Radxa launched Cubie A5E, a single-board computer (SBC) powered by the Allwinner A527/T527 octa-core Cortex-A55 CPU. With dimensions of only 69 x 56 mm, this little board has several features, such as USB ports, a 40-pin GPIO header, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, twin gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 2.0, and an M.2 connector for NVMe SSDs.
In 2012, the Allwinner A10-powered Cubieboard was introduced as a substitute for the Raspberry Pi and other ARM-based Linux development platforms, marking the beginning of the Cubieboard series. Although Allwinner's SoCs were popular with SBC developers at first, several CubieTech team members subsequently founded Radxa as a result of their lack of software support.
Key Specifications
- SoC: Allwinner T527 (industrial) or Allwinner A527 (commercial)
- CPU: Octa-core Arm Cortex-A55 with four cores at 1.80 GHz (T527) or 2.0 GHz (A527) and four cores at 1.42 GHz
- RISC-V Core: XuanTie E906 up to 200 MHz
- GPU: Arm Mali-G57 MC1 supporting OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.3, and OpenCL 2.2
- DSP: 600 MHz HIFI4 Audio DSP
- AI Accelerator: Optional 2 TOPS NPU
- Memory: 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB LPDDR4 @ 2400 MT/s
- Storage:
- 128Mbit SPI flash for bootloader
- M.2 M-Key 2230 socket for NVMe SSD
- MicroSD card slot
- Display Interfaces:
- HDMI 2.0a
- MIPI FPC connector
- Camera Interface: 4-lane MIPI CSI
- Networking:
- Two Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports (one PoE compatible)
- Dual-band WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 (BLink BL-M8800DS2 module)
- USB Ports: 1x USB 3.0 Type-A, 1x USB 2.0 OTG Type-C
- Expansion: 40-pin GPIO header compatible with Raspberry Pi, offering up to 28 GPIO pins, multiple I2C, UART, I2S, PWM, and DMIC interfaces.
- Power Supply: 5V/4A via USB-C
- Dimensions: 69 x 56 mm
Similar to the Avaota A1 SBC, the Cubie A5E is distinguished by its smaller size and compatibility with M.2 NVMe SSDs. It does not, however, include a multi-function connection, 3.5mm audio jack, or DisplayPort output. IoT projects, edge computing, and AI workloads are among the board's target applications. Although there isn't much information on specific software support, the Cubie A5E will run Linux. For the Allwinner A527/T527 family, software development is still in its early stages, however the linux-sunxi community provides some initial hardware documentation. Radxa intends to integrate into the core Linux kernel after building on Debian or Ubuntu-based systems.
Pre-ordering the Radxa Cubie A5E costs $15 (1GB RAM), $25 (2GB RAM), or $30 (4GB RAM) via Arace. Members of the linux-sunxi mailing list as of December 31, 2024, can also fill out a form to request a free sample. Before the Chinese New Year, shipments will start. As a first step toward Radxa's vision, the Cubie A5E opens the door for more potent boards driven by Allwinner's future SoCs, such as the A733 and A838 with Cortex-A76/A55 and Cortex-A78/A55 cores, respectively. With improved software support and community involvement, the Cubie A5E represents a hopeful resurgence of Allwinner SBCs, even though it might not break performance limits.
0 Comments