merrii

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments on Current Performance and Stability Issues on AllWinner A80 OptimusBoard Development Board

Current Performance and Stability Issues on AllWinner A80 OptimusBoard Development Board

Sine A80 OptimusBoard is the first ARM hardware that supports both USB 3.0 and Gigabit that I’ve ever owned, so I though it might be interesting to see what performance I could get with a USB 3.0 hard drive through the USB 3.0 OTG port of the board. For testing purpose, I bought a USB 3.0 OTG adapter on Ebay, but I did not look closely enough as it turned out to be only a USB 3.0 OTG to USB 2.0 female adapter capable of USB 2.0 speeds… Kind of useless item since you can plug a standard USB 2.0 OTG adapter into a USB 3.0 OTG receptacle. But I tried my hard drive anyway, and quickly realized write performance was very poor at 3 MB/s on the NTFS partition, whereas most other devices can handle at least15 MB/s, and usually over 25 MB/s. So I contacted Allwinner with this […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments on A80 OptimusBoard Development Board Pictures and Benchmarks

A80 OptimusBoard Development Board Pictures and Benchmarks

A80 OptimusBoard is a development board featuring the latest AllWinner A80 SoC with 8 ARM Cortex A15/A7 cores in big.LITTLE configuration, and a PowerVR GC6230 GPU. Availability was announced about 2 weeks ago for $345, but partially thanks to reader comments on CNX Software, Merrii Technology decided to lower the price to $169 (and $50+ for shipping) to stay competitive against similar boards such as Hardkernel ODROID-XU3. I’ve now received a sample for evaluation. I won’t go again through the specs, but today I’ll take a few pictures of the board, and provide benchmark results to compare them to the ones I got with Rockchip RK3288. Normally, I would also play with the SDK provided with the board, but sadly (and amazingly), there’s currently no such SDK for A80 OptimusBoard, except a leaked Linux SDK which failed to build with recent tools and operating systems. A80 OptimusBoard Pictures I’ve received […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments on AllWinner A31 Android & Linux SDKs, and Documentation Leaked

AllWinner A31 Android & Linux SDKs, and Documentation Leaked

AllWinner A31 software development kits (SDK) for Android 4.2 / 4.4 and Linux can now be downloaded, and relevant documentation has also been made available, including HummingBird A31 system brief and system manual. Part of the documentation is in English, but lots of it, is in Chinese only. Download links to AllWinner A31 SDKs for HummingBird A31 development board, but they may be useful for other hardware platforms based on AllWinner A31: Android 4.4 SDK (password: 5ck9) – a31_v4.5_hummingbird_kfb_ok.tar.gz (6.04 GB) Android 4.2 SDK (password: tz17) – a31_hummbingbird_V3.3_v2_kfb_0k.tar.gz (3.99 GB) Linux SDK (password: kdcw) – A31_MerriiLinux_V3.3_v1.tar.gz (1.17 GB) There are also links to firmware files specific to HummingBird: Android 4.4 firmware LCD output (password: w1s6) Android 4.2 firmware LCD output (password: b7de) Android 4.2 firmware VGA output (password: nfqw) Linux firmware (password: ibal) It takes a very long time to download the SDKs, so I haven’t checked the files, and […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 33 Comments on Hummingbird A31 Is a $70 Feature-packed Development Board Powered by AllWinner A31

Hummingbird A31 Is a $70 Feature-packed Development Board Powered by AllWinner A31

Merrii Technologies introduced the Hummingbird development kit powered by AllWinner A20 last year. Since then they’ve sold 10,000 pieces, and have been working on another development board based on AllWinner A31 with lots of different ports and options, including an optional 7″ capacitive touch screen. “Quad Core” Hummingbird specifications: SoC – AllWinner A31 quad core ARM Cortex-A7 with PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU compliant with OpenGL ES2.0, OpenCL 1.x, DX 9_3 System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB Flash + micro SD card slot Video Output – HDMI, VGA, LVDS Video Input – 3.5mm jack for CVBS (or YPbPr?) In (TV IN) Audio I/O – HDMI, 3.5mm jack for stereo audio, 3.5mm jack for Line IN (Same as TV IN). 2x 15w amplifier on-board. Camera – MIPI interface Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (AP6210 module) Cellular Connectivity – SIM card slot + mini PCIe connector for 3G […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments on Merrii Hummingbird Development Kit Features AllWinner A20 Processor, and an Optional 7″ Touchscreen Display

Merrii Hummingbird Development Kit Features AllWinner A20 Processor, and an Optional 7″ Touchscreen Display

And yet another AllWinner A20 development platform shows up in my news stream in about 24 hours. Merrii Technology, a Shenzhen based electronics design house, has showed off their Hummingbird Development Kit to ARMDevices.net. The development board comes with 1GB RAM, 4GB NAND Flash, Gigabit Ethernet, SATA, HDMI output, and more. There’s also an optional 7″ capacitive touch screen display for the board. The company explains the kit can be used to develop application such as media players, game consoles, IPTV, automotive products (GPS & IVI), robots, servers, surveillance products, and home automation systems. Here are the board specifications: SoC – AllWinner A20 dual ARM Cortex-A7 core @ 1 GHz with ARM Mali400-MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 (2x 4Gb 16bits DDR3) Storage – 4GB MLC 64bit ECC NAND Flash (Hynix H27UBG8T2A), SATA II connectors, and micro SD card slot (Up to 32GB) Connectivity – Wifi & Bluetooth (two-in-one […]