Allwinner H5 Quad Core Cortex A53 processor designed for 4K TV Boxes – More Details

atb_team August 18, 2016

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In mid April 2015 we showed you Allwinner Road map with a new “H-Series” chips. Little we had to wait for the launch of a new SoC from Allwinner dedicated and designed for 4K TV Boxes, until now. Allwinner introduced a new SoC called Allwinner H5. Just as competition (Amlogic, Realtek), Allwinner built H5 SoC based on quad core Cortex-A53.

Allwinner H5 specifications:

CPU – quad core Cortex A53 with NEON, FPU, 64KB I/D cache per core, and 512KB L2 cache
3G GPU – ARM Mali-450MP GPU with 4 pixel processor cores, and 2 geometry cores with support for OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1/1.1, OpenVG 1.1 and EGL
2D GPU (Graphics and Display Processor) – Dual display; Main display: 4 video layers, 12 graphics layers, 4 alpha blending channels; Auxiliary display: 4 video layers, 4 graphics layers, and 2 alpha blending channels
Memory I/F – DDR3/3L SDRAM interface up to 32-bit data width
Storage I/F – SPI NOR flash, SPI NAND flash, NAND flash (SLC/MLC with 64-bit ECC), and eMMC 5.0 flash interfaces
Video Decoding – Up to 4K decoding of H.265/HEVC Main10, H.264/AVC, VP6/VP8/VP9, MPEG1/2/4, AVS-P16, VC1
Image Decoding – YUV400/YUV420/YUV422/YUV444; Picture scale and rotate
Video & Image Encoding – 1080p60 or 2x 1080p30, or 4x 72030 video encoding with AVC or JPEG
Audio Encoding/Decoding – MPEG L1/L2, AAC-LC, HE AAC V1/V2, APE, FLAC, OGG, AMR-WB, G.711 (u/a) decoding; G.711(u/a), AMR-NB, AMR-WB, and AAC-LC encoding
TS Demultiplexing/PVR – 4x TS inputs using SSI or SPI modes, DVB-CSA/AES/DES descrambling, recording of scrambled and non-scrambled streams
Security – TEE, Secure OS, secure boot, 2K bits EFuse, DRM, conditional access, HDCP 1.4 protection
A/V Interfaces
- PAL and NTSC, HDMI Tx with HDCP, CVBS, HD and SD output from same source. 480i to 4K2K resolutions
- Analog videos – 1x CVBS, 1x embedded VDAC
- Audio interfaces – 2x stereo input interfaces, 1x stereo output interface, 1x S/PDIF, 2x ADAC, 2x I2S/PCM, HDMI audio
Peripherals
- 3x USB 2.0 host, 1x USB 2.0 OTG
- 10/100M Ethernet with integrated PHY, Gigabit Ethernet MAC
- 3x 4-bit SDIO 3.0 interfaces
- 5x UART, 4x TWI (I2C), 2x SPI, multiple GPIOs, 2x PWM
- 2x smart card interfaces (ISO7816)
- LED and keypad control interface, IR receiver
- 1x CSI camera
Boot program download over serial port or USB port
Low power CPU – For standby power as low as 30 mW power consumption

Allwinner also showed a comparison (see table below) H3, H5 and H8 processors. Unfortunately, the lack of information about the HDMI version (1.4 or 2.0?, probably 1.4), and compared to Amlogic, the new Allwinner H5 supports 4K for H.265 (HEVC), but only for H.265 [email protected]

H5 SoC has Android 5.1 OS, but also supports Linux, an example is the development board Orange Pi PC 2 (below). More details can be found on Allwinner H5 product page.