No audio output via I²S (PCM5102) on Orange Pi Zero 2W (H618)

[Jose Carlos Fonseca Cardoso]

Hi,

I’m working on enabling I²S audio output using a PCM5102 DAC on an Orange Pi Zero 2W (SoC: Allwinner H618) running Armbian_community_25.11.0-trunk.334_trixie_current_6.12.47_minimal.

Despite several tests and rebuild attempts, I haven’t been able to obtain any sound output from the I²S interface.
Below is a summary of what has been done so far.

 

Hardware setup

Board: Orange Pi Zero 2W

SoC: Allwinner H618

DAC: PCM5102 (I²S input, analog stereo output)

Connections:

I2S0 → used for DAC (pins LRCK, BCLK, DIN, GND, 3.3V)

Confirmed pin mappings according to H618 documentation and available DTS files.

OS Image:
Armbian_community_25.11.0-trunk.334_Orangepizero2w_trixie_current_6.12.47_minimal

What has been done

1. Kernel confirmed to be mainline-based (6.12.47-current-sunxi64).

Linux orangepizero2w 6.12.47-current-sunxi64 #1 SMP aarch64 GNU/Linux

2. Checked kernel symbols to verify presence of sunxi audio modules:
Shows sound/soc/sunxi/sun8i-codec.c among others.
Created a custom overlay at /boot/overlay-user/sun50i-h618-i2s0-pcm5102.dtso, based on examples from sun8i boards, with simple-audio-card referencing the i2s0 controller.

Enabled overlay in /boot/armbianEnv.txt :
user_overlays=sun50i-h618-i2s0-pcm5102

Rebooted and verified device tree loading → No audio device or sound card is registered.

Also tried with predefined overlay sun50i-h618-i2s2-pcm5102 included in the Armbian tree → no sound card detected (aplay -l returns “no soundcards found”).

Findings

It seems that the H618 SoC has no upstream audio codec driver (unlike H616 which includes sun8i-codec).

The I²S controller node exists in the mainline kernel sources, but may not be fully supported or linked to a DAI (Digital Audio Interface) for external DACs.

simple-audio-card bindings appear to compile correctly in the overlay, but the device never registers in ALSA.

Questions

Is there any working DTS overlay or patch enabling I²S output (no internal codec) for the H618 platform?

If not, what would be the correct approach — patching the DTS at kernel source level or adding a compatible binding manually?

Has anyone successfully used a PCM5102 (or similar DAC) with the H618-based boards under Armbian?

My goal

To have a functional stereo I²S audio output through PCM5102 (or any compatible DAC), recognized as an ALSA sound card in Linux.

Any help, hints, or working overlay examples would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your time and expertise!

Jose Cardoso