Exciting News: Cubieboard is Back with the New Cubie A5E!

[hipboi]

Dear SUNXI community,

It’s been a long time since I last wrote to this list. As some of you may know, I left Cubieboard years ago due to internal power struggles and went on to found Radxa. Since then, Radxa hasn’t released any SBCs based on Allwinner platforms. There were a few reasons for this, but one of the biggest was that Allwinner seemed to have fallen behind on new ARM technology, and their SoCs weren’t as attractive compared to Rockchip’s.

But now, things are starting to change:

1. New leadership at Allwinner: The original founders have stepped back, and a younger, more dynamic management team has taken over. For example, the new President, Ye Mao (叶茂), is an old friend of mine from my time at Allwinner. He’s also an open-source enthusiast—you can check out some of his work at Xradio here:
   https://github.com/XradioTech/xradiotech-wiki/commits/master

2. Strong business performance: Allwinner has been doing quite well financially in recent years. Their revenue is now comparable to Rockchip's, and their gross margins are also catching up—even though Allwinner chips are priced much lower. This speaks to their impressive cost-control capabilities. With strong business performance, Allwinner is now in a position to make long-term investments, like supporting the developer community.

3. A renewed focus on open source: While Rockchip has turned their focus on the EV market, Allwinner has recognized the power of the open-source community. They’ve formed a dedicated team and are putting resources into building a better open-source ecosystem.

4. Exciting new roadmap: Allwinner has an aggressive roadmap and is working on a new chip with advanced process technology. They’ve been actively communicating with us about feature demands, including specific hardware and software requirements. We’ve provided feedback based on what makers and developers need, and I believe this new chip will exceed everyone’s expectations.

With all of this happening, I’m thrilled to announce that Cubieboard is back!

Radxa is officially launching its first Allwinner-based SBC: the Cubie A5E, powered by the Allwinner A527/T527 octa-core Cortex-A55 SoC.

The Cubie A5E is incredibly compact, measuring just 56 x 69mm, but it packs nearly all the essential interfaces you’d expect from an SBC:

• Allwinner A527 or T527 (industrial version)
• Dual Gigabit Ethernet (one with PoE support)
• Full-size HDMI
• USB 3.0 Type-A and USB 2.0 OTG (Type-C)
• M.2 M Key for 2230 NVMe SSDs
• 40-pin GPIO

You can find more details on the SUNXI wiki page here:

https://linux-sunxi.org/Radxa_Cubie_A5E

Allwinner has been incredibly supportive of Radxa’s return to the SUNXI community. They’ve even donated some chips to help us contribute to the community’s growth. We’re pleased to announce that we’re giving away free Cubie A5E SBCs to all developers in the SUNXI community who joined this mailing list in 2024 or earlier.

If you’re eligible, you can claim your free Cubie A5E here:

https://forms.gle/NRcVtxT9j6c749rj6

We’ll start shipping the boards before the Lunar New Year, so please make sure your shipping address is accurate.

Let’s work together to bring back the glory of the SUNXI community!