Allwinner Technology Co., Ltd is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company specialized in mixed-signal systems on a chips (SoC). The company is headquartered in Zhuhai, Guangdong, China.
Since founded in 2007, Allwinner has released over fifteen SoC processors for use in Android-based tablets, as well as smartphones, over-the-air OTT boxes, video camera systems, car DVRs, and car media players.
In 2012 and 2013, Allwinner was the number one supplier in terms of unit shipments of application processors for Android tablets worldwide. For Q2 2014, Allwinner was reported by DigiTimes to be the third largest supplier to the Chinese market after Rockchip and MediaTek.
Allwinner was founded by senior engineers who left Zhuhai-based Actions Semiconductor after a dispute over their share of the earnings from Actions' 2005 initial public offering. Its early strategy focused on whitebox vendors and ODMs and OEMs.
Product lines
A-Series
A series processors are used for mobile applications, mainly referring to tablet application.
A1x family
In 2011, the company became an ARM processor licensee, and subsequently announced a series of ARM Cortex-A8 powered mobile application processors, including A10, A13 and A10s, which were used in numerous tablets, and also in PC-on-a-stick and media center devices. They have also been adopted in free hardware projects like the Cubieboard development board.
A2x and A3x family
In December 2012, Allwinner announced the availability of two ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore powered products, the dual-core Allwinner A20 and quad-core Allwinner A31. Production of the A31 started in September 2012 and end products, mostly high-end tablets from Chinese manufacturers, appeared on the market in early 2013, including the Onda V972.
In March 2013, Allwinner launched its quad-core Phablet processor A31s. Based on quad-core cortex-A7 CPU architecture, this processor allows 3G, 2G, LTE, WIFI, BT, FM, GPS, AGPS and NFC using a minimum of external components.
In October 2013, Allwinner released its second dual-core A23, touted to be "The most efficient dual core processor" for tablets. The A23's CPU frequency was intended to run up to 1.5 GHz.
In June 2014, Allwinner announced the A33 quad-core SoC that is pin compatible with Allwinner's A23. The new SoC features four Cortex-A7 cores with 256 KB L1 cache, 512 KB L2 cache and a Mali-400 MP2 GPU. A new feature is the support of the OpenMAX API. Allwinner has positioned the A33 for entry-level tablets, targeting quad-core tablets priced from $30 to $60, and in July 2014 announced that it had started mass production of the chip, which would supposedly sell for as low as $4 per unit.
A5x family In April 2019, Allwinner announced the A50 28 nm quad-core SoC. The A50 features four Cortex-A7 cores running up to 1.8 GHz with 512 KB L2 cache and a Mali-400 MP2 GPU.
A6x family In June 2017, Allwinner announced the A63 28 nm quad-core SoC at APC 2017 Conference. The A63 features four Cortex-A53 cores running up to 1.8 GHz with 512 KB L2 cache and a Mali-T760 MP2 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2 support. VPU with 4K/6K VP9, H.265, and H.264 4K @ 30 fps video decoder and H.264 HP encoder 1080P@30 fps
A8x family
In October 2013, Allwinner disclosed its upcoming octa-core A80 SoC, featuring four high-performance ARM Cortex-A15 and four efficient ARM Cortex-A7 CPU cores in a big.LITTLE configuration.
On June 30, 2014, Chinese brand Onda officially released its octa-core Onda V989 tablet, which is based on Allwinner A80. This is the first Allwinner A80-based tablet that is available to consumers, priced at CNY 1099 (~US$177).
In September 2014, Allwinner announced the Allwinner A83T, an octa-core tablet processor that packs eight highly energy-efficient Cortex-A7 cores that can run simultaneously at up to around 2.0 GHz. It also includes a PowerVR GPU. The first tablet with the chip was expected to hit the market in Q4 2014.
A10x/20x/30x family In April 2019, Allwinner announced their roadmap for 2019 to 2020 feature the A100, A200, A300 and A301 SoC. The Allwinner A200 was described as "AI blessing, computational power".
F-Series
F series are processors based on Allwinner's melis OS, mainly used in smart video radios, video MP5, etc.
From 2007 to 2011, Allwinner introduced its F-series processors, including the F10, F13, F18, F20, F1E200, F1C100, and F20. This series runs Allwinner's in-house operating system Melis2.0, which is now mainly used in vehicle multimedia systems, E-ink readers, video intercom systems, and so on.
Sega's Game Gear Micro uses the F1C200S as main CPU.
H-Series
The H-series, introduced in 2014, are integrated application processors primarily targeted at OTT set-top box applications e.g. HDMI mini PCs, gaming boxes, etc.;
Allwinner has launched the A80 octa-core OTT box solution, targeting at high-end OTT box market, and launched the Allwinner H8 octa-core processor for mid-range OTT boxes, and most recently launched the quad-core Allwinner H3 targeting the US$35 - $50 OTT box market.
R-Series
The R ("Real-Time") Series Chip is designed for low power applications where timing is critical and must be done at the edge rather than in the fog or cloud. The chip also has built in redundancies to meet industrial and automotive standards for processing.
The R Series Chip has been applicable to a number of different industries including Industrial Automation, Safe PLCs, Power Generation and Distribution, Healthcare and Automotive Technology. The technology, specifically the R16 Chip, has also been utilised for robotic vacuums, Nintendo Classic Mini systems and smart speakers resulting from a longterm partnership with the Cogobuy Group's subsidiary IngDan ().
The R40 and R16 technology has been implemented on a number of Banana Pi models. The R8 Chip was also used for "The World's First Nine Dollar Computer" Kickstarter project in 2015.
V-Series
The V-Series are video encoding processor targeting applications such as smart DVR, IP camera and smart home applications. It is similar to the A series SoC, but adds support for functions such as digital watermarking, motion detection and video scaling, as well as a CBR/VBR bit rate control mode.
Chipset specifications The Allwinner SoC family includes A-series, which is intended for Android OS, and F-series, which is intended for the company's self-developed Melis operating system.
The A-Series, including the A10, A20 and A31 SoCs, have a proprietary in-house designed multimedia co-processing DSP (Digital Signal Processing) processor technology for hardware accelerated video, image, and audio decoding, called CedarX (with subprocessing called "CedarV" for video decoding and "CedarA" for audio decoding), able to decode 2160p 2D and 1080p 3D video. The main disadvantages with CedarX technology and associated libraries is that Allwinner's own CedarX proprietary libraries have no clear usage license, so even if the source code for some versions is available the terms-of-use is unknown in open source software, and there is no glue code for any other multimedia frameworks on Linux systems that could be used as a middle-ware, like for example OpenMAX or VAAPI.
A-Series
The A-series are integrated application processors primarily targeting tablets as well as targeting mini PCs, development boards and TV boxes.
SoCFabCPUGPU (Clock)Video DecoderVideo EncoderPackage,Size (mm), Pitch (mm)ApplicationExamplesISA4K μarch Cores L2 cache A10 55 nm ARMv7-A Cortex-A8 1 256 KB Mali-400 (300 MHz) 2160p H.264 1080p @ 30 fps BGA441, 19×19, 0.80 Tablet, smart TV A10s BGA336, 14×14, 0.65 HDMI Dongle OLinuXino A10SA13 eLQFP176, 20×20 Tablet, E-reader A20 Cortex-A7 2 256 KB Mali-400 MP2 (350 MHz) BGA441, 19×19, 0.80 Tablet, smart TV A23 40 nm 1080p @ 60 fps multi-format H.264 1080p @ 60 fps BGA280, 14×14, 0.80 Tablet Kiano SlimTab 8 A31 4 1 MB PowerVR SGX544 MP2 (350 MHz) 2160p4K×2K BGA609, 18×18, 0.65 Tablet, Smartphone, smart TV A31s H.264 1080p @ 30 fps BGA460, 18×18, 0.80 Phablet, Tablet, smartphone, smart TV A33 512 KB Mali-400 MP2 (350 MHz) 1080p @ 60 fps multi-format H.264 1080p @ 60 fps BGA282, 14×14, 0.80 Tablet OLinuXino-A33, GoTab GT97X A40i H.264 1080p @ 45 fps BGA468, 16×16, 0.65 Industrial control, Self-service terminal Boardcon EMA40i A80 Octa 28 nm HPM big.LITTLE:Cortex-A15 + A7 8 2 MB +512 KB PowerVR G6230 (Rogue) (533 MHz) 4K×2K @30 fps, H.265/VP9 1080p @30 fps H.264 HP/VP8 4K×2K @30 fps FCBGA636, 19×19, 0.65 Tablet, smart TV, TV box, mini PC A83T Cortex-A7 1 MB PowerVR SGX544 (700 MHz) 1080p @ 60 fps, H.264, HVEC MP/L5.2 H.264 1080p @ 60 fps FCBGA345, 14×14 Tablet InFocus CS1 A83 (C2107) A5028 nm HPC Cortex-A7 4 512 KB Mali-400 MP2 1080p @ 60 fps HEVC/H.264, 1080p @ 30 fps multi-format H.264 1080p @ 60 fps FBGA413, 12.3x12.8, 0.5 Tablet A6328 nm HPC ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 4 512 KB Mali T760 4K @ 30 fps HEVC/VP9/H.264, 1080p @ 60 fps multi-format H.264 1080p @ 30 fps FCBGA463, 15×15, 0.65 Tablet A64 40 nm ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 4 512 KB Mali-400 MP2 H.264/H.265 H.264 1080p @ 60 fps BGA396, 15×15, 0.65 Tablet, Laptop OLinuXino-A64, PINE64 A13328 nm HPC ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 4 512 KB PowerVR GE8300 4K @ 30 fps HEVC/H.264 H.264 1080p @ 60 fps LFBGA346, 12×12, 0.5 TabletA52322nmARMv8-ACortex-A558Mali-G574K@60fps H.265/HEVC/VP94K@25fpsTablet
H-Series The H-series, introduced in 2014, are primarily targeted at OTT set-top box applications. SoCFabCPUGPUVideo DecoderVideo EncoderPackageApplicationExamplesISAμarchCoresL2 CacheH240 nmARMv7-ACortex-A74Mali-400 MP2 @ 600 MHz1080p @ 60 fpsH.264 1080p @ 30 fpsOTT box, IoT, DIY boardsOrange PI Zero, NanoPi Duo, Banana Pi M2 ZeroH34512 KB1080p @ 60 fps, 4K H.265 @ 30 fpsFBGA347, 14 mm × 14 mm, 0.65 mm PitchCapcom Home Arcade, Zidoo X1, Tronsmart Draco H3, Orange Pi PC, Orange Pi One, NanoPi NEO, NanoPi Duo2, NanoPi R1H828 nm HPC8PowerVR SGX544 @ 700MHZ1080p @ 60 fps, 1080p H.265/VP9 @ 30 fpsH.264 1080p @ 60 fpsFCBGA345, 14 mm × 14 mmCubieboard 5H6440 nmARMv8-ACortex-A534Mali-400 MP2H.264/H.265BGA396, 15 mm × 15 mm, 0.65 mm PitchOrange Pi Win, Orange Pi Win PlusH54512 KBMali-450 MP6H.264/H.265 4k@30 fps VP8 1080p@60 fpsFBGA347, 14 mm × 14 mm, 0.65 mm PitchOrange Pi Zero Plus, Orange Pi PC2, Orange Pi Prime, NanoPi NEO2, NanoPi NEO Plus2, NanoPi Neo Core2H628 nm4512 KBMali-T720 MP2 @600 MHzH.265/HEVC 4K@60 fps H.264/AVC, VP9 4K@30 fps VP6/VP8, 1080P@60 fpsH.264 BP/MP/HP@level 4.2 4K@30 fpsBGA451, 15 mm × 15 mm, 0.65 mm pitchOTT, DVB and IPTV marketsZidoo H6 Pro, Orange Pi One Plus, Orange Pi Lite 2, Orange Pi 3, PINE H64 model A and B, Boardcon EMH6H616 4512 KBMali-G31 MP2H.265 4K@60 fps or 6K@30 fps VP9, 4K@60 fps VP8, 1080p@60 fpsH.264 BP/MP/HP 4K@25 fpsTFBGA284 14 mm × 12 mm, 0.65 mm pitchOTT, DVB and IPTV markets Tanix TX6s, X96 Mate, Orange Pi Zero2H618 1 MBOrange Pi Zero3, Orange Pi Zero2W, T95Z Plus
F-Series
SoC CPU Memory Video Decoder Video Encoder Package OS ApplicationF1C100 ARM9 SDR 720p N/A LQFP128 Melis 2.0 Car MP5, Car Headrest, Visual Bombox, Visual RadioF1C200s SIP MJPEG 720 @ 30 fps QFN88 Melis, Linux Game Gear MicroF1E200 DDR 1080p N/A eLQFP128 Melis 2.0 E-ink Reader, PMPF10 N/A LQFP176 Multimedia Box, HD PlayerF13 MPEG4 720p @ 30 fps Car MP5F18 LQFP216 Visual Intercom SystemF20 DDR/DDR2 H.264 1080p @ 30 fps BGA400 Car DVR, Multimedia Box, Mobile Karaoke
R-Series
SoCCPUGPUVideo DecoderVideo EncoderPackageApplicationExamplesISA μarch CoresL2 Cache R8 ARMv7-A Cortex-A8 1 Mali-400 MP2 1080p@30 fps 720p@30 fps eLQFP176 IoT, Linux on the Stick, Smart Device $9 Next Thing Co.'s CHIP computer R16 Cortex-A7 4512 KB 1080p@60 fps 1080p@60 fps BGA282 IoT, Security Systems NES Classic Edition, SNES Classic Edition R40 FBGA468 IoT, Security Systems R58 8 PowerVR SGX544 MP1 1080p@60 fps or 720p@120 fps FCBGA345, 14 mm × 14 mm Hybrid PC, Tablet, Multimedia Box, HD Player R18ARMv8-ACortex-A534512 KBMali-400 MP2
T-Series