allwinner News - Page 7 of 22 - CNX Software

March 27, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 27 Comments

Allwinner R329 Smart Speaker Processor Features Arm China’s AIPU (Artificial Intelligence Processing Unit)

Allwinner R328 is a dual-core Cortex-A7 processor with 64MB or 128MB built-in RAM designed for low-cost smart speakers that was introduced last year and found into smart speaker sold in mainland China. According to a recent press release (in Chinese only), the company has now released a 64-bit update with Allwinner R329 dual-core Cortex-A53 processor equipped with dual HIFI4 DSP for audio post-processing and pre-processing, as well as Arm China’s AIPU (Artificial Intelligence Processing Unit) delivering up to 0.256 TOPS at very low power. There’s no product page for Allwinner R329 yet, so I extracted some specifications from the press release: CPU – Dual-core Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.5 GHz DSP- Dual-core HIFI4 DSP @ 400 MHz AI Accelerator – Arm China AIPU with 0.256 TOPS Built-in DDR RAM Audio Embedded second-generation VAD hardware 5x audio ADCs 2x audio DACs with 100dB SNR I2S and DMIC controller 5-1-channel and 7.1 […]

February 27, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Allwinner H616 TV Box Processor Comes with Mali G31 GPU, Supports Android 10

Allwinner H6 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor with Arm Mali-T720 GPU was launched in 2017 and made its way into various TV boxes and SBC’s. But last year, we got some news of lower-cost versions of the processor with Allwinner H603 and H6 VC200-OS SoC’s. Allwinner H616 Processor Advantages So the first time, I read about Allwinner H616, I thought it was yet another variant of little interest. But it turns out H616 is the first processor from the company with a Bitfrost GPU, namely Mali G31MP2, meaning it supports Vulkan, and down the line, it could potentially be supported by Panfrost open-source graphics driver. Another positive for the processor is support for Android 10, while AFAIK other H6 processors are stuck to Android 9.0. Another advantage is low power consumption leading to lower CPU temperature. It might be a process change or some other optimizations in the silicon, we just don’t […]

November 7, 2019November 8, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

Allwinner H6 VC200-OS Processor is a Cheaper Version Allwinner H6 SoC without PCIe, GbE, Camera…

Allwinner H6 SoC has been around a few years, first used exclusively in Zidoo H6 Pro TV box, but then finding its way into other TV boxes, and some single board computers such as Orange Pi 3 or Pine H64 model B. There’s no a cost-down version called Allwinner H6 VC200-OS with most of the same features but without the mostly useless PCIe port (since it does not work well on H6), and other interfaces. I’ve gone through Allwinner H6 (V200) specifications and highlighted the ones missing or updated in H6 VC200-OS using stricken bold or bold text using information from the datasheet. CPU – Quad-core ARM Cortex A53 with NEON, hardware Java acceleration, and FPU 3D GPU – Dual shader ARM Mali-T720 with support for OpenGL ES3.1/3.0/2.0/1.1, OpenCL 1.1/RenderScript, Microsoft DirectX 11 FL9_3 Memory I/F – DDR4/DDR3/DDR3L/LPDDR2/LPDDR3 interfaces Storage I/F – 1x eMMC 5.1 flash interface, 1x NAND Flash […]

August 19, 2019August 19, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 43 Comments

Allwinner R328 Smart Speaker & System-on-Module Spotted in China

Earlier this year, Allwinner introduced some AIoT (AI + IoT) processors including Allwinner R328 dual-core Cortex-A7 processor for “low-cost voice interaction solutions” aka low-cost smart speakers. I did not pay too much attention at the processor at the time, but since then, the company has released a product brief with some more details about the processor. We can see it integrates 64MB to 128MB DDR3 memory which should be enough to run Linux without external memory, and truly provide a low-cost solution for smart speakers, and I was told the chip may cost around $3. I was also asked whether Allwinner R328 smart speakers were already shipping. A Google search in English did not help, so I had to switch to Chinese, and after visiting several sites, I could see some Allwinner A328 platforms including a smart speaker and a system-on-module were showcased at some event in China. We’ve got […]

May 26, 2019May 26, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Allwinner V316 Processor is made for Low-Cost “True” 4K 30 FPS Cameras

Allwinner V-Series processors target camera applications, especially sports and action cameras, and we’ve already coverd Allwinner V3 single core Arm Cortex-A7 processor for 1080p60 / 4K15 cameras, as well as Allwinner V5 quad core Cortex-A7 processor for 4K30 cameras enhanced with artificial intelligence capabilities. Allwinner has showcased and/or unveiled more Cortex-A7 processors at CES Asia 2019 such as Allwinner R328 for voice applications, or Allwinner T7 for automotive dashboards, as well as a new camera processor called Allwinner V316 with two Arm Cortex-A7 cores, apparently the same 4K @ 30 fps H.265/H.264 encoder as in V5, but without AI engine architecture. Allwinner V316 key features and preliminary specifications: CPU – Dual core Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.2 GHz ISP – HawkView 6.0 image processor with 2D/3D intelligent noise reduction, frame width dynamic synthesis, sharpening enhancement, specific color enhancement and other image pre-processing techniques Video – 4K Smart H.264/H.265 video encoder […]

May 13, 2019May 14, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 34 Comments

How One Line of Code Tripled Allwinner A20 SATA Write Performance

If you’ve been following this blog long enough, you may remember that all linux-sunxi community work aiming at improving u-boot and Linux software support on Allwinner processors started with Allwinner A10 processor found in MeLE A1000 TV box back in 2012, which at the time provided an interesting alternative to Raspberry Pi board that was in short supply at launch time and several months after. One of the most interesting feature found in Allwinner A10 single core Arm Cortex-A8 processor was its SATA interface, and Allwinner A20 was announced a few months later with a dual core Cortex-A7 processor and virtually the same peripherals as Allwinner A10, including SATA. However when I tested CubieTruck board connected to a mechanical drive, I noticed sequential SATA performance was fine for reads (~180MB/s), but writes were fairly slow at around 36 MB/s. Other people complained about it, and some looked into it, and […]

April 28, 2019May 5, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Allwinner Tablet SoC Roadmap 2019 – 2020

Both Rockchip and Amlogic have some pretty interesting processors coming down the pipe with for example Rockchip RK3588 Cortex A76/A55 or Amlogic S922D Cortex A73/A53 SoCs both featuring an neural processing unit (NPU) for AI workloads acceleration at low power. The companies also have updated entry-level quad Arm Cortex-A55 processors with RK3530 and S905X3 models which are planned to launch later this year. But this made me wonder what was going with Allwinner since the company got really quiet, except for the “launch” of renamed processors for a specific business unit. That’s the only company among the three to have yet to announce a Cortex-A7X 64-bit Arm processor. The good news is that the company has released a roadmap of sort for their A-Series processors for tablets. The less good news is that very few details are available for the processors except for one: Allwinner A50 – Quad core Cortex-A7 […]

March 22, 2019March 22, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Allwinner MR133 Processor Targets Robot Vacuum Cleaners

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a new processor from Allwinner, so today I got curious and visited the company website hoping to find maybe some news about the first Cortex-A7x processor from the company. But instead I found something else intriguing with the new Allwinner MR133 processor specifically designed for “SLAM/VSLAM intelligent robot sweeper solutions”. In other words, Allwinner has just launched a processor for robot vacuum cleaners… Allwinner MR133 key features and specifications: CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.8GHz with 32KB L1 I-cache + 32KB L1 D-cache per core, 512KB L2 cache, low-power CoolFlex power management architecture GPU – Arm Mali 400MP2 with support for OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1, Direct3D 11.1, OpenVG 1.1 Memory I/F – 32-bit DDR4/DDR3/DDR3L/LPDDR3/LPDDR4 Storage I/F – eMMC 5.0 flasj, compatible with eMMC 5.1, support Full Disk Encryption(FDE) 8-bit TLC/MLC/SLC/EF NAND flash, supports FDE LDPC/80-bit BCH/1024bytes Video Engine – H264 HP encoder […]