About ODROID-C2 .

Post by **odroid** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 3:49 pm

We know well there were some rumors about the C2 on the internet.
In fact, we started to develop the C2 board from last August. But we couldn't rush the process of C2 development because we needed to support the XU4/C1+ boards too.
Finally, it is time to talk about our first 64bit version ODROID.

The ODROID-C2 is a 64-bit quad-core Single Board Computer (SBC) that is one of the most cost-effective 64-bit development boards available in the ARM world.
It will be available for purchase on March 2, 2016 at US$40. The mass production will be started from February 15, 2016 and the first shipping date is March 4, 2016.

Specifications

Amlogic S905 (ARM® Cortex®-A53(ARMv8) 2Ghz quad core CPU)
2Gbyte DDR3 SDRAM
ARM Mali™-450 MP3 GPU (OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1 for Linux and Android)
HDMI 2.0 4K/60Hz display
H.265 4K/60FPS and H.264 4K/30FPS capable VPU
Gigabit Ethernet
40+7pin GPIO port
eMMC5.0 HS400 Flash Storage slot / UHS-1 SDR50 MicroSD slot
USB 2.0 Host x 4, USB 2.0 OTG x 1 (power + data capable)
Infrared(IR) Receiver
Ubuntu 16.04 and Android 5.1 Lollipop based on Kernel 3.14 LTS
Board dimensions is identical to the ODROID-C1+

Block diagram of the C2.

Key components on the C2 board.

Hardware Information

The ODROID-C2 has many advantages over the Raspberry Pi2. The processor is an S905 ARM-64bit 2GHz Quad-core with 2GByte DDR3 RAM, Gigabit-Ethernet and IR-receiver.
The size of this computer is still only 85 x 56 mm with a weight of 40g, and offers silent operation, 2~5W average power usage, and instant portability, since it fits in a shirt pocket.
One powerful feature of the ODROID-C2 is an SD 3.01 standard compatible UHS-1 MicroSD card, as well as the faster eMMC module, can be ordered with the ODROID-C2, and arrives with the popular Ubuntu operating system already installed.
Insert the MicroSD card into the slot, connect a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, Ethernet and power cable, and that’s all you need to do to use the ODROID-C2!
Browse the web, play games, run office programs, edit photos, develop software, and watch videos right away.
The ODROID-C2 also has a 40+7pin GPIO header to make a physical interface between the board and the outside world.
The 40+7pin interface headers include PWM, I2C, I2S, UART, ADC and GPIO function.
The IR receiver and ADC features on the ODROID-C2 offer many options for building great DIY projects.

Here are the comparisons to give you better understanding of ODROID-C2.
All of them are Linux-friendly, less than or equal to $40 ARM® single-board computers for various applications and purposes.

CPU/RAM PERFORMANCE

We ran several different benchmarks to measure the computing power on the C2 with Ubuntu 16.04. The same tests were performed on the Raspberry Pi 2, ODROID-C1, ODROID-U3 and ODROID-XU4 for easier comparison.
The values of the test results were scaled uniformly for comparison purposes. The computing power of the C2 was measured to be ~2-3 times faster than the latest Raspberry Pi 2 thanks to the 2Ghz Cortex-A53 cores and much higher memory bandwidth. The high-performance 2GB DDR3 RAM is an additional advantage allowing most programs to run smoothly on the C2.
Floating point computing power also significantly improved on the ARMv8 architecture while the integer computing power is not a big quantum jump.

Also ran a benchmark on Android OS with Antutu.
ODROID-C1+ shows around 21,200pts and ODROID-C2 shows around 33,700pts. So you can run Android OS more smoothly.
Note that the XU4 shows around 51,000pts thanks to the much faster A15 cores and Mali-T628 MP6 GPU cores.
But the ODROID-C2 has higher rate of the “Performance per Dollar” probably.

SD/eMMC PERFORMANCE
The C2 can boot from a MicroSD card or an eMMC module. The MicroSD interface supports the higher performance UHS-1 mode as well. File access of a 512MB file (read/write) on two different storage options shows distinct performance differences.
The eMMC 5.0 storage is ~7x faster than the MicroSD Class-10 card in read tests. The MicroSD UHS-1 card is ~2x faster than the MicroSD Class-10 card in read tests. The MicroSD UHS-1 card provides a great low-cost option for many applications!
The benchmark of SD/eMMC file-IO was done with below commands.

Code: Select all

Write command
dd if=/dev/zero of=test oflag=direct bs=8M count=64
Read command 
dd if=test of=/dev/null iflag=direct bs=8M

ETHERNET PERFORMANCE
The C2 has an on-board Gigabit Ethernet controller. Our bi-directional streaming speed was measured at ~900Mbps.
Thanks to the doubled Tx buffer in S905, the upload speed is twice faster than C1.

The benchmark of Ethernet throughput was done with below commands.

Code: Select all

Server mode :iperf -s
Client Mode :iperf -c [ip address] -P 10 -W 32k

HDMI 2.0 and Video performance
The 4K/60Hz HDMI 2.0 output shows gorgeous desktop screen on a UHD 3840x2160 resolution. But the rendering speed is quite slow.
So we needed to use the FHD 1920x1080 GUI layer and UHD 3840x2160 Video layer. Those two layers can be composed with a hardware mixer in Android platform.
We will consider making a similar approach on Linux platforms.
The latest Kodi just started to allows us to create the Kodi user-interface in a different resolution than the resolution we do video playback, so what happens now is that the interface is displayed at 1080p, and the video will actually be output at the 4K resolution because ODROID-C2 is able to handle it. Preinstalled Kodi v16 Jarvis RC2 on the Android OS shows how to implement it.

If you really want to try the gorgeous 4K desktop on Linux, you need to be patient due to the slow rendering speed.

Original 4K images are available in this links.
http://dn.odroid.com/homebackup/20160203/scr1.png
http://dn.odroid.com/homebackup/20160203/scr2.png

Side notes:
1. There is no SPI bus on the C2. The S905 SoC doesn’t have it. So many SPI based add-on boards are not compatible with C2.
2. There is no on-board RTC. The S905 SoC doesn’t have it. We will consider making an add-on board.
3. The wrong alpha-blending issue has been fixed in the S905. So we don’t need to use the DDX blending any more.
4. The public version of the S905 Datasheet will be released in March or April hopefully. We are checking the firm schedule.
5. Ubuntu 16.04(LTS) ARM64 has some missing packages i.e., Chromium. It seems to have some compiling/linking issue with 64bit gcc/glibc.
6. Ubuntu/Linux Mali GPU driver works only on the fbdev at this moment. X11 Mali drivers will be available in March or April.
7. OS images and build guides are available in our WiKi. http://odroid.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=en:odroid-c2

8. We are shipping free C2 engineering sample boards to some forum members from today for a debugging party.
The shipping package contains a C2 board, a 16GB eMMC(Android preinstalled) and an HDMI 2.0 cable.
There is a heat-sink for XU4 too which needs some evaluation tests. We will open another thread to talk about it separately.

List of members.

AreaScount
chlorisdroid
gkkpch
joerg
loboris
memeka
meveric
mlinuxguy
murrman
oversun
patoberli
rooted
runnerway
suriyan
Tpimp
umiddelb
venkatbo
voodik
XeoSal
zalaare

crashoverride <shipped>
wrxtaxy <shipped>
phaseshifter <shipped>

If you don’t receive an email from our sales team even you are in the list, leave a message in this thread.
We didn’t receive any confirmation email from three people on the bottom side of the list. Please check your spam box.

Koxx · Post by **Koxx** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 4:58 pm

Awesome news !
I guess CEC will be supported as C1+

Will Ubuntu + Kodi fbdev + CEC work ?

Post by **odroid** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 5:47 pm

We've tested the CEC function with Simplink and Anynet+ TV samples. Both worked well.

The Kodi 16 RC2 worked with Android well with H.265 4K 60FPS on some UHD TVs.
But we may need longer time to develop it on Ubuntu.

Glorin · Post by **Glorin** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 5:57 pm

Why you remove rtc ?

Post by **odroid** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:06 pm

No, we didn't remove the RTC. The SoC manufacturer removed it.
I think this SoC was designed for the smart TV box market and most of them are always connected.
So they removed the RTC block in the SoC to reduce the cost probably.

rooted · Post by **rooted** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:24 pm

You let the secret out of the bag

Can't wait to get the board and see how it performs.

Thanks Hardkernel, you guys (and girls) are awesome.

AreaScout · Post by **AreaScout** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:28 pm

i am just watch the UPS tracking every 5 minutes just to see where the package is -> can't wait

thx

meveric · Post by **meveric** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:40 pm

I already made a Debian Jessie arm64 base image, which is just waiting to run on the C2

rooted · Post by **rooted** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:44 pm

meveric wrote:I already made a Debian Jessie arm64 base image, which is just waiting to run on the C2

Definitely will be giving that a workout.

rooted · Post by **rooted** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:46 pm

The increase in RW speed on eMMC is impressive, the device must be very snappy running Android.

crossover · Post by **crossover** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:47 pm

This one looks like almost twice faster than the Pine64 board.

Time to consider buying a UHD monitor.
But I guess there should be 4GB RAM to play with 4K desktop GUI on a real 4K monitor.
Does the S905 CPU support 4GB DRAM capacity?

Anyway, is there any news about RPi3?
When hardkernel announces a new board, RPi also raises a news too.

rooted · Post by **rooted** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:51 pm

LoL, that is true about the Pi Foundation.

The S905 doesn't to my knowledge but I believe the S912 will.

Post by **odroid** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:56 pm

meveric wrote:I already made a Debian Jessie arm64 base image, which is just waiting to run on the C2

We also want to try your Debian image because there is no Chromium on Ubuntu Aarch64 PPA.
FireFox is available but it is very unstable. So I've used Midori.

I really hope you get the package soon.

Post by **odroid** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:04 pm

crossover wrote: Does the S905 CPU support 4GB DRAM capacity?

The S905 supports up to 2GB.

stmicro · Post by **stmicro** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:13 pm

This one can be a proper replacement of the U3. Long waited item.

No fan, faster computing performance and much lower price. Very promising platform.

rooted · Post by **rooted** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:15 pm

And we're scooped

http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/02/03/ ... ext-month/

rooted · Post by **rooted** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:25 pm

Is Lollipop for C2 64bit?

Post by **odroid** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:29 pm

The 32bit Android Lollipop runs on the 64bit Kernel for better apps compatibility at this moment.
You can try 64bit Android later if it gives you better performance.

rooted · Post by **rooted** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:31 pm

My phone is the same way (snapdragon 410), I was wanting to test some of my apps on 64bit.

Thanks for the information.

Ricardona · Post by **Ricardona** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:26 pm

odroid wrote:1. There is no SPI bus on the C2. The S905 SoC doesn’t have it. So many SPI based add-on boards are not compatible with C2.

My ambilight project is sad

wrxtasy · Post by **wrxtasy** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:34 pm

rooted wrote:The increase in RW speed on eMMC is impressive, the device must be very snappy running Android.

I've had an AMLogic invasion happening in my household lately...
The Android ART Runtime optimisations in Android Lollipop 5.1.1 OS make quite a big difference even running on a AMLogic S812-H compared to the older Android KitKat 4.4.x OS.

The S905 is another small speed bump again over a well sorted S812-H, its a little bit snappier for media player use.

crashoverride · Post by **crashoverride** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 10:26 pm

Ricardona wrote:My ambilight project is sad

I just started using SPI!

Fortunately, I had a contingency plan in place. Right now I am looking at moving my sensor to a Cortex-M3 board and talking to it over USB. Boblight/Ambilight can probably get away with a cheaper Cortex-M0. I am going with M3 so I can use the floating point hardware. [Edit: correction, M4]

[Edit 2]
There is also this as a possible solution:
http://www.silabs.com/products/interfac ... ridge.aspx

The CP2130 is a highly-integrated USB-to-SPI bridge controller providing a simple solution for bridging a Universal Serial Bus (USB) host to a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus using a minimum of components and PCB space. The CP2130 includes a USB 2.0 full-speed controller, USB transceiver, oscillator, one-time programmable (OTP) ROM and a SPI controller in a compact 4 mm x 4 mm QFN24 package.

----------------

crossover wrote:Anyway, is there any news about RPi3?

They still have 5 years before their last product (RPi Zero) is available.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... &start=175

Assuming other official retailers are getting the same; that would suggest a current output of 16,000 per month, or 4,000 per week.

If there are people out there wanting a million Pi Zeroes; at that those rates it would take 5 years to fulfil demand.

kaede · Post by **kaede** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 11:49 pm

nice spec. should be a big success for hardkernel.

pgquiles · Post by **pgquiles** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 1:13 am

Any chance a future board has an audio input?

Jhyrachy · Post by **Jhyrachy** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 2:16 am

bit sad there are only usb 2.0

Have to go to higher model for usb 3.0 is a bit disappointing, but i guess that we can't have all

PS: can anyone confirm the C2 has one bus for the ethernet and one for each usb hub? For a total of 3 bus for usb+ethernet, like the C1 had?

crashoverride · Post by **crashoverride** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 2:34 am

Jhyrachy wrote:can anyone confirm the C2 has one bus for the ethernet and one for each usb hub?

The block diagram in the first post shows that there are two USB roots and the network controller is not attached to either. Furthermore, the network benchmarks show 928 and 935 Mbps which is significantly more than USB 2.0 is capable of handling.

miskol · Post by **miskol** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:17 am

Any plans to finally fix mali fbdev drivers to fully suport v-sync + double/triple buffering?
And there are also meson drm drivers from endless that will be also nice to backport
hw is nice but software is also important

Beer · Post by **Beer** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:37 am

Hey- I registered just to ask this.

How impossible would it be to someday release a revision of this board with PoE support? I'm a RasPi user and people have been asking for this feature for ages. Heck, a kickstarter project was successfully funded for a PoE add-on board for the Pi, but unfortunately it adds a lot of bulk. I run little utility servers on multiple Pis and have been looking for an alternative board that supports PoE so I can run them all with a single cable over a PoE switch. It's a matter of having 1 cable versus 2 cables and a wall wart for each device. It also allows a battery backup unit to protect each device through a single power adapter on the switch.

This is a super useful feature and I'd love to see a manufacturer support it one of these days.. very few actually do.

XeoSal · Post by **XeoSal** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:39 am

What's better than this for the price, I am so eager to receive my C2 although I am not interested in Android at all, I can't wait to release a Debian image for it.

The performance on paper seems not much less than XU4 yet I am pretty sure the real world performance with ARMv8 is going to be fabulous. Apparently, I think the native gigabit Ethernet bus is big plus for servers making the ODROID XU4 the second choice for this field.

Now, we are able to enjoy the best media experience of AMlogic on our 4K screens with hardware accelerations including HEVC as well, this is incredible. As stated by HardKernel, it's clear that AMlogic has gotten rid of their own Alpha Blending technology, I would like to see a stable USB device driver, this is maybe going to be the best "price-to-value" ODROID ever made.

At the moment, I am looking forward for the source code of both Linux kernel and UBOOT to be used for Ubuntu/Debian image as a base. Thank you very much HK for providing the community with sample devices for free, this is going to a fun party to participate in.

venkatbo · Post by **venkatbo** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 5:17 am

Looking forward to zC2 ;!)
Maybe, a good accessory would be a DS1307 based RTC module (~$5). Many relevant tutorials abound...

thanks.

blackout24 · Post by **blackout24** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 6:13 am

Love the black PCB and heatsink. Looks even better than the improved C1+ with its nice blue PCB. I have my case open all the time, because it looks so nice.

I hope to see a build of Arch Linux ARM for it soon.

bee · Post by **bee** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 8:10 am

How can we preorder one?

XeoSal · Post by **XeoSal** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 8:26 am

bee wrote:How can we preorder one?

Just wait till March which is the official date for ODROID-C2 going on sale, it's under debugging for better software compatibility at the moment.

Emilot · Post by **Emilot** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 8:41 am

So i guess we have DTS-HD, etc...out of the box, with Kodi??

bee · Post by **bee** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 9:12 am

XeoSal wrote:
bee wrote:How can we preorder one?
Just wait till March which is the official date for ODROID-C2 going on sale, it's under debugging for better software compatibility at the moment.

Preorder means I sign up now and get one when it is ready, it doesn't mean I get one before it is ready.

Is there at least somewhere I can sign up to be notified when it can be ordered?

stmicro · Post by **stmicro** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 9:43 am

bee wrote: Is there at least somewhere I can sign up to be notified when it can be ordered?

I think Hardkernel doesn't like the preorder nor the spam-mailing system perhaps.
It is painful to keep monitoring there homepage.

Join this hardkernel's G+ circle. They will post a news of availability on that hopefully.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/102407583165771869503/posts

rooted · Post by **rooted** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 5:45 pm

Is the C1+ being phased out after the C2 releases?

Post by **odroid** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 6:26 pm

rooted wrote:Is the C1+ being phased out after the C2 releases?

No. The C1+ will be available by end of year 2017.

rooted · Post by **rooted** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 6:40 pm

odroid wrote:
rooted wrote:Is the C1+ being phased out after the C2 releases?
No. The C1+ will be available by end of year 2017.

Great to hear.

daveyboi · Post by **daveyboi** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 9:29 pm

I currently run my C1 with a VisionTek usb ssd drive and a usb weather station. At the moment I have to run the weather station through the OTG port due to contention. (there is a thread in the forums)
Has this issue been resolved in the c2 (or the c1+ for that matter?) ?

memeka · Post by **memeka** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 9:41 pm

this is a good question

the usb controller is the same as on c1, but the kernel is a bit newer ...
i don't think there's fiq driver...

RoDuS · Post by **RoDuS** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 10:17 pm

Is it compatible with the suptronic x105 expansion card and do the hdmi and usb ports line up exactly as the pi?
i emailed suptronic and asked about orange pi and odroid compatibility but only received a response to the Opi question, and that was its untested on opi.

bee · Post by **bee** » Fri Feb 05, 2016 1:14 am

stmicro wrote:
bee wrote: Is there at least somewhere I can sign up to be notified when it can be ordered?
I think Hardkernel doesn't like the preorder nor the spam-mailing system perhaps.
It is painful to keep monitoring there homepage.

Join this hardkernel's G+ circle. They will post a news of availability on that hopefully.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102407583165771869503/posts

Is there some way to get this info without using g+? For me it would be the same as monitoring the forums (try to remember to go to a website I never read on a daily basis until it's available to order).

robroy · Post by **robroy** » Fri Feb 05, 2016 1:47 am

there some way to get this info without using g+? For me it would be the same as monitoring the forums (try to remember to go to a website I never read on a daily basis until it's available to order).

G+ will send you an email when a new item is posted.

bee · Post by **bee** » Fri Feb 05, 2016 1:55 am

robroy wrote:
there some way to get this info without using g+? For me it would be the same as monitoring the forums (try to remember to go to a website I never read on a daily basis until it's available to order).
G+ will send you an email when a new item is posted.

I've been down that route before and seen hundreds of irrelevant emails. I JUST want to know about the ODROID-C2, once, and nothing else.

petevine · Post by **petevine** » Fri Feb 05, 2016 2:12 am

Unicorn hasn't been built/tested on aarch64 yet, therefore it might be a good idea to send another board to its author.

Having a strong hacker like @aquynh in the Odroid camp should prove a worthy investment.

mpoloton · Post by **mpoloton** » Fri Feb 05, 2016 6:59 am

This is exciting news. Odroid-C1/C2 remain the only cheap SBC offering 1G Ethernet (to my knowledge). Now with 64-bit and higher performance, excellent!

rooted · Post by **rooted** » Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:46 am

Where are we discussing the C2 @odroid

Got it in and testing it now, also the updated XU4 heatsink is much better. Idling temperature is 38C and best of all...fanless.

Normally it idles around 47C in my house.

bpeckham · Post by **bpeckham** » Fri Feb 05, 2016 11:20 am

This board looks really interesting. What is the boot path? Does it follow the ARMv8 recommendation to boot with UEFI to EL2? Is it possible to access the UEFI boot loader?

Post by **mdrjr** » Fri Feb 05, 2016 11:36 am

bpeckham wrote:This board looks really interesting. What is the boot path? Does it follow the ARMv8 recommendation to boot with UEFI to EL2? Is it possible to access the UEFI boot loader?

Hello, no.. it doesn't use UEFI.. it uses u-boot.