Amlogic S905D2 Quad Core Cortex A53 Processor Coming Soon with Google Fuchsia Support

Amlogic-S905D2

Earlier today, I wrote about the latest version of USB Burning Tool, and noticed added support for Amlogic “905D2” processor in the changelog. I had heard about Amlogic S905X2, but S905D2? Never. I could find information in some recent Buildroot/Linux release notes, and as one would expect it’s another quad core Cortex A53 processor, and likely an update of S905D processor targeting set-top boxes with multiple independent tuners. Amlogic S905D2 specifications known so far: Processor – Arm Quad Cortex-A53 at up to 1.896 GHz GPU – Arm Dvalin MP2 GPU (Likely meaning Arm Mali-G31MP2) Memory I/F – DDR3/4, LPDDR3/4 Security – TrustZone & TVP Video decoding – 4K H265, VP9, and AVS2 Video Encoding – 1080p H264 H265 Video I/F – HDMI-Tx up to 4K2K, CVBS Ethernet – 10/100M/1000M IP License – Dolby, DTS There’s no mention about TS or DVB,  but it appears the processor may be clocked faster […]

USB Burning Tool v2.1.6 for Amlogic Processors Released

Amlogic’s USB Burning Tool is a Windows based tool used to upgrade devices based on Amlogic processors over USB. Most devices now implement OTA firmware updates, so in most cases it is not necessary, but if your device has problem to boot, or want to update to a beta software it is often required, although now it is possible to use a micro SD card with Burn Card Maker. USB Burning Tool is often updated to fix bugs and support new processors, so you may want to check out you have the latest version to avoid any potential issues. Tanix provided a link to USB Burning Tool v2.1.6, which you’ll also find on mirror 1 and mirror 2. The executable will install the drivers and the utility itself. There’s also a changelog in Chinese. The Google Translation of the changelog may be useful to find out if you want to […]

Mainline Linux on Amlogic S905/S905X/S912 SoCs – 2018 Status Update

BayLibre is working on mainline Linux for Amlogic SoC, and in February of last year, Neil Armstrong gave a presentation entitled “Mainline Linux on AmLogic SoCs” at the Embedded Linux Conference 2017. Neil has recently (actually yesterday) given another presentation about the status of mainline Linux on Amlogic processor at linux.conf.au 2018, so we have some updated information now. He goes through the whole history of upstreaming Linux for Amlogic SoCs, but I’ll provided summary of the new features, and if you have time you can watch the video (25 minutes) embed below, or the slides. Early last year, Linux 4.10 already supported general I/Os, USB host (for S905), Gigabit Ethernet, eMMC/SD/SDIO, PSCI for SMP, and SCPI for DVFS for Amlogic processor, and BayLibre was said to be working on HDMI display support, Mali (as external module), audio input/output, and high-speed eMMC modes. Based on the slide above, with Linux […]

Amlogic A113X1 6-Mic Far-Field Devkit is Designed for Amazon Alexa

Allwinner unveiled their SoC-Only 3-Mic Far-Field Development Kit for Amazon AVS last week, but they are now joined by another low cost silicon vendor as Amlogic has just launched their own A113X1 far-field dev kit officially support for Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS). The development kit is powered by Amlogic A113X SoC designed for such applications with “an audio pipeline that supports high fidelity audio with soft DSP algorithms for both frontend and backend processing”.   Amlogic A113X1 far-field devkit specifications: Mainboard SoC – Amlogic A113X quad core Cortex A53 processor System Memory – 512MB DDR3 Storage – 512 MB NAND flash Connectivity – SDIO WiFi/BT (AP6356S) Audio SPDIF_IN jack LINE_IN/LINE_OUT jacks 2x Audio headers (MIC_Connector & SPK_Connector) USB – 1x micro USB 2.0 OTG port Expansion – SPI header Misc – 6x ADC Keys, IR_IN/IR_OUT, UART Interface (RS232), LEDs Power Supply – 12V/2A Microphone board 6x digital microphones in […]

Amlogic 2018 Roadmap Reveals S905X2, S905C, and S922 Processors

I’ve been asked what’s next for Amlogic a few times recently, and today I received an Amlogic 2017/2018 roadmap dated Q3 2017 that shows three new processors beside Amlogic S805X, which has yet to be launched into products: Amlogic S905C, S905X2 and S922. So let’s have a look at the three new processors. Amlogic S905C specifications: CPU – Quad core ARM Cortex A53 processor GPU- ARM Mali-450MP2 System Memory  – Up to 3GB DDR3/3L, LPDDR2/3 memory Storage – NAND flash, eMMC 5.0 flash, and NOR flash interfaces Video – 4K60 HEVC decoder, 4K30 H.264 decoder, and AVS+ decoder with HDR10, HLG, 1080p60 H.264 encoder Video Output – HDMI 2.0b, CVBS Audio – integrated audio DAC Integrated DVB-C demodulator , 1x TS input Others – 10/100M Ethernet, 2x USB 2.0 Package – 13 x 13 mm BGA Engineering samples have been available since July 2017, and it looks to be targeting […]

Amlogic S905X vs Rockchip RK3328 vs Allwinner H6 Processors – Benchmarks & Features Comparison

Amlogic S905X vs Rockchip RK3328 vs Allwinner H6

Rockchip, Amlogic, and Allwinner are all battling for the lower and mid-range segments of the TV box market, so it may be interesting to compare their solutions. We won’t look into the ultra low-end market with 32-bit ARM Cortex A7 processor, but instead compare some of the recent quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex A53 processor for 4K HDR TV box from the company with respectively Amlogic S905X, Rockchip RK3328, and Allwinner H6 SoCs. We’ll compare some of the benchmarks obtained with Android TV boxes, as well as other features like video support, USB, and Ethernet interfaces. S905X vs RK3328 vs H6 Benchmarks Let’s start with results for popular Android benchmarks: Antutu 6.x, Vellamo 3.x, and 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme v1.2 with results obtained from 3 TV boxes: Mini M8S II (Amlogic S905X), A95X R2 (Rockchip RK3328), and Zidoo H6 Pro (Allwinner H6). A score is highlighted in green is there’s a […]

Amlogic T962E SoC Powers $55 Alfawise H96 Mini TV Box with HDMI Input, HDMI Output

Amlogic-T962E-TV-Box

HDMI input can be a useful addition to Android TV boxes, or media centers, as they allow for functions such as PiP (Picture in Picture), PVR/DVR  (Personal / Digital Video Recording), and potentially video broadcasting with the box taking input from your set-top box (or other HDMI device), and broadcasting the video over your network in order to make it accessible to other computer or mobile devices on your home network, or the Internet. We started to see HDMI input on devices powered by Mstar MSO9810 processor a few years, and more recently Realtek RTD1295 processor has become more popular with products such as Zidoo X9S, Beelink SEA I, or EWEAT R9 Plus. Amlogic appears to have joined the fray with Amlogic T962E processor, a family normally used for TVs instead of TV boxes, found in Alfawise H96 mini 4K TV box with HDMI In and Out, 2GB RAM, and […]

Amlogic S805X Processor is Designed for Low Cost TV Boxes with 1080p H.264, H.265 and VP9 Video Support

The low end of the TV box market is now highly competitive with Rockchip and Amlogic battling to offer the cheapest solutions available, as we’ve seen in a recent factory price list of TV boxes with RK3229 based devices selling for as low as $17.8, and Amlogic S905W based boxes going for $17.5 and up (per unit) for orders of 200 pieces. Amlogic has been working on an even lower cost SoC with Amlogic S805X based on four Cortex A53 cores, the same Mali-450MP GPU, but no 4K support, and instead H.264, H.265 and VP9 video decoding up to 1080p60, as I found out in a document shared on Amlogic Open Linux website. Amlogic S805X will be quite similar to Amlogic S905X and S905D with the same CPU by clocked at a lower 1.2 GHz frequency, the same penta-core GPU, TrustZone support, and Fast Ethernet. The main difference is that […]

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