allwinner

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 51 Comments on A80 OptimusBoard Features AllWinner Octa-Core big.LITTLE SoC

A80 OptimusBoard Features AllWinner Octa-Core big.LITTLE SoC

Allwinner is currently at CES 2014 showcasing their latest Octa-core A80 SoC, and corresponding  development board, the A80 OptimusBoard. Apart from the picture below, there were very little details for the initial announcement, but we now know, the board comes with 2 GB RAM, 8 GB NAND flash, and other features of the board, as well as the company behind the GPU in AllWinner A80. A80 OptimusBoard specifications: SoC – AllWinner Ultra Core A80 4x Cortex 15, 4x Cortex A7 big.LITTLE processor with an unnamed Imagination Technologies PowerVR GPU System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND Flash Video Output – HDMI 1.4a Connectivity – Dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and Ethernet (GMAC) USB – 1x USB 3.0 OTG HIC, 2x USB 2.0 host ports Audio codec – AC100 Codec Camera I/F – 12MP MIPI CSI Debugging – UART and JTAG Expansion – 32-pin GPIO header Misc […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on What to Expect from AllWinner, Rockchip, Mediatek, and Other Silicon Vendors at CES 2014

What to Expect from AllWinner, Rockchip, Mediatek, and Other Silicon Vendors at CES 2014

CES 2014 is coming soon, and it will take place on 7 – 10 January, 2014, and we can expect some interesting SoC news. Samsung suggested they will unveil their 64-bit ARM SoC (Exynos 6?) at CES 2014, Nvidia will hold a press conference to “showcase new NVIDIA Tegra mobile technologies, gaming innovations, and advanced automotive display technologies”, and Qualcomm has been quiet for now. However, several Chinese SoC vendors, namely AllWinner, Rockchip, and Mediatek, have already announced what they will showcase at CES 2014, albeit with few details. AllWinner at CES 2014 Allwinner announced will showcase their OptimusBoard based on their Ultra Octa-Core A80 SoC, as well as 4G tablets powered by Allwinner A31/A31s, and dual-SIM phablets sporting A23 dual-core. Allwinner A80 is an Octacore processor featuring four ARM Cortex A7 cores, and four Cortex A15 cores @ 2.0GHz together with an unnamed GPU offering 2x more performance over previous […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments on XBMC ARM News – AllWinner A20 / A31 Apk Released – $10 Discount on OUYA Console

XBMC ARM News – AllWinner A20 / A31 Apk Released – $10 Discount on OUYA Console

I’ve just been informed that VidOn.me has released XBMC for Android apks for their AV100 (based on AllWinner A20) and AV200 (powered by AllWinner A31) media players with accelerated hardware video decoding. It’s not clear yet whether these will run on any AllWinner A20 / A31 devices, or have been locked to VidOn players, but you can give it a try and download them for your platform(s): android42-Vidon.me-release-a20-AV100-free.apk – For AllWinner A20 android42-Vidon.me-release-a31-AV200-pro.apk – For AllWinner A31 VidOn does have a github repo for XBMC, but it hasn’t been updated for nearly a year, so the recent releases are not there (yet). I had never personally heard about this company, but an article on Wikipedia gives the following description with regards to XBMC: VidOn.me (or VidOnMe) is a company that maintain a commercial fork and derivative of XBMC media center software, and other than offering non-XBMC based media player software […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on AllWinner Roadmap Until 2015: A23, A6X, A7X, A8X and A9X

AllWinner Roadmap Until 2015: A23, A6X, A7X, A8X and A9X

AllWinner has recently unveiled their products roadmap until 2015. They’ve got big.LITTLE cortex A7/A15 processors, as well as a processor for wearable planned for 2014, and a big.LITTLE Cortex A53/A57 processor, as well as another Octa-core bit.LITTLE processor (cores unknown) for 2015. There’s also a new processor for 2013, called A23, which is a cost down version of Allwinner A20 dual core Cortex A7. Let’s have a look at the different upcoming processors. AllWinner A23 – Dual core cortex A7 @ 1.5 Ghz with Mali-400MP2 GPU, and 40nm process. Planned for Q3 2013, and tablets will be available this month (More below) AllWinner A6X – Quad-core cortex A7/A15 (big.LITTLE) @ 2.0GHz with a GPU offering 1.7x more performance (compared to SGX544MP2 in A31?). Planned for Q2 2014. AllWinner WX – Quad-core processor for wearable devices (e.g. smartwatches). Q4 2014. AllWinner A8X (A80) – Octa-core cortex A7/A15 @ 2.0GHz with a […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments on Preliminary Reverse-Engineered VPU Driver (CedarX) for AllWinner A10 Plays H.264 Videos

Preliminary Reverse-Engineered VPU Driver (CedarX) for AllWinner A10 Plays H.264 Videos

Allwinner framework for their Video Processing Unit (VPU) in their Cortex A8 processors (A10, A13, etc..) is called CedarX. It relies on a binary blob that is working just fine for Android, but not so well for Linux. So several developers started to reverse-engineer CedarX a while back, to fix issues with Linux, and provide an open source driver. Yesterday, they upload a video to show the development progress, and show Big Buck Bunny 1080p H.264 playback using libvdpau-sunxi open source driver with mplayer, and without any binary blobs.  The video resize function are not been implemented yet, which is why we can only see the left corner of video, but nevertheless it shows an open source hardware video decoder is on the way. That means once the Lima driver for Mali-400 GPU, and libvdpau-sunxi driver for AllWinner VPU are implemented (which may still take a while), AllWinner A10 SoC […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments on Fedora 19 ARM Remix R1 Release With Support for AllWinner A10, A10s, A13 and A20 SoCs

Fedora 19 ARM Remix R1 Release With Support for AllWinner A10, A10s, A13 and A20 SoCs

After releasing a stable version of Fedora 18 for AllWinner A10 and A13 in February, Hans de Goede, working at Red Hat and a Fedora contributor, has recently announced “Fedora 19 ARM remix for Allwinner SOCs” on linux-sunxi community mailing list. This released based on Fedora 19 for ARM together with linux-sunxi kernel and u-boot, adds support for A10s and A20 based devices, and 38 boards and devices are now supported. To give it a try, download the 665MB image:

then write it to an SD card (8GB or greater):

Where you have to replace [device] with your actual SD card device, e.g. sdc.Since u-boot is board/product specific, you’ll also have to update u-boot for your hardware. Remove the SD card, re-insert it, and run:<

to display a graphical menu (if dialog is installed on your Linux PC), or a list supported boards and products:

Select […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments on Rockchip RK3066 is Now Part of Mainline Linux Kernel

Rockchip RK3066 is Now Part of Mainline Linux Kernel

After AllWinner A10/A13 SoCs, it’s time for another Chinese SoC to be included into mainline kernel, with Rockchip RK3066(a). A few hours ago, Heiko Stuebner’s commit for basic support in Linux kernel 3.11 has been accepted. This is the commit message: This adds a generic devicetree board file and a dtsi for boards based on the RK3066a SoCs from Rockchip. Apart from the generic parts (gic, clocks, pinctrl) the only components currently supported are the timers, uarts and mmc ports (all DesignWare- based). Don’t get too excited though, as it may take a little while until you can actually build a kernel for Rockchip RK3066 or AllWinner A10 from mainline linux source code. But this is definitely another step in the right direction, and hopefully, Chinese SoC companies will eventually get involved, instead of relying on the community, as it is in their best interest. To access the full list […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments on How-to Upgrade Firmware on AllWinner A31 mini PCs

How-to Upgrade Firmware on AllWinner A31 mini PCs

I’ve just received a mini PC powered by AllWinner A31, and I had to (re-)install the firmware, so I’ll explain the steps I followed in this post. The procedure is for CS868 mini PC, but it should be similar for all Android HDMI TV dongles, and media players based on AllWinner A20 or A31.The procedure below only works in Windows, and has been tested in Windows XP. I’ll mention a possible method in Linux at the end of the post. Download the latest CS868 firmware and tools, and extract “cs868 firmware and update tool 20130507.rar” file Download PhoenixUSBPro tool in English, and extract This is optional as the Chinese version is included in rar file above. Double-click on PhoenixUSBPro/PhoenixUSBPro.exe to start the program Click on Update to upgrade the tool to the latest version if need be. Click on Key to to load the key file (AW_LCTOOLS.key), on Image to […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC