Cubie A5E: Tiny single-board computer as alternative to Raspberry Pi

We have already covered Radxa several times here on this website, a company known in certain circles for its single-board computers (SBCs), amongst other things. The Cubie A5E is a new compact SBC offering various expansion options. Measuring 69 x 56 mm (2.7 x 2.2 in), the device comes with either an Allwinner T527 or A527 SoC. Both chips feature eight Cortex-A55 cores, a Mali-G57 MC1 graphics processing unit, and an optional NPU with up to two TOPS, enabling them to handle AI applications.

The Cubie A5E can be configured with 1, 2 or 4 GB of LPDDR4 memory, but doesn’t have any internal storage apart from an SPI flash chip for the bootloader. As usual, users can add a memory card or install an NVMe M.2 2230 SSD. For video output, the device offers one HDMI 2.0a port and an MIPI FPC interface. Cameras can be connected not only via USB (as is typical in the consumer segment) but also using the MIPI CSI interface. Two Gigabit Ethernet ports are available for networking, with one of them supporting Power over Ethernet (PoE). The device is equipped with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, and includes a single USB 3.0 port.

The Cubie A5E is powered via USB-C and can draw up to 20 watts. There is a 40-pin GPIO header that is also compatible with HATs designed for the Raspberry Pi. On board are two user-assignable LEDs. Detailed information on pricing and availability hasn’t been released yet.