Phytium Mars is an Upcoming 64 Core ARMv8 Processor for Servers

Several server SoCs with a large number of ARMv8 cores have been announced in the past with products such as Cavium ThunderX featuring 48 64-bit ARM cores and EZTile TILE-Mx100 with 100 ARM Cortex A53 cores. Phytium Technology, a Chinese startup funded in 2012, has showcased its work on Mars processor with 64 custom design ARMv8 cores at Hotchips 2015 conference. Charles Zhang, director of research for Phytium, made the presentation entitled “Mars: A 64-Core ARMv8 Processor” at the conference, and a PDF version is available on Hotchips 2015 website (Conf. Day 1 section) but unfortunately it’s password-protected and only accessible by attendees. Last year, they made all presentations publicly downloadable in December, so hopefully it will be the same this year. In the meantime, I relied on an articles published on EETimes and Golem.de, the latter reproduced some of the slides, to get some of the specs and features: […]

Beelink i68 Rockchip RK3368 TV Box Unboxing and Teardown

Rockchip RK3368 started shipping last month, and thanks to GearBest, I’ve received my first 64-bit ARM TV Box with Beelink iONE i68. Today, I’ll take a few pictures of the device and the board, and will follow up with a full review in a few days. Beelink i68 Unboxing The box was sent to me via DHL in a cartonboard package various information about the “Smart Android TV Box” such as Android 5.1 operating system, an eight core CPU with G6110 GPU, 4K2K and H.265 support, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, and eMMC flash. The package includes the box, a Quick Start Guide in English, and HDMI cable, an IR remote control that requires two AAA batteries, a USB OTG adapter, and a 5V/2A power adapter with US and EU plugs. An SD card slot, two USB 2.0 host ports and a micro USB OTG port can be found on the […]

Leadcore Roadmap Until 2017 Shows 14nm FinFET Processors Planned

I first heard about Leadcore in 2013 when they announced several ARM Cortex A7 and A9 mobile processors, but since then they’ve become a bit more popular after Leadcore L1860C quad core processor found its way into in Xiaomi Redmi 2A smartphone. The company has now shown its roadmap for  2016, and 2017 with some interesting developments. We can expect three processors in 2016 all with 64-bit ARM cores manufactured using 28nm process: An 8-core 64-bit processor with Mali-T820 GPU and LTE Cat 6 modem A 4-core 64-bit processor with an unnamed Mali GPU and LTE Cat 6 modem A quad core Cortex A53 processor with TD-LTE and LTE FDD And in 2017, one processor is scheduled, should be manufactured using 14nm FinFET process, which could mean 2017 will be the year 14nm FinFET goes mainstream even for lower cost processors. That currently unnamed processor will feature eight 64-bit cores […]

Tronsmart Orion R68 64-bit ARM TV Box Sells for Up to 50% Discount

We’ve seen several Rockchip RK3366 TV boxes being announced recently such as Eny EKB368 or Beelink i68, and it’s no surprise that Tronmart decided to launch their own model Orion R68 based on the latest Rockchip processor. Two models are available: Orion R68 Meta with 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC, GbE, and 802.11 ac WiFi, and Orion R68 Pro with 1GB RAM, 8GB eMMC, Fast Ethernet, and 2.4 GHz 802.11n WiFi. The latter appears to be the same Beelink i68 TV Box going for $66. Tronsmart Orion R68 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3368 octa core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with PowerVR G6110 GPU System Memory- 1 GB DDR3 (Pro); 2GB DDR3 (Meta) Storage – 8GB eMMC flash (Pro); 16GB eMMC flash (Meta); SD card slot up to 64GB for both models Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60Hz Audio Output – HDMI, optical S/PDIF Connectivity Pro […]

Rockchip RK3368 based Beelink i68 Media Player Sells for $66 and Up

The 64-bit ARM TV boxes are coming either with Rockchip Rk3368, Amlogic S905, or Allwinner A64, but so far I could not find much price information. The good news is that the first 64-bit ARM mini PCs will be cheap, as Beelink i68, powered by Rockchip RK3368 octa-core Cortex A53 processor, is listed for as low as $66.35 with 1GB RAM on Gearbest, but you can also select the 2GB RAM version for $81.68. Using coupon BI68 will reduce the price further by one or two dollars. Beelink i68 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3368 octa core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with PowerVR G6110 GPU System Memory – 1 or 2 GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash + SD card slot up to 64GB Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 60Hz Audio Output – HDMI, optical S/PDIF Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 […]

DragonBoard 410c 64-bit ARM Development Board in Stock for $75

There has been a few 96Boards announced so far, and a Banana Pi96 could soon be launched, as LeMarker has just joined the Linaro Community Board Group, but so far the board that generated the most buzz was Qualcomm Dragonboard 410c, but at the time pricing was not officially disclosed, although a $75 target price was posted in several blogs. And now it seems Qualcomm 64-bit ARM board indeed costs $75, as it is listed for that price on Arrow Electronics website with a few pieces in stock. Dragonboard 410c specifications have also been further detailed: SoC- Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 (APQ8016) quad-core ARM CortexA53 @ 1.2 GHz with Adreno 306 GPU @ 400MHz System Memory – 1GB LPDDR3 @ 533MHz, Single-channel 32-bit (4.2GBps) Storage – 8GB eMMC 4.51 + micro SD 3.0 (UHS-I) Video Output – HDMI up to 1080p Video Playback -1080p@30fps HD video playback and capture with H.264 […]

ACEMAX G9C TV Box is Powered by Amlogic S905 64-bit ARM Processor

We’ve learned that Amlogic was working on S905 and S912 64-bit ARM processors a little while ago, and one of the first product to market featuring Amlogic S905 processor could be Acemax G9C. ACEMAX G9C specifications: SoC –  Amlogic S905 quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 2.0GHz with  penta-vore Mali-450MP GPU up to 750MHz+ System Memory – 2GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB NAND flash (Bigger Memory Optional) + micro SD card slot Video Output – HDMI 2.0, AV Video Codecs – 1080p/4k2k H.264, H.265, HD AVC/VC-1, HD MPEG1/2/4, RM/RMVB, Xvid/DivX 3/4/5/6, RealVideo 8/9/10 Audio – HDMI, AV, coaxial S/PDIF Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, Wi-Fi @ 2.4GHz USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports Power Supply –  DC 5V/2A Dimensions – 125 x 120 x 20 mm The box is said to run Android 5.0. That’s about all we know about the box right now, as availability and pricing are […]

Linaro 15.04 Release with Linux 4.0 and Android 5.1

Linaro 15.04 has been released with Linux 4.0 (baseline), Linux 3.10.74 and 3.14.39 (LSK), and Android 5.1.1. Other noticeable changes include support for the new DragonBoard 410c 96boards compliant board, the addition of A80 Optimusboard (Allwinner A80) to Android Kitkat build, Hisilicon D01 support added to the Debian installer, and support for Ubuntu ARM64 Gnome rootfs. Highlights of the release: Linux Linaro 4.0-2015.04 updated linaro-android topic: aosp/android-3.18 branch has been merged GATOR topic: version 5.20.1 updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT (FVP Base and Foundation models, and Juno support) updated topic from Qualcomm LT (IFC6410 and DB410c boards support): Resource Power Manager (RPM) – MSM Shared Memory Driver (SMD) driver quite some changes under drivers/gpu/drm/ related to adv7511 and adv7533 support ASoC support for QCOM platforms external Connector Class (extcon) support (used for USB VBUS and ID detection) Linaro builds of AOSP 15.04 baseline updated to android-5.1.1_r1 updated Nexus 10 […]