A few days ago, we wrote about upcoming quad core Cortex-A55 processors from Amlogic with S905X3, S905Y3, and S905D3 SoCs. Today, we got a little more information with a product brief including the main features, and a block diagram.
Amlogic S905X3 is described as an “advanced application processor designed for hybrid OTT/ IP Set Top Box (STB) and high-end media box applications.
Amlogic S905X3 specifications:
- CPU Sub-system
- Quad core Arm Cortex-A55 CPU with Armv8-A Neon and Crypto extension, 8-stage in-order full dual issue pipeline, unified system L3 cache
- Arm Cortex-M3 core for system control processing
- Optional Arm Cortex-M4 core for always-on processing
- TrustZone
- Internal QoS based switching fabrics
- Optional Neural Network Accelerator – 1.2 TOPS NN inference accelerator supporting TensorFlow and Caffe
- 3D Graphics Processing Unit – Arm Mali G31MP2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.0 and OpenCL 2.0 support
- 2.5D Graphics Processor
- Fast bitblt engine with dual inputs and single output
- Programmable raster operations (ROP)
- Programmable polyphase scaling filter
- Support for 4:2:0, 4:2:2, and 4:4:4 video formats, and multiple pixel formats (8/16/24/32 bits graphic layer)
- Fast color space conversion
- Advanced anti-flickering filter
- Crypto Engine
- AES block cipher with 128/256 bits keys
- TDES block cipher with ECB and CDC modes
- SM4 block cipher with ECB, CBC, CTR modes
- Hardware crypto key-ladder operation and DVB-CSA for transport stream encryption
- TRNG, CRC and SHA-1/SHA-2/HMAC SHA engine
- Video/Picture CODEC
- Amlogic Video Engine (AVE) with dedicated hardware decoders and encoders
- Support multi-video decoder up to 4x 1080p60
- Support multiple secured video decoding sessions and simultaneous decoding and encoding
- Video/Picture Decoding
- VP9 Profile-2 up to 4Kx2K @ 60 fps
- H.265 HEVC MP-10 @ L5.1 up to 4Kx2K @ 60 fps
- AVS2-P2 Profile up to 4Kx2K @ 60 fps
- H.264 AVC HP @ L5.1 up to 4Kx2K @ 30 fps
- MPEG-4 ASP @ L5, WMV/VC-1, AVS-R16/AVS-R2 JiZhun Profile, MPEG-2, MPEG-1, and RealVideo 8/9/10 up to 1080p60
- Multiple language and multiple format sub-title video support
- MJPEG and JPEG unlimited pixel resolution decoding (ISO/IEC-10918)
- Support JPEG thumbnail, scaling, rotation and transition effects
- Supports mkv, wmv, mpg, mpeg, dat, avi, mov, iso, mp4, rm, and jpg file formats
- Video/Picture Encoding
- Independent JPEG and H.264 encoder with configurable performance/bitrate
- JPEG image encoding
- H.265/H.264 video encoding up to 1080p60 with low latency
- 8th Generation Advanced Amlogic TruLife Image Engine
- Supports Dolby Vision (optional), HDR10+, HDR10, HLD and Technicolor HDR processing
- Motion compensated noise reduction, and 3D digital noise reduction for random noise
- Block noise, mosquito noise, spatial noise, contour noise reduction
- Motion compensated and motion adaptive de-interlacer
- Edge interpolation with low angle protection and processing
- Smart sharpness with Superscalar technology including de-contouring, de-ring, LTI, CTI, de-jaggy, peaking
- Dynamic non-linear contrast enhancement
- All dimension multiple regions smart color management including blue/green extension, flesh-tone correction, wider gamut for video
- 2 video planes and 3 graphics planes hardware composer
- Independent HDR re-mapping of video and graphic layer
- Video Input/Output Interface
- Built-in HDMI 2.1 transmitter including both controller and PHY supporting CEC, Dynamic HDR and HDCP 2.2, 4Kx2K @ 60 Hz max resolution output, ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode)
- CVBS 480i/576i standard definition output
- Support all standard video output formats: 480i/p, 576i/p,. 720p, 1080i/p, 4Kx2K
- Audio Decoder and Input/Output
- Supports MP3, AAC, WMA, RM, FLAC, Ogg and programmable with 7.1/5.1 down-mixing
- Low-power VAD (Voice Activity Detection)
- Built-in serial digital audio SPDIF/IEC958 input/output and PCM input/output
- 3x TDM/PCM/I2S ports with TDM/PCM mode up to 384 KHz x 32 bits x 16ch or 96 KHz x 32 bits x 32 ch, and I2S mode up to 384 KHz x 32 bits x 16 ch
- Digital microphone PDM input with programmable CIC, LPF & HPF, support up to 8 DMICs
- Built-in Stereo audio DAC
- Supports concurrent dual audio stereo channel output with combination of analog+PCM or I2S + PCM
- Memory & Storage Interface
- 32-bit DRAM memory interface with dual ranks and max 4GB total address space
- Compatible with JEDEC standard DDR3-2133 / DDR3L-2133 / DDR4-3200 / LPDDR3-2133 / LPDDR4-3200 SDRAM
- Support SLC/LMC/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 mode
- eMMC and MMC card interface with 1/4/8-bit data bus width supporting spec version 5.0 HS400
- Support serial 1, 2 or 4-bit NOR flash via SPI
- Built-in 4k bits One-Time-Programming memory for key storage
- Network
- Integrated 10/100/1000M Ethernet MAC with RGMII interface
- Integrated 10/100M Ethernet PHY interface
- WiFi & Bluetooth supported via PCIe, SDIO, USB, UART, or PCM
- Network interface optimized for mixed WiFi and Bluetooth traffic
- Digital Television Interface
- One serial and one parallel Transport Stream (TS) input interface with built-in demux processor for connecting to external digital TV tuner/demodulator
- Built-in PWM, I2C and SPI interfaces to control tuner and demodulator
- Integrated ISO7816 smart card controller
- Integrated I/O controllers and interfaces
- 1x USB XHCI OTG 2.0 port
- One USB SS and PCIe 2.0 combo port up to 5 Gbps configurable with either:
- 1x USB 2.0 host port + PCIe
- 1x USB 3.0 without PCIe
- Multiple PWM, UART, I2C and SPI interfaces with slave select
- Programmable IR remote input/output controllers
- Built-in 10-bit SAR ADC with 4 input channels
- GPIOs 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
- Integrated Power On Reset (POR) module
- Power Management
- Multiple internal power domains 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 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
- Separated secure/non-secure Entropy true RNG
- Pre-region/ID memory security control and electric fence
- Hardware based Trusted Video Path (TVP), video watermarking and secured contents (needs SecureOS software)
- Secured IO and secured clock
- Package – FCBGA, 14 x 14mm, RoHS compliant
The Cortex-A55 cores deliver up to twice the performance compared to Cortex-A53 in memory benchmarks, and a more typical 20 to 30% performance improvement for common tasks at the same frequency.
Amlogic S905X3 has some optional features like the Neural Network Accelerator and a Cortex-M4 core for always-on processing, so we should expect several part numbers, but this was not detailed in the product brief.
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.
Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies, become a Patron on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon or Aliexpress
Time for Le Potato Pro. S922X is kind overkill. Realtek is going to have a hell of a time catching up to Amlogic. Only things missing are DP and MIPI.
@Da Xue You should make your case for those features to Amlogic.
Hopefully they’ll stop muxing USB 3.0 and PCIe as well.
I will cream in my pants if there is a S922X LePotato Pro <3
Note that this is Android only, there won’t be any official Linux support for this SoC from Amlogic.
Many hardware blocks are very similar to existing blocks on GXL and G12. It’s a matter of extending the existing upstream code since new silicon doesn’t mean completely new architecture. It still has the AV10 VPU block from S905X so all of the video work from BayLibre for the last two years can be re-used. This is the beauty of open source and upstreaming. They didn’t add the AV1 codec so most likely the codec decoding blocks are just higher clocked versions of previous blocks.
There will be Axxx products with similar/same spec though that will supposedly have Linux support.
Does H.265 encoding is really supported by this HW?
Why wouldn’t it be? There’s a dedicated hardware decoding engine. Most likely something like this https://developer.arm.com/ip-products/graphics-and-multimedia/mali-video-processors/mali-v52-video-processor
even the s905x supports 1080p h265 encoding.
Yes, but this only means it can encode to a compatible bitstream. This is probably just a quick and dirty hardware encoder. A software encoder is much slower, but uses many advanced features and can achieve much higher compression or higher quality.
Currently available H.265 hardware encoders with realtime capability AND high quality at low bitrates are very expensive and power hungry (hundreds of watts).
No private L2? How does ‘unified system L3’ differ from ‘unified cluster L2’?
“Integrated 10/100/100M Ethernet MAC with RGMII interface”
Guess this should be 10/100/1000M
Yes. Fixed.
Any idea why all these SOC’s have Gigabit MAC, but only 10/100 PHY? Why not Gigabit PHY also? Is it that much more complex?
Initially I would have thought it was in order to save pins but that’s the opposite, you need only 8 pins for a Gbit MAC and 12 for RGMII. It might be a matter of cost, as the RTL8211 found everywhere probably is cheaper than reusing some IP from wherever, that is possibly not as much validated. Last, it’s also possible that a PHY requires a bit of analog signals that do not play well with the 12/14/22nm technology the SoCs are made from and that it’s easier and cheaper to do them in 65/90nm which are sufficient for this… Read more »
Cost. When you pay an extra hundred thousand on NRE and dimes more per unit for die, licensing, packaging, testing, etc, it adds up to tens of millions of dollars. If only 3% of your customer base deploy it, it’s a complete waste compared to just leaving a MAC to attach an external PHY.
AES 265 should probably be AES 256.
Too bad that the maximum RAM is 4G. A couple of extra address pins would be great.
more than 4GB of RAM to do what ? it isn’t Windows OS
also what is the difference between these two in relation to ethernetspeeds
Integrated 10/100/1000M Ethernet MAC with RGMII interface
Integrated 10/100M Ethernet PHY interface
AVS2 is a Chinese standard for video encoding/decoding, not related to AV1.
Ethernet support requires a MAC and a PHY/transceiver.
Amlogic implements the MAC only for Gigabit Ethernet, and the MAC and PHY for Fast Ethernet.
That means for Fast Ethernet (10/100M), an external PHY transceiver is not needed, but for Gigabit Ethernet designers need to add an extra chip (Ethernet PHY / transceiver) on the board.
Guess LE will add support for this ‘soon’ as well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
An RFC for SM1 support has already been submitted to the upstream kernel and I have a test image waiting on a couple of samples to arrive. So, yeah, soon-ish 🙂
If others are also confused about the meaning of “SM1”. It’s the code name for S905X3 in the source code.
I read about one of the boxes based on this chipset that it supports 8k. Does it, or not?
Not sure about S905X3. But the more powerful Amlogic S922X-B and A311D processors can manage to decode 8K VP9 (and H.265) videos: https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/07/11/amlogic-a311d-and-s922x-b-processors-support-8k-vp9-video-decoding/
If you read “Arthur L.” comment there he mentions 8K @ 30 fps may work too.
I have no idea if those results can be reproduced on S905X3, but I understand it’s using the same Amlogic Video Engine (AVE), and HDMI 2.1 port.
Does S905x3 support analog Microphone in the AV 3.5mm jack???
Yes, but you’d need to check the number of poles in the 3.5mm jack. It may vary.
Ok thanks Jean-Luc, I figure out the AV pinout, from tip to sleeve we have Left Speaker, Right Speaker, Video and Ground, so I tried to connect a Microphone wi 3.5 mm plug into AV jack but I couldn’t make it work, should I use an amplifier like PAM8403?
Do you know where the microphone input pin is on your board/device?
Actually, the easiest way to add a microphone to your device would be to buy a USB microphone.
Something like the one I used @ https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/07/30/how-to-setup-an-orange-pi-zero-diy-smart-speaker-with-google-assistant-sdk/#installing-ubuntu-on-orange-pi-zero-configuring-networking-and-audio-input-output