Amlogic S905X Processor Specifications

[Update September 2016: Removed Video Input Unit and Gigabit Ethernet MAC, since the latest documents have removed them]

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the upcoming Amlogic S905M quad core Cortex A53 processor support 4K VP9 and 10-bit HEVC, but the silicon manufacturer seems to struggle with sticking with a name, as after the initial S908 part, they moved to S905M, before hopefully settling on Amlogic S905X, for which I received more information include a block diagram, and more detailed specifications.

Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge

These are most of the specifications currently available for Amlogic S905X processor with highlights in bold:

  • CPU Sub-system –  Quad core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU up to 1.5GHz (DVFS) with Neon and Crypto extensions
  • 3D Graphics Processing Unit – Penta-core ARM Mali-450 GPU up to 750MHz+ (DVFS) with two geometry/vertex processors, three pixel processors supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 and OpenVG 1.1.
  • 2.5D Graphics Processor – Fast bitblt engine with dual inputs and single output, programmable raster operations (ROP) and polyphase scaling filter, etc..
  • Crypto Engine – AES/AES-XTS block cipher with 128/192/256 bits keys, DES/TDES block cipher, Hardware crypto key-ladder operation and DVB-CSA for transport stream encryption,  built-in hardware True Random Number Generator (TRNG), CRC and SHA-1/SHA-2/HMAC SHA engine
  • Video/Picture CODEC
    • Amlogic Video Engine (AVE-10) with dedicated hardware decoders and encoders
    • Supports multiple “secured” video decoding sessions and simultaneous decoding and encoding
    • Video/Picture Decoding
      • VP9 Profile-2 up to 4Kx2K@60fps
      • H.265 HEVC [email protected] up to 4Kx2K@60fps
      • H.264 AVC [email protected] up to 4Kx2K@30fps, H.264 MVC up to 1080p @60fps
      • MPEG-4 ASP@L5 up to 1080P@60fps (ISO-14496)
      • WMV/VC-1 SP/MP/AP up to 1080P@60fps
      • AVS-P16(AVS+) /AVS-P2 JiZhun Profile up to 1080P@60fps
      • MPEG-2 MP/HL up to 1080P@60fps (ISO-13818)
      • MPEG-1 MP/HL up to 1080P@60fps (ISO-11172)
      • RealVideo 8/9/10 up to 1080P@60fps
      • WebM up to VGA
      • MJPEG and JPEG unlimited pixel resolution decoding (ISO/IEC-10918)
      • Supports JPEG thumbnail, scaling, rotation and transition effects
    • Video/Picture Encoding
      • Independent JPEG and H.264 encoder with configurable performance/bit-rate
      • JPEG image encoding
      • H.264 video encoding up to 1080P@60fps with low latency
  • Video Post-Processing Engine – HDR10 & HLG HDR processing, REC709/BT2020 processing, motion adaptive 3D noise reduction filter, advanced motion adaptive edge enhancing de-interlacing engine, 3:2 pull-down support, deblocking fliters, etc..
  • Video Output
    • Built-in HDMI 2.0a transmitter including both controller and PHY with 3D, CEC, HDR and HDCP 2.2, 4Kx2K@60 max resolution output
    • CVBS 480i/576i standard definition output
  • Camera Interface – 2x ITU 601/656 parallel video input with down-scalar, supports camera input as YUV422, RGB565,16bit RGB or JPEG
  • Audio Decoder and Input/Output
    • Supports MP3, AAC, WMA, RM, FLAC, Ogg and programmable with 7.1/5.1 down-mixing
    • I2S audio interface supporting 8-channel (7.1) input and output
    • Built-in serial digital audio SPDIF/IEC958 output and PCM input/output
    • Built-in dual-channel audio DAC with amplifier
    • Dual-channel digital microphone PDM input
    • Supports concurrent dual audio stereo channel output with combination of I2S+PCM
  • Memory and Storage Interface
    • 16/32-bit SDRAM memory interface running up to DDR2133
    • Supports up to 2GB DDR3/4, DDR3L, LPDDR2, LPDDR3 with dual ranks
    • Supports SLC/MLC/TLC NAND Flash with 60-bit ECC
    • SDSC/SDHC/SDXC card and SDIO interface with 1-bit and 4-bit data bus width supporting up to UHS-I SDR104
    • eMMC and MMC card interface with 1/4/8-bit data bus width fully supporting spec version 5.0 HS400
    • Supports serial 1, 2 or 4-bit NOR Flash via SPI interface
    • Built-in 4k bits One-Time-Programming memory for key storage (That must be where DRM / HDCP keys are programmed)
  • Network
  • Integrated I/O Controllers and Interfaces
    • 2x USB 2.0 high-speed USB I/O, one USB Host and one USB OTG
    • Multiple UART, I2C and SPI interface with slave select
    • Multiple PWMs
    • Programmable IR remote input/output controllers
    • Built-in 10bit SAR ADC with 2 input channels
    • General Purpose IOs with built-in pull up and pull down
  • System, Peripherals and Misc. Interfaces
    • Integrated general purpose timers, counters, DMA controllers
    • 24 MHz crystal input
    • Embedded debug interface using ICE/JTAG
  • Power Management
    • Multiple external power domains controlled by PMIC, and internal ones controlled by software
    • Multiple sleep modes for CPU, system, DRAM, etc.
    • Multiple internal PLLs for DVFS operation
    • Multi-voltage I/O design for 1.8V and 3.3V
    • Power management auxiliary processor in a dedicated always-on (AO) power domain that can communicate with an external PMIC
  • Security
    • Trustzone based Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)
    • Secured boot, encrypted OTP, encrypted DRAM with memory integrity checker, hardware key ladder and internal control buses and storage
    • Protected memory regions and electric fence data partition
    • Hardware based Trusted Video Path (TVP) , video watermarking and secured contents (requires SecureOS software)
    • Secured IO and secured clock

While we’ve now got much more details, the main features of Amlogic S905X have not changed since last month, so they’ll probably stay that way. I don’t have specific information about availability of the processor yet.

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20 Comments
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natsu
natsu
8 years ago

1.5 GHZ, there is a decrease in CPU frequency, very weird, but the VP9 profile-2 hw decoding is very welocome

dvl36
dvl36
8 years ago

I guess “Amlogic Video Engine (AVE-10)” in reality ARM’s Mali V550 VPU.

natsu
natsu
8 years ago

@dvl36
I don’t think so, amlogic has its proper video engine, but who knows

kpk1
kpk1
8 years ago

No DTS, no Dolby Digital ?

taki
taki
8 years ago

If amlogic fix pictures quality of sd video. Looks like perfect stb and mediaplayer cpu.

taki
taki
8 years ago

Otherhan new amlogic decoder must be support and play tvheadend and vdr backend streaming format h265 4k h264 1080p transponder stream format

natsu
natsu
8 years ago

@taki
is someone get the amlogic video encoder work with tvheadend transcoding using ffmpeg, it will be a killer combination, it’s really a shame that no one is interest to explore the amazing video encoding capabilities of these SoC, then the streaming format will be not a problem anymore

Ron
Ron
8 years ago

it supports VP9-profile2, HEVC main10, HDCP (needed for Netflix), HDR – and that’s awesom!
it seems like the perfect chip for video set-top devices!

if its release is going to be soon, I really hope that Wetek would use it instead of the s905-h, so it would become the perfect device of its kind!

if this chip would launch with Marshmallow, it would be even better!

dvl36
dvl36
8 years ago

@natsu
You are right, because Mali V550 did not support VP9 at all.

Steve
Steve
8 years ago

@Ron
+1

taki
taki
8 years ago

natsu : @taki is someone get the amlogic video encoder work with tvheadend transcoding using ffmpeg, it will be a killer combination, it’s really a shame that no one is interest to explore the amazing video encoding capabilities of these SoC, then the streaming format will be not a problem anymore yes trancoding works with tvheadend on amlogic cpu (android and linux) but not enough cpu for trancoding. system try to transcode video after frezing and hanging . other broadcom cpu has options for hw transcoding (mpeg2 to h264). streaming ok with (no transcoding) other lan device ok mpeg2, h264… Read more »

aaa
aaa
8 years ago

Mali 450 in 2016? seriously?

d.zz
d.zz
8 years ago

@natsu
I did see an Hisilicon box with TVheadend supported.

data
data
8 years ago

nice with 8channel i2s outs . unfortunately as usual no maker will route these ( I am pessimistic ) . The first pcb maker to route these multichannel outs will get some audio DSP enthousiast customers . may I be heard by a china startup ! I need arm cortexA board for 8 channel I2S outs audio dsp…

Frank
Frank
8 years ago

Can’t find any info on the included DAC, that is new to the s905x and s912 (while the regular s905 doesn’t have a DAC). Only info is that it is stereo, and hence not 5.1. That’sOK by me. But would still like to know what chip the DAC is. Anyone able to chime in on DAC info for the s905x?

Teiko
Teiko
8 years ago

Kernel arch/arm64/meson64_defconfig has:

CONFIG_USB_DWC3=m

But that is same config for S905 and S905X.

buildroot board/amlogic/mesongxl_p212/rootfs/etc/modules has

dwc3

So USB3 module is loaded only on S905X (= gxl), but not S905 (= gxb).

Great news!

Theguyuk
Theguyuk
8 years ago

Amlogic 2016 Roadmap

Interesting times ahead it would seem. http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/03/10/amlogic-2016-roadmap-reveals-upcoming-s905d-processor-android-6-0-for-amlogic-s905-and-s912-socs/
Hope Amlogic still improve the s802, s812 range too.

joe stetz
joe stetz
6 years ago

how do i turn on close captions s905x unit

Khadas VIM4 SBC