Allwinner Announces It Will Release 64bit Socs For Budget Tablets

The Chinese chipmaker Allwinner has announced that it will start selling 64-bit socs for budget tablets from the end of this year. The manufacturer does not yet disclose further details of the soc, such as number of cores, microarchitecture, clock speed and GPU used.

Allwinner wants to have a demonstration ready for an exhibition in October, after which manufacturers can purchase the soc and put it in tablets at the end of this year, says the maker. The processor maker only says that the processor cores are based on the ARMv8a architecture.

Presumably, Allwinner uses ARM’s own Cortex A53 microarchitecture; besides the more expensive Cortex A57 and Apple’s own core, it’s the only 64-bit microarchitecture ready for mass production. Allwinner focuses on the Chinese market and it is therefore likely that it will be a soc with at least four processor cores: Chinese manufacturers often opt for as many processor cores as possible in a soc, because it looks better on paper.

The race to release 64-bit ARM socs as soon as possible started last fall, when Apple was surprised to many companies in the telecom industry to have the first 64-bit soc ready for mass production: the Apple A7 in the iPhone 5s and iPad Air. . Allwinner is known for its socs for cheap tablets, although major brands have not used the Chinese manufacturer to date. Allwinner cannot produce its own processors: for this it has to rely on, for example, GlobalFoundries.