Amlogic plans to launch at least three new processors for OTT boxes and set-top boxes this year: Amlogic S905X, Amlogic S912, and Amlogic S905D. We already knew Amlogic S905 specifications, but I’ve recently received a document with some more details about Amlogic S912 revealing Mali-T820 GPU, a lack of USB 3.0 support, but still some interesting features such as HDMI 2.0a, 4K VP9, 10-bit H.265, Gigabit Ethernet Mac, and so on.
Amlogic S912 specifications with highlights in bold showing differences with Amlogic S905X:
- CPU Sub-system – Octa core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU up to 2 GHz (DVFS) with two CPU clusters one optimized for high performance (big) and the other for low power (LITTLE)
- 3D Graphics Processing Unit –ARM Mali-T820MP3 GPU up to 750MHz (DVFS) with 3 shader engines supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.03.1, DirectX 11 FL9_3, OpenCL 1.1/1.2 full profile and RenderScript.
- 5D Graphics Processor – Fast bitblt engine with dual inputs and single output, programmable raster operations (ROP) and polyphase scaling filter, etc..
- Crypto Engine – AES/AES-XTS block cipher with 128/192/256 bits keys, DES/TDES block cipher, hardware crypto key-ladder operation and DVB-CSA for transport stream encryption, built-in hardware True Random Number Generator (TRNG), CRC and SHA-1/SHA-2/HMAC SHA engine
- Video/Picture CODEC
- Amlogic Video Engine (AVE-10) with dedicated hardware decoders and encoders
- Supports multiple “secured” video decoding sessions and simultaneous decoding and encoding
- Video/Picture Decoding
- VP9-10 Profile-2 up to 4Kx2K@60fps
- 265 HEVC MP-10@L5.1 up to 4Kx2K@60fps
- 264 AVC HP@L5.1 up to 4Kx2K@30fps, H.264 MVC up to 1080p @60fps
- MPEG-4 ASP@L5 up to 1080P@60fps (ISO-14496)
- WMV/VC-1 SP/MP/AP up to 1080P@60fps
- AVS-P16(AVS+) /AVS-P2 JiZhun Profile up to 1080P@60fps
- MPEG-2 MP/HL up to 1080P@60fps (ISO-13818)
- MPEG-1 MP/HL up to 1080P@60fps (ISO-11172)
- RealVideo 8/9/10 up to 1080P@60fps
- WebM up to VGA
- MJPEG and JPEG unlimited pixel resolution decoding (ISO/IEC-10918)
- Supports JPEG thumbnail, scaling, rotation and transition effects
- Video/Picture Encoding
- Independent JPEG and H.264 encoder with configurable performance/bit-rate
- JPEG image encoding
- 264 video encoding up to 1080P@60fps with low latency
- Video Post-Processing Engine – Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG HDR processing, motion adaptive 3D noise reduction filter, advanced motion adaptive edge enhancing de-interlacing engine, 3:2 pull-down support, deblocking filters, etc..
- Video Output
- Built-in HDMI 2.0a transmitter including both controller and PHY with 3D, CEC, HDR and HDCP 2.2, 4Kx2K@60 max resolution output
- CVBS 480i/576i standard definition output
- RGB888 TTL interface up to 1920×1080
- Camera Interface – ITU 601/656 parallel video input with down-scalar, supports camera input as YUV422, RGB565,16bit RGB or JPEG
- Audio Decoder and Input/Output
- Supports MP3, AAC, WMA, RM, FLAC, Ogg and programmable with 7.1/5.1 down-mixing
- I2S audio interface supporting 8-channel (7.1) input and output
- Built-in serial digital audio SPDIF/IEC958 output and PCM input/output
- Built-in stereo audio DAC
- Dual-channel digital microphone PDM input
- Supports concurrent dual audio stereo channel output with combination of analog+PCM or I2S+PCM
- Memory and Storage Interface
- 16/32-bit SDRAM memory interface running up to DDR2400
- Supports up to 2GB DDR3/4, DDR3L, LPDDR2, LPDDR3 with dual ranks
- Supports SLC/MLC/TLC NAND Flash with 60-bit ECC
- SDSC/SDHC/SDXC card and SDIO interface with 1-bit and 4-bit data bus width supporting up to UHS-I SDR104
- eMMC and MMC card interface with 1/4/8-bit data bus width fully supporting spec version 5.0 HS400
- Supports serial 1, 2 or 4-bit NOR Flash via SPI interface
- Built-in 4k bits One-Time-Programming memory for key storage (That must be where DRM / HDCP keys are programmed)
- Network
- Integrated IEEE 802.3 10/100/1000M Gigabit Ethernet MAC controller with RGMII interface
- Integrated 10/100M PHY interface
- Supports Energy Efficiency Ethernet (EEE) mode
- Digital Television Interface
- Transport stream (TS) input interface with built-in demux processor for connecting to external digital TV tuner/demodulator and one output TS interface
- Built-in PWM, I2C and SPI interfaces to control tuner and demodulator
- Integrated CI+ port and ISO 7816 smart card controller
- Integrated I/O Controllers and Interfaces
- 3x USB 2.0 high-speed USB I/O, 2x USB Host and one USB OTG
- Multiple UART, I2C and SPI interface with slave select
- Multiple PWMs
- Programmable IR remote input/output controllers
- Built-in 10bit SAR ADC with 2 input channels
- General Purpose IOs with built-in pull up and pull down
- System, Peripherals and Misc. Interfaces
- Integrated general purpose timers, counters, DMA controllers
- 24 MHz crystal input
- Embedded debug interface using ICE/JTAG
- Power Management
- Multiple external power domains controlled by PMIC, and internal ones controlled by software
- Multiple sleep modes for CPU, system, DRAM, etc.
- Multiple internal PLLs for DVFS operation
- Multi-voltage I/O design for 1.8V and 3.3V
- Power management auxiliary processor in a dedicated always-on (AO) power domain that can communicate with an external PMIC
- Security
- Trustzone based Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)
- Secured boot, encrypted OTP, encrypted DRAM with memory integrity checker, hardware key ladder and internal control buses and storage
- Protected memory regions and electric fence data partition
- Hardware based Trusted Video Path (TVP) , video watermarking and secured contents (requires SecureOS software)
- Secured IO and secured clock
- Package – LFBGA 15 x 15 mm, 0.65 ball pitch, RoHS compliant
That means Amlogic S905X and S912 have the exact same video playback capabilities, although S912 will also support Dolby Vision HDR standard. The main differences are the eight Cortex A53 cores clocked at 2.0 GHz (instead of 4x A53 @ 1.5 GHz), and the more power ful Mali-T820MP3 GPU, as well as support for LCD panel (e.g. for tablets) thanks to an extra RGB interface. Finally S912 has three USB interfaces, instead of just two for S905X.
Amlogic 2016 roadmap shows S905X is scheduled for Q1 2016, and S912 for Q2 2016, but it’s likely we need to add one or two more quarters before we get any Android 6.0 devices based on the new processors.
