Year 2022 in review – Top 10 posts and statistics

CNX Software Happy New Year 2023

It’s the last day of the year and the time to look at some of the highlights of 2022, some traffic statistics from CNX Software website, and speculate on what 2023 may bring us. The semiconductors shortage continued in 2022, but things are looking brighter in 2023 with the full reopening of the world mixed with forecasts of difficult economic times that should keep the demand/supply equation in check. On the Arm processor front the biggest news of the year, at least in this corner of the Internet, was the launch of the Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor together with interesting single board computers that we’ll discuss below. Announced last year, the Amlogic A311D2 octa-core Cortex-A73/A53 was finally made available in a few SBC’s, and we finally got some news about the Amlogic S928X Cortex-A76/A55 SoC showcased in 8K TV boxes, but we have yet to see it in action. […]

Linux 6.1 LTS release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.1 LTS

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 6.1, likely to be an LTS kernel, last Sunday: So here we are, a week late, but last week was nice and slow, and I’m much happier about the state of 6.1 than I was a couple of weeks ago when things didn’t seem to be slowing down. Of course, that means that now we have the merge window from hell, just before the holidays, with me having some pre-holiday travel coming up too. So while delaying things for a week was the right thing to do, it does make the timing for the 6.2 merge window awkward. That said, I’m happy to report that people seem to have taken that to heart, and I already have two dozen pull requests pending for tomorrow in my inbox. And hopefully I’ll get another batch overnight, so that I can try to really get as […]

Allwinner V3LP gets low voltage RAM, should replace Allwinner V3S dual camera SoC

Allwinner V3LP

Allwinner V3LP is a single-core Cortex-A7 processor for dual-camera systems with the exact same specifications as the Allwinner V3S processor introduced in 2016, except it should be more power efficient with a lower DDR operating voltage of 1.5V instead of 1.8V. Sochip explains that procuring the integrated DDR2 in the Allwinner V3s design is challenging, so Allwinner has replaced the memory in the pin-to-pin compatible Allwinner V3LP with more broadly available and lower power RAM. Allwinner V3LP specifications: CPU – ARM Cortex-A7 @ up to 1.2 GHz Memory – Integrated 64MB DDR2 DRAM @ 1.5 V Storage I/F – SD 2.0, eMMC 4.41, SPI NAND flash, SPI NOR flash Audio Codec – 92dB audio codec supporting 2x ADC channels and 2x DAC channels, 1x low-noise analog microphone bias output, 1x microphone input and 1x stereo microphone output Video Processing Unit Encoding – 1080p@40fps or 1080p@30fps + VGA@30fps H.264 Decoding – […]

Allwinner T3 automotive-grade processor powers industrial-grade SoM

Allwinner T3 SOM TLT3

Allwinner T3 is a quad-core Cortex-A7 automotive-grade processor that supports a wide industrial temperature range of -40°C to +85°C. After comparing the specifications of Allwinner T3, I think it is the same as Allwinner A40i, as Allwinner has different business units and the T-series is for the automotive-grade market, while the A-series has historically been for the tablet market, but is now also used in the industrial-grade market. Tronlong SOM-TLT3 and SOM-TLT3-B are Allwinner T3 system-on-modules (SoM) of Allwinner T3. Both modules have basically the same specifications but the SOM-TLT3 comes with castellated holes for soldering to the carrier board, while the SOM-TLT3-B features board-to-board connectors. Tronlong SOM-TLT3 / SOM-TLT3-B specifications: CPU – Allwinner T3 quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.2 GHz with 32KB L1 I-cache + 32KB L1 D-cache, 512KB L2 cache. GPU – Arm Mali-400 MP2 with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0, Open VG 1.1 Memory – 1/2GByte DDR3 […]

FNIRSI 1013D teardown and mini review – A portable oscilloscope based on Allwinner CPU & Anlogic FGPA

FNIRSI 1013D

The FNIRSI 1013D is a dual-channel flat-panel oscilloscope with a rich set of features. It is cost-effective and useful to people in the maintenance and R&D industries. Although it has been on the market for a few years, I purchased one, and I decided to introduce it and disassemble it to check out the hardware design. FNIRSI describes its oscilloscope as “small and portable”, so I assume it should include a lithium battery, a TFT LCD screen, a processor to handle the display, and another chip to process the digital signals. Let’s take it apart first to find out. FNIRSI 1013D oscilloscope unboxing FNIRSI 1013D package content: 1x FNIRSI 1013D oscilloscope 2x 100MHz matching probes (1X and 10X) 1x USB cable 1x Charging adapter 1x Instruction manual The FNIRSI 1013D adopts a 7-inch 800 x 480 resolution color TFT LCD with a capacitive touch screen. There are two input channels […]

Allwinner V851S/V851SE low-cost camera SoC embeds 64MB DDR2, a 0.5 TOPS NPU

Allwinner V851S camera board

Allwinner V851S/V851SE is a single-core Arm Cortex-A7 SoC with a RISC-V core, an H.265/H.264 video encoder, and a 0.5 TOPS NPU designed for Smart IP cameras with support for features such as human detection and crossing alarms. Both processors ship with 64MB DDR2 memory, and feature USB, Ethernet, and SDIO interfaces, but the V851S is designed for systems with a display, while the V851SE targets traditional headless IP cameras. Both processors are pretty similar, but here are the key differences between Allwinner V851S: Networking – 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port with RMII interface GPIO – 6x ports (PA, PC, PD, PE, PF, PH) Display LCD Parallel RGB, Serial RGB, i8080, BT656 2-lane MIPI DSI SPI – 4x SPI and Allwinner V851SE: Networking – SIP 100 Mbps EPHY GPIO – 5x ports (PA, PC, PE, PF, PH) Display – Not supported SPI – 3x SPI That means the Allwinner V851S requires an […]

Transpeed P10 Android 10 Full HD projector features Allwinner H700 SoC

Transpeed P10 Full HD Android 10 projector

Allwinner H700 is a “new” processor that has found its way into Transpeed P10 Full HD “portable” projector running Android 10. It is sold on Aliexpress for $125 including shipping. Allwinner H700 happens to be yet another derivative of Allwinner H616/H618 quad-core Corex-A53 processor, but adds an RGB LCD interface up to 1080p60 and video input interfaces that make it suitable for projector and smart displays. The processor also has two Ethernet interfaces (1x Gigabit and 1x 10/100M) like the H616, but no built-in PHY, so an additional Ethernet transceiver is needed on the board. Let’s first have a look a the Transpeed P10 projector specifications: SoC – Allwinner H700 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.5GHz with Arm Mali-G31 mp2, 6K video decoder, and 4Kp25 H.264 video encoder System Memory – 2GB  RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash Projector 1920×1080 native resolution LED bulb Brightness – 120 ANSI Lumens Projection […]

Allwinner H618 processor powers Android 12 TV boxes

Allwinner H618 TV Box Android 12

Allwinner H618 processor has started to show up in several TV boxes running Android 12, and capable of playing 6K/4K VP9 and H.265 videos with devices such as T95Z Plus and T95 Max, which may be confusing, as companies are reusing those model numbers over and over. Featuring a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, an Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU, and 6K video support, the Allwinner H618 looks exactly like the Allwinner H616 processor except it can run the more recent Android 12 operating system. There’s not much public information about Allwinner H618 at the time of writing, but let’s check T95Z Plus specifications to see if we can find any other new hidden features: SoC – Allwinner H618 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.5GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU System Memory – 2GB or 4GB RAM Storage – 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card socket Video Output HDMI […]

Exit mobile version