64bit ARM development boards

Although there are now several 64bit ARM SOCs out in the wild for some time, it took some time until affordable development board reached the market.

There exist a ARM Juno board, but it is only available for ARM partners.

AMD A1100 Opteron development kit is for sale and but costs a whopping 2999$.

Allwinner had announced Nobel64 board with a H64 quad core 64bit CPU which was expected to go on sale in early 2015, but was not available in 2015.

96boards has announced the HiKey board featuring the Kirin 620  with 8 Cortex-A53 64-bit cores. It was released in Q4 2015 and it currently sold for 75$ (1GB RAM) and 99$ (2GB RAM).

The Dragonboard 410c uses a Qualcomm 410 with 4 Cortex -A53 cores and 1GB RAM. It is sold for 75$

The Odroid C2 features a Amlogic S905 with 4 Cortex-A53 cores and 2GB RAM. It is available starting March 2016 for 40$.

There exists a Raspberry 3 since February 29 2016 using a Broadcom SoC with 4  Cortex-A53 cores at 1.2GHz and 1GB RAM, featuring WIFI and Bluetooth. It is sold for 35$.

On Kickstarter, a Pine64 board was announced which an Allwinner R18 SoC with  4  Cortex-A53 cores at 1.2GHz. It should also ship in March, too.



It may take a while (probably mid 2016) until fast (A57,A72) SoCs are available on affordable development boards. 

Apple 64bit SOCs

Apple

Apple A7

• Dual Core
• Apple "Cyclone" architecture
• 1.3GHz
• PowerVR GPU
• 28nm Process

With shipment of iPhone 5s, Apple introduced in September 2013 its first ARMv8 64bit design on the market.
Use of 64bit CPU in Smartphones and Tablets surprised other companies and they are still busy trying to catch up.

Apple A8

• Dual Core
• Apple "Typhoon" architecture
• 1.4GHz
• PowerVR GPU Series 6XT GX6450 4way
• 20nm Process

Announced September 2014, used in iPhone 6.
About 25% faster than A7.

Apple A8X

• Triple Core
• Apple "Typhoon" architecture
• 1.5 GHz
• PowerVR GPU 8 way
• 20nm Process

Announced October 2014, used in iPad Air2 and iPad Mini3.
With slightly higher clock speed and additional cores about 50% faster then A7.

Apple A9

• Dual Core 
• Apple "Twister" architecture
• 1.85GHz
• PowerVR GPU with 6 shader kernels.
• Manufactured by Samsung (14mm)and TMSC(16mm)

Announced in September 2015, used in iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. These are the first iPhones which use 2GB RAM.

Apple A9X

• Dual Core
• Apple "Twister" architecture
• 2.26GHz
• PowerVR Series 7 CPU with 12 shader kernels.
• Manufactured by Samsung (14mm)and TMSC(16mm)

Announced in September 2015, used in iPad Pro.

Apple A10 Fusion

• Quad Core with two fast and two slow Cores
• 2.3GHz
• Manufactured by TMSC(16mm)

This next generation chip appeared in September 2016 when iPhone 7 was released. It seems that only TMSC will produce them and they still use 16nm process to manufacture them.

Apple A10X Fusion

• Hexa Core with three fast and three slow Cores
• 2.38GHz
• Manufactured by TMSC(10mm)

This variant of A10 is used in iPad Pro models.

Apple A11

This chip should appear in fall 2017 when iPhone 8 is released. According to rumours, only TMSC will produce them and they will use 10nm process to manufacture them.

Apple A12

This chip will appear in 2018. It seems it will be manufactured by Samsung in 7mm.

ARM Web Hosting

2013

Since February 2013, pcExtreme startet colocation of Raspberry Pis as dedicated root servers. Other companies like FS Data in Sweden and Edis followed. In the beginning this service was free of charge.

2014

Now e.g. pcExtreme will ask for 3€ per month.
Nanoxion in France and mininodes in USA currently offer hosting on Cubieboard2 A20 single board computers.

2015

Scaleway offers their C1 servers using Marvell Armada 370/XP (4x A9) for 3€/month.

Hetzner has now Odroid XU4 root servers for rent using Samsung Exynos 5422 SOCs (4x A15 4xA7) for 10€/month.

Mininodes now offers ARMv8 Hosting using the HiKey 64-bit ARM development board using the HiSilicon 6220 processor with  8 ARM Cortex A53 cores for 25€/month.

2016

There should be dedicated hardware soon with many ARM cores and next year we should also get virtual hosting on ARM platform using KVM.

List of selected 32bit ARM SOCs

List of selected 32bit ARM SOCs

ARMv7 Single Core

Allwinner A10

• 1x A8
• Mali 400

This SOCs was used in many SBC Boards, e.g. A10-OLinuXino-Lime with 1GHz and 512MB or 4GB RAM. 

Freescale i.MX Solo

• 1x A9
• Vivante GC800

Rockchip RK2918

• 1x A8
• Vivante GC800 

ARMv7 Dual Core

Allwinner A20

• 2x A7
• Mali-400MP2

This SOCs is used in many SBC Boards, e.g. A20-OLinuXino-Lime2 with 1GHz and 1GB RAM.

Freescale i.MX Duo

• 2x A9
• Vivante GC800

Rockchip RK3066

• 2x A9
• Mali-400 MP4

ARMv7 Quad Core

 Amlogic S805

• 4x A5
• Mali-450 MP2

This SoC is used e.g. in Odroid C1+ with 1.5GHz and 1GB RAM.

 Allwinner A31

• 4x A7
• PowerVR SGX544MP2

Allwinner A33

• 4x A7
• Mali-400MP2

Freescale i.MX Quad

• 4x A9
• Vivante GC800

Rockchip RK3188

• 4x A9
• Mali-400 MP4

ARMv7 "slow" Octo Core

 Allwinner A83T

• 8x A7
• PowerVR 
• Availability Q4 2014

ARMv7 Fast Quadcore

Rockchip RK3288

• 4x A17
• Mali-T764 MP4

ARMv7 BIG.little Octo Core

Allwinner A80

• 4x A15 4x A7
• PowerVR SGX544MP2

Huawei Kirin 920

• 4x A15 2.0GHz 4xA7 1.5GHz
• Mali T628

Samsung Exynos 5 Octa

• 4x A15 4x A7
• Mali-T6xx

List of single and dual core single board computers

List of selected Single Board Computers

Here is a list of typical ARM based single board computers.
More boards and additional info can be found on Wikipedia.

After cheap quad core computers like Odroid C1 and Raspberry Pi 2 entered market, it makes only sense to use them for special purposes (e.g. lower energy usage).

ARMv6

Raspberry Pi Zero 

• Broadcom BCM2835 1GHz
• 1x ARM11
• 512MB RAM
• One micro USB Port
• One mini-HDMI Socket
• No Ethernet
• 5$

Available since End of November 2015.

Raspberry Pi A+

• Broadcom BCM2835
• 1x ARM11
• 256MB RAM
• One USB Port
• No Ethernet
• 20$

Low power consumption.

Raspberry Pi B+

• Broadcom BCM2835
• 1x ARM11
• 512MB RAM
• Four USB Ports
• Ethernet 10/100MB
• 25$

Rather slow CPU but excellent software support. For general purpose you should better use the newer Raspberry Pi 2 which sold for 35$.

ARMv7 Single Core

BeagleBone Black

• TI AM335x
• 1x A8
• 512MB
• 45$

A10-OLinuXino-LIME

• Allwinner A10
• 1x A8
• 512MB RAM
• 39$

C.H.I.P

• Allwinner R8
• 1x A8
• 512MB RAM 
• 4GB NAND Flash
• Wifi 820 b,g,n and Bluetooth 4.0

This was advertised in May 2015 on Kickstarter for only 9$ and a huge success. But you have to add 20$ shipping and 15$ for HDMI adapter and wait until  May 2016 (or January 2016 without adapter).

 ARMv7 Dual Core

Banana Pi

• Allwinner A20
• 2x A7
• 1GB RAM
• 40$

CubieBoard 2

• Allwinner A20
• 2x A7
• 1GB RAM
• 65$

A20-Olinuxino-Lime

• Allwinner A20
• 2x A7
• 512MB RAM
• 33EUR = 43$

A20-Olinuxino-Lime2

• Allwinner A20
• 2x A7
• 1GB RAM
• 45EUR = 58$

pcDuino3 Nano

• Allwinner A20
• 2x A7
• 1GB RAM
• 39$

These Boards are all Allwinner A20 based and have decent software support. If you like to support Open Source Hardware (you should!),
take an Olinuxino board. If you need the lowest price, Banana Pi or pcDuino might be the cheapest ones depending on shipping costs to your country.