AMD on Oct. 21 put forth a new embedded processor line that is sort of versatile, to say the least: It can run everything from medical imaging applications to 4K video slot machines -- and plenty of other things in between.
The Gen 2 R-series chips, introduced at a media event in San Francisco, also can be used for portable ultrasound devices, video arcade machines, digital and retail signage, media storage and communications and networking -- among many other use cases.
Designed for high-end embedded requirements, the new processors incorporate AMD's newest 64-bit x86 CPU core -- called "Excavator" -- plus third-generation Graphics Core Next GPU architecture, along with its best power management for reduced energy consumption, the company said.
AMD said that the R-series single-chip system-on-chip architecture fills requirements for simplified, small-form factor board and system designs used by many AMD customers and third-party development platform providers.
Further reading
Here are some of the key specs:
--AMD claims that this is the first embedded processor with dual-channel 64-bit DDR4 or DDR3 with Error-Correction Code (ECC), with speeds up to DDR4-2400 and DDR3-2133, and support for 1.2V DDR4 and 1.5V/1.35V DDR3;
--Dedicated AMD Secure Processor (an ARM core that runs independent of the x86 processor for system integrity purposes) that supports secure boot with AMD Hardware Validated Boot; initiates trusted boot environment before starting x86 cores;
--High-performance Integrated FCH featuring PCIe Gen3 USB3.0, SATA3, SD, GPIO, SPI, I2S, I2C, UART.
--AMD said the Embedded R-Series SOC provides 10-year longevity. The processors support Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Embedded 7 and 8 Standard, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and AMD's all-open Linux driver, including Mentor Embedded Linux from Mentor Graphics and their Sourcery CodeBench IDE development tools.
--Contains a suite of peripheral support and interface options, including high-end AMD Radeon graphics, the industry's first Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) 1.0 certification, and support for the latest DDR4 memory. Specs for Radeon graphics include: up to eight compute units and two rendering blocks; GPU clock speeds up to 800MHz, resulting in 819 GFLOPS
DirectX 12 support.
--Features enhanced GPU performance and support for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) for full 4K decode and DirectX 12.
The new chips became generally available worldwide on Oct. 21.
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