Anichips Technology, a Shenzhen based electronics design company, has just announced PhoenixA20, a pico-ITX board features AllWinner A20 dual core Cortex A20 SoC with 1GB, 4GB Flash, HDMI and VGA output, Ethernet, and built-in Wi-fi and Bluetooth.
PhoenixA20 specifications:
- SoC- AllWinner A20 dual ARM Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.2 GHz with ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU
- System Memory – 1GB DDR3
- Storage – 4GB NAND Flash, micro SD card slot (up to 32GB), and SATA
- Video output – HDMI and VGA connectors. LVDS, RGB and CVBS signals are accessible via the expansion headers
- Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth 4.0 (via AP6210)
- USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports
- Camera Interface – CSI
- Expansion headers – 3x UART, 2x I2C, 1×I2S, 1xCVBS, 4x TVIN, 2x Line IN, 1x SPDIF, 2x PWM, 2x LRADC, 2x FMIN, 1xHeadphone, 4xTVOUT, MIC, IR, TP
The board supports Android 4.2.2, and Linux 3.3 with source code for Linux, Android, and U-boot available from the company’s github account. Documentation and schematics (PDF format) are also available. There are two directory for English and Chinese documentation, but at the moment don’t bother with the English version (basically empty), and all interesting docs are in the Chinese directory. There’s also a Wiki (short but in English, and with somewhat useful links), and a forum, in Chinese only for now, which could be the place where to find bootable Ubuntu or Android images for the board.
It’s one of the rare boards to come with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in this price category ($69 including shipping), as well as a CSI connector (although it’s unclear if any cam is supported right now). The VGA output may be an advantage too. In theory, you should be able to purchase pico-ITX case for the board, but as noted on linux-sunix mailing list, there are not that many off-the-shelf Pico-ITX cases, so this may not be that much of an advantage.
The board can be purchased on Aliexpress for $69 including shipping via China Post, or on Taobao for 369 CNY (~ $60.50).
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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would this make a good xbmc player and with linux would it have full hw acceleration
but how this board works? can I install on a lunux arm distribution without pain? what distribution?
@adem
Not sure, this particular board is very for to use with XBMC. There’s some work to reverse-enginner the VP in A10 (is the the same in A20). But after AllWinner A10 experience, XBMC developers may not be willing to put efforts in this platform.
@Pete
That’s the problem for people who don’t read Chinese with this board, including myself. At this time, I could not find images on the Wiki, and although the forum is in Chinese, I could see some download links for Ubuntu images there. Support may be a problem, if they are not willing, or don’t have the resources, to provide better documentation and support in English.
Near identical specs to cubieboard2. Competition.
Don’t try to cheat us with that “1.2Ghz”: faster than 912Mhz, A20 start to melt down!
I think the price is $59 instead of $69?
anyway this seems a better deal comparing to cubieboard2. cuibeboard2 is slightly more expensive(5%), and it does not have CSI-camera, VGA and wifi/BT _onboard_.
Cubietruck with less ram
and knowing chinese fly by night dev houses consisting of 3 students even less code support
@xxiao
The price announced in their blog post is $59, but when you want to buy on Aliexpress it is $69 with free shipping. So maybe it’s $59 for the board, and $69 including shipping. The prices announced for other low cost boards such as R-Pi, Beaglebone Black, Cubieboard (2) usually do not include shipping so for comparison purpose, $59 should be a better number.
@uneofus
Really ? any sources ?
Allwinner A10, A13, and A20 are not any good for XBMC yet, and still does not look promising since it has gone a year now without A10 support even though it is a very cheap and popular platform.
Allwinner A10, A13, and A20 SoC’s all uses the same type of CedarX (CedarV VPU and CedarA APU via libve) for hardware accelerated video and audio decoding.
But if you are a developer and you managed to get the CedarX Video Processor Unit working on A10 then it should also work on A20, and vice verse.
Otherwise you just have to continue to wait until Allwinner realize that they need to open source their CedarX library and drivers under LGPL or GPL if they like their products support XBMC.
@Hedda
Not gonna happen. Allwinner has been around for a while now and if they were going to release anything they would have done so.
XBMC was in talks with Allwinner and said they would support XBMC devs with code but they bailed on XBMC.
Do not expect any support from Allwinner for any type of code/drivers/libraries.
I thought Tom Cubie was an Allwinner employee? If he can’t get any support from allwinner do you think anyone else can….
What is the operating temperature range of this board?
On Aliexpress it is now $59 without shipping. I ordered one board just after this blog post was published including free shipping by China Mail. Shop sent me email and said that it doesn’t have free shipping. After few emails I got free shipping to Finland by DHL. Now shipping seems to cost $19.47 to Finland by DHL.
Now also available on Seeedstudio – http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/phoenixa20-first-picoitx-board-p-1695.html
Saw it in Europe, The Netherlands @ http://embeddedcomputer.nl/phoenixa20/phoenixa20-embedded-pico-itx-board.html
Embeddedcomputer shipping to Finland is €27.53 which is quite an expensive, almost 50% for the price of the board.
Maybe this is the cheapest place to get one:
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/PhoenixA20-First-ARM-A7-PicoITX-board-p-1695.html?cPath=6_8
(Pretty sure it’s free shipping for orders >$50)
Is there somebody who wants to sale this board 2nd hand. I’m searching for one but it seems they are sold out…
@Roel
It’s on eBay, but not really at an attractive price: http://www.ebay.com/itm/PhoenixA20-ARM-A7-Pico-ITX-/221416150700?hash=item338d6e56ac:g:3IwAAMXQC-tTCe2f
Why do you want this board specifically?
@cnxsoft
It’s Pico-itx, easier to put in a case + sata + i2S
Indeed for this price I can buy something more powerfull, but it’s hard to find some boards with sata.
Allwiner A20 boards have gbit Ethernet, but not this one?
@Roel
I can find alternative Pico-ITX boards with SATA but they are all quite expensive:
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/07/06/ifc6540-snapdragon-805-development-board/
http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/07/24/via-announces-via-vab-800-pico-itx-board-based-on-freescale-i-mx537-processor/
as well as some others Intel based pico-ITX boards, but these are for industrial applications:
http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/10/03/axiomtek-pico842-fanless-bay-trail-pico-itx-motherboard-includes-a-so-dimm-socket-and-sata-ports/
http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/02/06/data-modul-edm-pitx-bt-pico-itx-boards-powered-by-intel-bay-trail-processors/
@cnxsoft
Indeed all to expensive, I can buy a matrix board with a imx6q for 80€. I think I go for that one, altough i don’t know if these have I2S available to connect a DAC.
@Roel
There exist a few A20 SBC with SATA, GBit Ethernet and I2S available, the cheapest one being Banana Pro: http://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi_devices_as_NAS
But you can’t use DAC HATs on Banana Pro due to different pinouts. All informations here: http://forum.lemaker.org/thread-11807-1-1.html
@tkaiser
I was first planning to buy a bpi R1 (or lamobo R1). But I understand from the armbian forum it’s crap It seems indeed that the banana pro has a good design.
@Roel
I would avoid the R1 (great idea but totally f*cked up implementation). And be careful regarding I2S. Not many A20 boards route it to the outside.
Seems like the orange pi plus also have I2S: http://www.orangepi.org/orangepibbsen/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=206&extra=&page=1
I will wait until they tested it.