Allwinner is mostly known for its low-cost Arm processor running Android or Linux, but the Allwinner R128 is a wireless audio SoC with a C906 64-bit RISC-V application core, an Arm Cortex-M33 real-time time core, a HiFi 5 DSP, and built-in WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. The SoC also comes with 1MB SRAM, up to 16MB flash, up to 32MB PSRAM, display and camera interfaces, support for microphone arrays, and plenty of I/Os that should make it suitable for smart speakers and other voice-controlled home appliances with or without display. Allwinner R128 specifications: Application core – Xuantie C906 64-bit RISC-V core clocked at 600 MHz. DSP – Cadence HiFi 5 audio DSP clocked at 400 MHz Communication core – Arm M33 Star (Cortex-M33 from Arm China?) core clocked at 240 MHz with Trustzone support Memory 1MB SRAM 8MB, 16MB, or 32MB PSRAM (SiP = System-in-Package) OPI PSRAM controller Storage QPI flash […]
GHLBD Android calculator mini review – An Allwinner A50-based Android 9.0 calculator
I found this GHLBD calculator on a platform selling second-hand electronic products. Three labels of this product appeal to me: “Calculator”, “Android 9.0” and “Allwinner A50“. If you only look at the appearance, this calculator is not much different from that of ordinary calculators, but the Android operating system is running on it and the screen tells me that it is definitely not an ordinary calculator. When I bought it, I only spent 69 RMB ($10 US). I didn’t really have a use case for it, but curiosity drove me to buy one. I decided to introduce it and disassemble it to check out the hardware design. Function demonstration of GHLBD calculator Press and hold the ON and OFF keys on the keyboard to turn on the calculator. The Allwinner A50 processor icon and Android logo show up in the boot animation. Here, you can preliminarily confirm that the promotional content […]
Linux 6.2 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures
Linux 6.2 has just been released with Linus Torvalds making the announcement on LKML as usual: So here we are, right on (the extended) schedule, with 6.2 out. Nothing unexpected happened last week, with just a random selection of small fixes spread all over, with nothing really standing out. The shortlog is tiny and appended below, you can scroll through it if you’re bored. Wed have a couple of small things that Thorsten was tracking on the regression side, but I wasn’t going to apply any last-minute patches that weren’t actively pushed by maintainers, so they will have to show up for stable. Nothing seemed even remotely worth trying to delay things for. And this obviously means that the 6.3 merge window will open tomorrow, and I already have 30+ pull requests queued up, which I really appreciate. I like how people have started to take the whole “ready for […]
Allwinner TV303 quad-core Cortex-A53 “Smart Screen” processor is made for projectors
Previously known for its tablet SoCs, Allwinner has been focusing on low-cost Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A53 processors for consumer devices in recent years, and the Allwinner TV303 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor is yet another one and appears to be the first of Allwinner TV-series processors designed for “smart screens”, notably smart Android projectors. I could not find any references for TV303 on the Allwinner website, but the company did publish a post on Weixin about a “Smart Android Projector” by Hotack based on the new processor and showcased at CES 2023. Allwinner TV303 preliminary specifications: CPU – 4x Arm Cortex-A53 GPU – Arm Mali-G31 VPU – 4K hardware video decoding + image quality engine Video Output – Up to Full HD Video Input – HDMI input The projector itself features two stereo speakers, WiFi 6 connectivity, and can be turned into a Bluetooth speaker. It also supports keystone correction and autofocus. Allwinner […]
Year 2022 in review – Top 10 posts and statistics
It’s the last day of the year and the time to look at some of the highlights of 2022, some traffic statistics from CNX Software website, and speculate on what 2023 may bring us. The semiconductors shortage continued in 2022, but things are looking brighter in 2023 with the full reopening of the world mixed with forecasts of difficult economic times that should keep the demand/supply equation in check. On the Arm processor front the biggest news of the year, at least in this corner of the Internet, was the launch of the Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor together with interesting single board computers that we’ll discuss below. Announced last year, the Amlogic A311D2 octa-core Cortex-A73/A53 was finally made available in a few SBC’s, and we finally got some news about the Amlogic S928X Cortex-A76/A55 SoC showcased in 8K TV boxes, but we have yet to see it in action. […]
Linux 6.1 LTS release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures
Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 6.1, likely to be an LTS kernel, last Sunday: So here we are, a week late, but last week was nice and slow, and I’m much happier about the state of 6.1 than I was a couple of weeks ago when things didn’t seem to be slowing down. Of course, that means that now we have the merge window from hell, just before the holidays, with me having some pre-holiday travel coming up too. So while delaying things for a week was the right thing to do, it does make the timing for the 6.2 merge window awkward. That said, I’m happy to report that people seem to have taken that to heart, and I already have two dozen pull requests pending for tomorrow in my inbox. And hopefully I’ll get another batch overnight, so that I can try to really get as […]
Allwinner V3LP gets low voltage RAM, should replace Allwinner V3S dual camera SoC
Allwinner V3LP is a single-core Cortex-A7 processor for dual-camera systems with the exact same specifications as the Allwinner V3S processor introduced in 2016, except it should be more power efficient with a lower DDR operating voltage of 1.5V instead of 1.8V. Sochip explains that procuring the integrated DDR2 in the Allwinner V3s design is challenging, so Allwinner has replaced the memory in the pin-to-pin compatible Allwinner V3LP with more broadly available and lower power RAM. Allwinner V3LP specifications: CPU – ARM Cortex-A7 @ up to 1.2 GHz Memory – Integrated 64MB DDR2 DRAM @ 1.5 V Storage I/F – SD 2.0, eMMC 4.41, SPI NAND flash, SPI NOR flash Audio Codec – 92dB audio codec supporting 2x ADC channels and 2x DAC channels, 1x low-noise analog microphone bias output, 1x microphone input and 1x stereo microphone output Video Processing Unit Encoding – 1080p@40fps or 1080p@30fps + VGA@30fps H.264 Decoding – […]
Allwinner T3 automotive-grade processor powers industrial-grade SoM
Allwinner T3 is a quad-core Cortex-A7 automotive-grade processor that supports a wide industrial temperature range of -40°C to +85°C. After comparing the specifications of Allwinner T3, I think it is the same as Allwinner A40i, as Allwinner has different business units and the T-series is for the automotive-grade market, while the A-series has historically been for the tablet market, but is now also used in the industrial-grade market. Tronlong SOM-TLT3 and SOM-TLT3-B are Allwinner T3 system-on-modules (SoM) of Allwinner T3. Both modules have basically the same specifications but the SOM-TLT3 comes with castellated holes for soldering to the carrier board, while the SOM-TLT3-B features board-to-board connectors. Tronlong SOM-TLT3 / SOM-TLT3-B specifications: CPU – Allwinner T3 quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.2 GHz with 32KB L1 I-cache + 32KB L1 D-cache, 512KB L2 cache. GPU – Arm Mali-400 MP2 with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0, Open VG 1.1 Memory – 1/2GByte DDR3 […]