A23 is Dual Core Cortex-A7 in TQFP package, it’s like A13 vs A10 – reduced IOs and cut functionality for lower cost.
A23 info leak for the first time this year at IFA expo in Berlin, where Eva Wu the marketing at Allwinner talked about it.
Eva promised me more info to be available after October 10th when Allwinner made media event to talk about their roadmap and as promised the info is already on their web:
A23 is Dual core Cortex-A7 optimized processor which now run up to 1.5Ghz, in TQFP package.
Power consumption is optimized too as when play musing it takes only 50mA, and the reference design they have is with less than 260 external components.
This means A23 will allow lower cost solutions, this of course have it’s cost: they removed the Ethernet and SATA, also display is restricted to 1280×800 pix which clearly targets their market for A23 as designed only for tablets.
What we see also is HIFI build-in audio codec, so portable media players is also possible target market.
- CPU: Cortex™-A7 Dual-Core, 128KB L1 Cache, 256KB L2 Cache
- GPU: Mali400MP2, Supports OpenGL ES 2.0 / VG 1.1 standards
- Video: 1080p@60fps video playback, multi-format FHD video decoding, Mpeg1/2, Mpeg4 SP/ASP GMC, H.263, H.264, WMV9/VC-1, H.264 1080p@60fps, Complies with RTSP, HTTP, HLS, RTMP, MMS, OpenMax protocols
- Display: Supports 1/2/4-lane MIPI DSI up to 1280×800 resolution, MIPI DSI V1.01 and MIPI D-PHY V1.00, RGB/CPU/LVDS LCD up to 1280×800 resolution
- Camera: parallel camera sensor interface, up to 5M CMOS sensor, 8-bit YUV sensor
- Memory: DDR3/DDR3L SDRAM controller, 8-bit NAND Flash controller
- Audio: Integrated Hi-Fi audio codec, Two integrated differential analog mic amplifiers for headset and phone, Talking Standby Mode for ultra-low power consumption during voice calls
- PMU: AXP223 PMIC, 21-channel power output and 2.1A Flash charging, Complies with USB 3.0 power supply standard
- OS: Supports Android 4.2 and above, Android multi-user function
despite the lack of native connectivity like A13, A23 may be still interesting for industrial applications as TQFP packaging is proven to be better for power dissipation and A13 working at 1Ghz do not heats more than few degrees above the ambient temperature, while this can’t be said for A10 BGA package, we expect same for A23 – it will work better in wider temperature ranges
olimex 
Oct 14, 2013 @ 16:27:59
Any Linux support? Is only mentioned Android!
Oct 14, 2013 @ 17:47:28
Where did you find package information for A23 on Allwinner’s web site? http://www.allwinnertech.com/en/product/A23.html does not mention package form and http://www.allwinnertech.com/en/product/A-Serial.html doesn’t list A23. On October 10th, all I saw was http://liliputing.com/2013/10/allwinner-roadmap-includes-64-bit-processors-in-2015.html, where A23 is listed as BGA280.
Oct 14, 2013 @ 17:55:06
I got this info from Allwinner few weeks ago, when the A23 was on design stage, I don’t know if they decided to change the package later, but anyway A23 is still not available on sampling to know with 100%
Oct 14, 2013 @ 18:33:14
You should ask Eva about that, since release date seems to be close enough that Allwinner should know by now. Maybe they have different package options? As an example, Freescale offers some of its chips in different packages, as seen in this i.MX series comparison: http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/brochure/FLYRIMXPRDCMPR.pdf
Oct 14, 2013 @ 18:39:00
doesn’t really matter as we will skip board with A23 like we did with A31 and A31s
Oct 15, 2013 @ 03:38:53
This site says package is BGA280.
More interesting to me is the OpenMax support. I have tried using the H264 support for A10/A20 and it is a mess. OpenMax means standard interfaces.
Can you find out if they are going to release everything (back to A10, A13, A20, etc) with OpenMax support now that they have figured it out?
Oct 15, 2013 @ 14:36:47
They should just document their chips so that people can implement whatever interfaces they need. OpenMAX is an API; a C language one, to make things worse. You would assume that by “support” they mean “support on some selected platforms” like Android or some other operating system. This is useless if you want to use your own low-level software. These companies should just stop listing “supported” APIs without mention of an operating system for which such “support” would be there.
Things would be better if they didn’t even try to provide software or even board support packages for certain platforms for their chips. They should rather simply make the chips and give out the necessary documentation to let other people do that. If that were so, we wouldn’t have to see this misery of people complaining about “this or that feature X” being “a mess on operating system Y”.
Oct 15, 2013 @ 14:49:57
there is no time for proper documentation, with life cycle of 6-12 month per product who will bother to spend time to write documentation which will be obsolete few months after the chip is released???
welcome to the phone/tablet SoCs 🙂
Oct 15, 2013 @ 15:48:36
I’m still not sure where the CedarX IP is coming from. Does Allwinner own it or is it third party IP? If Allwinner owns it they could release source for their libraries. That would let everyone adjust them as needed for the various operating systems.
Cedar support is fine right now if you want to use Android on a tablet/HDMI stick. But try using the H264 support for any other applications and everything falls apart. Sure you can get it going if you are willing to spend a couple months wrapping a binary blob with helper libraries (like libhybris), but who wants to do that when the issues could be fixed in a few hours with source access.
Oct 15, 2013 @ 10:12:37
A23 is packaged in BGA
Oct 15, 2013 @ 10:23:08
Thanks for clarifying this 🙂
Feb 26, 2014 @ 00:14:15
short video with A23