14 DAY TRIAL // As expected, Allwinner is officially launching its first octa-core processor. The new Allwinner UltraOcta A80 has a heterogeneous design and can use all 8 cores at once.
The processor is built on four ARM Cortex-A15 CPU cores and four ARM Cortex-A7 cores and features Imagination PowerVR Series6.
Allwinner says the UltraOcta A80 has been created as a solution for tablets, media players, notebooks and goes as far as to say that the chip could be implemented in desktops and smart televisions.
The chip bundles PowerVR G6230 graphics and will be able to support 4K video encoding and decoding in H.265 codec. Furthermore, it can support up to three displays at once.
Allwinner became a well-known presence in the chip industry, a few years ago, when the company unveiled a series of low-power ARM-based chips that were implemented by Chinese white-box vendors in tablets and TV boxes.
Even if MediaTek is trying to provide a cheap alternative for device-makers, Allwinner remains quite popular, especially with open source enthusiasts which hail the company’s pattern of releasing detailed documentation for its chips.
For example, the open gaming platform DragonBox Pyra and Vivaldi KDE Linux tablet, both jumped on board with Allwinner.
At the moment, there’s no info of how “open” the UltraOcta A80 chip will be, but it seems powerful enough to draw the attention of other players too. No word on when we’re actually going to see devices sporting the chip.
