by OLIMEX Ltd in Allwinner, Android, ARM, new product Tags: A31, Allwinner, som

We just assembled our first A31-SOM module prototypes.

They have these features:

A31 Quad Core Cortex-A7 @ 1Ghz, Octa core Power VR SGX544MP2 GPU, designed for power efficiency, 1MB L2 Cache, 32K I-Cache, 32K D-Cache, FPU, NEON SIMD

2GB DDR3 RAM with 64 bit data bus for fast access

optional 8GB NAND Flash

Power Management Unit AXP221

LiPo battery charger and step up for USB 5V supply

micro SD card

3 buttons

UART0 console connector

all GPIOs and pins on x6 40 pin 0.05″ connectors

RTC, Timer, HS-Timer

16-Ch DMA

USB-OTG

x2 USB Low/Full/High speed Hosts

4SPI, 5 TWI/I2C

x6 UARTS

x2 PCM

x2 I2S

ITU601 / MIPI CSI

MIPI DSI

HDMI 1.4

x2-CH LVDS

x2-CH RGB LCD

IR

LRADC

GMAC

Audio codec

4K x 2K video playback

We need some weeks to test them before run production, so these modules will be in stock end of September earliest. A31-SOM price will start from EUR 44 for 1000 pcs, A31-SOM-8GB price will start from EUR 54 for 1000 pcs order.

We also designed A31-SOM-EVB for A31-SOM modules, which is OSHW mother board reference design and have these features:

Gigabit Ethernet

USB-OTG connector

2x USB Host connectors

UEXT1 and UEXT2 connectors

SD-MMC connector

LCD connector compatible with our LCD displays – 4.3″, 7″, 10″, 15.6″, 15.6″HD

Audio output 3.5 mm jack

Audio input 3.5mm jack

2Mpix @30 fps Camera on board

HDMI connector

LiPo battery connector

RTC CR2032 Li battery backup connector

GPIOs on prototype friendly 0.1″ connectors

Power jack 6-16VDC

A31-SOM-EVB evaluation board with A31-SOM-8GB on it will cost EUR 97 in single quantity.

Although A31 is only Cortex-A7 you can see here interesting comparison between RK3188 and A31 video performance.

A31 have better picture and faster video playback than RK3188 which do not have native HDMI but used LCD-> HDMI converter.

A31 supports up to 4K video playback and have 64 bit RAM data bus.

Android 4.2.2 runs fine on A31-SOM and all features are supported.

Regarding the Linux Support, there is more than year and half efforts from Maxime Ripard @ Free Electrons to bring A31 to mainline, but still some major drivers are missing though like Video, Audio and NAND.

Linux-Sunxi tree miss A31 so far, probably because there is no good development hardware for A31 platform – all devices available are either tablets either Android dongles with no Ethernet, GPIOs etc. exposed. Now when this changes perhaps some Linux-Sunxi developers may be interested 😉 we built 5 prototypes and use only 2 of them so we have 3 to send to interested developers.

With the current Linux support A31 is still good for headless Linux server with the Quad cores, 2GB RAM and Gigabit Ethernet.

Linux kernel from Allwinner SDK is also option but it will be step back from mainline. Anyway with the missing Linux-Sunxi support this is also an option for these who need Linux instead of Android.

A31-SOM will be good platform for digital signage, video processing, IP cameras, or VoIP etc.