We just assembled our A33-OLinuXino prototypes, these have PMU and should not overheat so badly as H3.
The advantage to have PMU is also that it have LiPo charger and can run from LiPo battery.
The features are:
- A33 Quad core Cortex-A7 SoC
- AXP223 PMU
- 1/2GB RAM
- optional 4GB NAND Flash
- Audion Input
- Audio Output
- CSI/DSI connector
- 40 pin LCD connector for LCD-OLinuXino-XX LCD modules
- USB-OTG
- GPIO 40 pin connector
Both H3 and A33 support dual CS DDR memories, this means they can work with the new 8Gb DDR3 ram chips which have two CS lines and H3-OLinuXino and A33-OLinuXino could have 1GB or 2GB RAM as option.
A33 have no Ethernet and HDMI, would be good for handheld video/audio processing devices.
The next revision of H3 and A33 OLinuXino will have eMMC option too.
EDIT: 18.00 o’clock update A33-OLinuXino is booting and working fine. As we expected although with same Quad Core Cortex-A7 it do not overheats at all compared to H3. Something is really broken in the H3 Linux clock/power configuration!!!
olimex 
Nov 17, 2015 @ 13:46:02
Great! Now that you are working on an A33 board, will you be offering an A23 version as well? As the A33 ist supposed to be pin-compatible with A23?
Nov 17, 2015 @ 13:53:35
no plans for A23, this is obsolete and probably Allwinner will sell it at higher price than A33 so completely nonsense to make such board
Nov 17, 2015 @ 13:51:23
“this means they can work with the new 8Gb DDR3 ram chips”
I’m unclear about what this means… that 16gb is possible? (I thought 2gb max).
Nov 17, 2015 @ 13:52:53
8Gb = 1GB
Nov 17, 2015 @ 13:53:57
Not a single USB port and no WIFI on board?
How are you going to connect it to a network?
Nov 17, 2015 @ 13:55:40
shield 🙂 as you can see this is very SOM-a-like design
Nov 17, 2015 @ 13:56:36
These aren’t the Olinuxino you’re looking for.
Nov 17, 2015 @ 15:27:32
Is this the new aweSOM standard?;-)
Nov 17, 2015 @ 15:56:03
no
Nov 17, 2015 @ 20:24:37
The H3 is made in a 28nm process and the A33 40nm according to the linux-sunxi wiki. Also maximum clock speed for the A33 isn’t mentioned there (which clockspeeds and cpufreq governors did you use with both?) but that only exists Android support at the moment. So “handheld video/audio processing” only within Android since I doubt we will get support for CedarX/Mali anytime soon with mainline kernel?
Nov 17, 2015 @ 20:38:38
After some more tests, it seems most of the heat in H3 comes from the 667Mhz DDR clock, when this clock is down to 480 Mhz H3 works at normal temperature.
Now for these who want extreme speeds with toy like stability 1.5-1.6Ghz processor clock and 667Mhz is the way to go with H3 and to fry it to 90-100C at normal ambient 24C temperature, for these who want decent productivity from 4 core processor and reliable behavior 1Ghz clock and 480-500Mhz DDR clock will provide it!
Nov 18, 2015 @ 09:12:01
Thx for the info regarding H3. Had a look into the fex files myself — weird ‘overclocking’ stuff: http://www.orangepi.org/orangepibbsen/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=724
Nov 24, 2015 @ 10:37:52
The 667MHz clock speed limit for DRAM is specified in the Allwinner H3 manual. And it also seems to be used on the other H3 hardware (Orange Pi PC devboard and Draco H3 stick). How did you do these overheating tests? Would it be possible to reproduce them with, for example, Orange Pi PC?
Nov 24, 2015 @ 15:20:36
it’s very easy to reproduce them, just clock the memory at 667Mhz and touch the H3 chip :))))
Nov 24, 2015 @ 15:40:43
Thanks! Then this probably means that the Orange Pi PC board is not affected by this particular DRAM overheating problem. The H3 chip does not even feel warm when the system is idle. The current draw is ~120 mA from a 5V power brick. This is with the current work-in-progress mainline U-Boot & kernel (the CPU clock frequency is 1008MHz @1.2V and the DDR3L clock frequency is 667MHz).
Please note that Orange Pi PC is using DDR3L (a lower power variant of DDR3, which uses 1.35V instead of 1.5V). Could this be the reason?
Nov 24, 2015 @ 15:44:55
can you check the clock again 😉 as in IDLE H3 do not overheat here also as the clock is set to 480Mhz , but run video and check again the temperature
Nov 24, 2015 @ 16:03:10
OK, previously you only mentioned that clocking the DRAM at 667MHz (rounded to 672) was enough, so I assumed that nothing else had to be done and you observed overheating even with an idle system 🙂 BTW, downclocking the DRAM to 480MHz does not seem to change the idle power consumption.
Now you are saying that running video would be a better test. Roger that 🙂 Do you mean a software decoded video with MPlayer or VLC? Or hardware accelerated with CedarX? It would be a bit hard to run such a test with the mainline kernel because graphics support is not quite there yet.
Also how can we be sure that it is actually not the CPU producing all this heat when it does not have to be stalled waiting for the slower memory interface and can do more data crunching?
Nov 24, 2015 @ 16:06:52
Tsvetan, in case you’re still testing with loboris’ image maybe the problems are more related to overvolting/overclocking? There only 2 OPPs are defined: 1.53GHz@1.5V and 1.2GHz@1.3V and SSVB is using a more sane approach with 1008MHz@1.2V…
Nov 26, 2015 @ 23:25:41
Today my OPi PC arrived and I had the chance to adjust the insane overvolting/overclocking settings that are used with H3 based Orange Pis. When these issues are resolved it makes no difference whether ddrfreq is 672 or 480 MHz: http://www.orangepi.org/orangepibbsen/forum.php?mod=redirect&goto=findpost&ptid=743&pid=6967&fromuid=29411
Nov 17, 2015 @ 22:09:02
What are those new memory modules used?
Nov 17, 2015 @ 23:18:03
any power consumption measurements/tests data?
Nov 17, 2015 @ 23:47:08
This looks quite nice! Just to confirm, are you using the LINEIN(L|R) balls or one/two mic signal balls to provide audio in.
Combined with an baseboard with Ethernet this would be what I’m looking for. I don’t see Ethernet listed in the datasheet though, so not sure how that would be connected. I’m generally suspicious of USB-network devices and their stability.
Nov 18, 2015 @ 00:36:08
The preliminary schematic from 6 months lists Mic & Headphone:
Click to access A33-OLinuXino_Rev_A.pdf
I don’t have necessary software to check the updated (today) CAD files.
Nov 18, 2015 @ 14:35:23
That would be a shame. I can’t find a decent SBC since the A10s board that would have Line in without hw modifications and native Ethernet, not USB.
Nov 18, 2015 @ 17:56:56
On the schematic there is a header next to these 2 jacks with all the rest – line in and etc. available connections – it should not be too troublesome to use them.
I am not sure in the SOM-like format weather Headphone and Mic really make sense, only if Olimex really targeted some handheld applications.
Dec 02, 2015 @ 03:23:39
Are these Olimex boards pin to pin compatible with the Raspberry Pi 40 pin GPIO?
Dec 02, 2015 @ 16:16:57
Most probably NOT compatible at all. No efforts for pin compatibility with RPi have been done by Olimex for other boards. Chips and capabilities differ quite a lot.
Dec 08, 2015 @ 04:13:26
Quad core board with a standard standard GPIO (to maintain compatibility with any accessories), would be awesome. Olimex could dominate the raspberry pi / Orange pi / Odroid / market very quick.
Dec 21, 2015 @ 00:04:19
you make such great boards. But by not having a pin out from the axp_pwron pin, you make it difficult to just use them in a custom small series product.
Please consider this for the next revision and future designs. For now, it is not possible to use a different power button and keep the power supply circuit functionality. Or am I missing something?
Dec 21, 2015 @ 08:56:26
Thank you for the suggestion. It makes sense. We would consider it for future revisions!
Jan 19, 2016 @ 09:57:50
How can we buy this A33 boards? They are not on your web site?
Jun 23, 2016 @ 16:03:13
When this board will be available ?
Jun 23, 2016 @ 16:16:44
soon 🙂
Nov 07, 2016 @ 16:15:18
Very interesting, and thank you for keeping the Mipi/Dsi display !!!
I just discovered this board, and I would like to know what is is the limit bandwidth of the OTG since I would like to connect a usb hub to it ?
Or is there a way to create a usb bus via the gpio ?
Dec 26, 2016 @ 00:56:29
Hi,
Such an attractive board !!!
What about availability of that “LCD-OLinuXino-5TS” which is mentioned on the A33-Olinuxino wiki, and that I can’t find on the website ?