aren’t a lot of commits in here, and it’s all pretty small. Most of it is in drivers (net, usb, drm), with some core networking, and some tooling updates too. It really is small enough that you can just scroll through the details below, and the one-liner summaries will give a good flavor of what happened last week. Of course, this means […]
RISC-V or Arm? This tiny 4x4cm Linux board with WiFi offers both options
Last fall, we wrote about Allwinner D1s/F133-A RISC-V processor and the upcoming MangoPi MQ1, a tiny 4x4cm board based on the processor. The board is not for sale, but we have more details, and the company is also working on an Arm version equipped with Allwinner T113-S3 dual-core Cortex-A7 processor that is pin-to-pin compatible with F133-A SoC. The Allwinner F133-A board will finally be called MangoPi Nezha-MQ, or MangoPi MQ for shorts, and come with 64MB on-chip RAM while the Allwinner T113-S3 board, with 128MB on-chip RAM, will be named MangoPi MQ-Dual. Both are fitted with a Realtek RTL8189-based Wi-Fi module, offer display and camera interfaces, two USB-C interfaces, and headers for GPIOs. MangoPi MQ RISC-V or Arm Linux board MangoPi MQ/MQ-Dual specifications: SoC (one or the other) MangoPi MQ – Allwinner D1s/F133-A 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 1 GHz with 64 MB DDR2 MangoPi MQ-Dual – Allwinner T113-S3 32-bit dual-core […]
Allwinner T113-S3 dual-core Cortex-A7 SoC features 128MB DDR3, targets automotive and industrial applications
Allwinner T113-S3 is a dual-core Cortex-A7 processor with 128MB DDR3 on-chip memory that is designed for smart control and HMI applications in the automotive and industrial sectors. At first glance, the new processor looks quite similar to Allwinner S3, but with twice the number of cores. However there’s more to it, as a a HiFi4 DSP has been added for smart audio applications, the H.264 encoder is gone replaced by an MPJEG encoder, and the company claims support for “industrial level working temperature”, plus a 10-year life cycle. among other differences. Allwinner T113-S3 specifications: CPU – Dual-core Arm Cortex-A7 with 32 KB L1 I-cache + 32 KB L1 D-cache per core, and 256 KB L2 cache DSP – Single-core HiFi4 Memory – 128 MB DDR3 Storage I/F – SD3.0/eMMC 5.0, SPI Nor/NAND Flash Video Decoding – H.264, H.265, MPEG-1/2/4, (M)JPEG, VC1 up to 1080p60 Encoding – JPEG/MJPEG up to 1080p60 […]
Allwinner Processor 2021-2022 Roadmap – Allwinner T827, T723 and T1033 SoC’s
Last year, we published the Allwinner A-series processor roadmap for 2020-2021 with notably Allwinner A33E, A100, and A200 SoCs. Allwinner A100 was supposed to be released in 2019, but a search on Aliexpress showed exactly zero matches. We did write about Allwinner A100 mainline Linux support a little while ago, and today, I eventually found one Allwinner A100 tablet with the $60 Hyundai HyTab 7WC1. I had no better luck in my search for Allwinner A33E and A200 platforms. But I also got lucky today with another Allwinner roadmap for 2021-2022 with some very interesting new processors, provided they happen. A look at 2020 processors But let’s look at the year 2020 first. We already have most details about Allwinner A133 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, which is also called T509 apparently following the merging of the Allwinner A-Series business unit, focusing on tablets, into the Allwinner T-Series for industrial & automotive […]
Allwinner T5 Processor to Power Android 10 and Linux Multi-Camera Infotainment Systems
Allwinner T-series processors are designed for transportation applications such as automotive infotainment systems, smart rear-view mirrors, and navigation systems. The Zhuhai-based company has now added a new T-series processor to its website with Allwinner T5 processor featuring four Cortex-A53 cores and a Mali-G31 MP2 GPU that’s a nice upgrade to the Mali-400 MP2/4 GPUs used in their other automotive processors. Allwinner T5 specifications: CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A53@1.5GHz GPU – Arm Mali G31 MP2 with support for OpenGL ES 3.2/2.0/1.0, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0 Memory I/F – 32-bit DDR4/DDR3/DDR3L/LPDDR3/LPDDR4 interface up to 4GB Storage I/F SD3.0/eMMC5.0 interface 8-bit Nand flash interface with maximum 80-bit/1KB ECC Video Engine Video decoder H.265 MP decoder up to 4K @ 60fps H.264 BL/MP/HP decoder up to 4K @ 30fps VP9 decoder up to 4K @ 60fps AVS2 decoder up to 4K @ 60fps Multi-format 1080p60 video playback including VP8, MPEG1/2 SP/MP, MPEG4 SP/ASP, AVS+/AVS […]
Allwinner A-Series Processors 2020-2021 Roadmap – Allwinner A33E, A100 and A200 SoCs
We previously discussed Allwinner business units where each can share the same silicon (with different a name) but maintains its own software stacks for different target applications. Allwinner A-Series is the most well-known as Allwinner A10 & A20 were very popular SoC for tablets and TV boxes many years ago. CNX Software received two slides that originated from Allwinner this morning. The first one shows the different Allwinner processor families, and the second provides a roadmap for A-Series processors for tablets with A33E, A100, and A200 coming this year and next. Let’s go through the Allwinner processor families first and their main use case: R-Series and MR-Series – Smart home applications A-Series – Tablets VR-Series – Virtual reality H-Series and F-Series- High-performance applications like multimedia (TV boxes) T-Series- Automotive, I suppose mostly infotainment V-Series – Camera SoCs XR/XIN-Series – Wireless chips like the infamous XR819 WiFi chip. AXP – PMIC […]
Allwinner T7 Automotive SoC Complies with AEC-Q100 Grade 3 Specifications
Allwinner T-series processors such as Allwinner T2 are designed for the transportation / automotive market for products like smart rear-view mirrors, infotainment systems, and navigation systems. While the company’s offered wide-temperature range support, AFAIK they did not have a part that had an actual automotive certification so far. This changes with their Allwinner T7 processor which is said to be the first Chinese processor achieving AEC-Q100 Grade 3 qualification. AEC-Q100 is a “failure mechanism based stress test qualification for integrated circuits” brought out by the Automotive Electronics Council. The chip must pass various tests within their specified temperature range (grade): Grade 0: -40°C to +150°C ambient operating temperature range Grade 1: -40°C to +125°C ambient operating temperature range Grade 2: -40°C to +105°C ambient operating temperature range Grade 3: -40°C to +85°C ambient operating temperature range Grade 4: 0°C to +70°C ambient operating temperature range Allwinner T7 comes with an […]
Allwinner T2 is a Rebranded Allwinner A20 Processor Operating in Industrial Temperature Range
Last month, Allwinner unveiled A40 and A60 industrial and military grade processors leveraging IP blocks from the old-but-popular Allwinner A20 dual core processor. This is good news for software support, as A40 and A60 should hopefully become supported in U-boot and the Linux kernel without too many efforts, as well as for companies or makers requiring wider temperature ranges in their products. However, those new processors were not pin-to-pin compatible with Allwinner A20, so a PCB redesign would be required. That’s where Allwinner T2 comes into play, as reported by Olimex, it is a rebranded Allwinner A20 dual core Cortex A7 processor with an industrial temperature range (-40 to +85 °C) that makes it suitable for automotive infotainment. I actually covered Allwinner T2 back in 2015, but at the time Allwinner did not mention anything about temperature range, and SATA support – found in A20 – was not shows in […]