Legit Reviews

SAN JOSE, Calif. — DESIGN West —4/23/2013

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the new AMD Embedded G-Series System-on-Chip (SOC) platform, a single-chip solution based on the AMD next-generation “Jaguar” CPU architecture and AMD Radeon™ 8000 Series graphics. The new AMD Embedded G-Series SOC platform further signifies a strategic push to focus on high-growth markets outside the PC industry, with an emphasis on embedded systems. The announcement was made at this year’s DESIGN West expo.

Embedded systems are increasingly driving intelligence into new areas of our lives, from smart TVs and set-top boxes to interactive digital signage and informational kiosks. This supports greater productivity and connectivity and is expected to be a strong driver for Surround Computing, an area of substantial growth in the computing industry. Among the forces that are enabling this next-generation computing era are single-chip, SOC solutions that offer smaller size, higher performance and more energy-efficient processors.

The AMD Embedded G-Series SOC platform sets the new bar for SOC design, offering up to 113 percent improved CPU performance compared to the prior generation AMD Embedded G-Series APU, and up to a 125 percent advantage compared to the Intel Atom when running multiple industry-standard compute intensive benchmarks1. For embedded applications, the new platform also includes support for DirectX® 11.1, OpenGL 4.2x and OpenCL™ 1.22 that enables parallel processing and high-performance graphics processing, yielding up to a 20 percent graphics improvement over the previous AMD Embedded G-Series APU and greater than 5x advantage over Intel Atom when running multiple industry-standard graphics-intensive benchmarks3.

“We have built a treasure trove of industry-leading IP in processors, graphics and multimedia along with the infrastructure to combine these building blocks into unsurpassed embedded SOC solutions,” said Arun Iyengar, vice president and general manager, AMD Embedded Solutions. “With a 33 percent smaller footprint4, low power consumption and exceptional performance, the new AMD Embedded G-Series SOC sets the bar for content-rich multimedia and traditional workload processing that is ideal for a broad variety of embedded applications.”

The new processor family offers superior performance per watt in the low-power x86-compatible product category with 9W – 25W options5. It includes:

enterprise-class Error-Correction Code (ECC) memory support;
industrial temperature range of -40°C to +85°C and available with dual or quad-core CPUs;
discrete-class AMD Radeon™ GPU;
I/O controller.

The AMD Embedded G-Series SOC combines dedicated resources that enable exceptional performance with shared resources to help reduce power consumption and die space, and provides developers the flexibility to leverage the same board design and software stack for a variety of applications due to the scalability of the new SOC design. The discrete-class graphics integrated into the AMD Embedded G-Series SOC power applications that previously required a separate graphics processor, while the addition of new CPU architecture for the Embedded G-Series SOC platform allows deeply embedded or “headless” systems, which are used in environments without a screen, monitor or input device and do not require a graphics solution.

“As the Internet of Things permeates every aspect of our life from work to home and everything where in between, devices require high performance, I/O connectivity and energy efficiency in smaller packages,” said Colin Barnden, principal analyst, Semicast Research. “With this new AMD SOC design, the AMD Embedded G-Series platform offers the perfect mix of high performance, a small footprint, low energy use and full I/O integration to enable smaller form-factor embedded designs, cool and efficient operation, and simplified build requirements. AMD has leapfrogged the competition by combining the power of an x86 CPU and the performance of AMD Radeon graphics with the I/O interconnect all on a single die.”

The AMD Embedded G-Series SOC supports Windows Embedded 8 and Linux, and is designed for myriad embedded applications including industrial control and automation, digital signage, electronic gaming systems, SMB storage, IP-TV, medical and network appliances, set-top boxes and more. AMD will ship the AMD G-Series SOC platform with general availability in the second quarter of 2013, followed by a comprehensive ecosystem of industry-leading embedded solution providers supporting and/or announcing market-ready products powered by the AMD Embedded G-Series SOC.
Developer Support and Product Features

Developers working with the AMD Embedded G-Series SOC can implement remote management, virtualization and security capabilities to help reduce deployment costs and increase security and reliability of their AMD Embedded G-Series SOC-based platform through:

AMD DAS 1.0 featuring DASH 1.1;
AMD Virtualization™ technology;
Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 support.

Next-generation CPU core

Next-generation “Jaguar” core with innovative, new shared L2 Cache
Enterprise-class feature of ECC and fast memory support

Excellent AMD Radeon graphics performance-per-watt

Enhanced Universal Video Decode (UVD) 3 hardware acceleration (H.264, VC-1, MPEG2, etc.) and new video encode capability not available in previous AMD Embedded G-Series APU
Power efficiency enhancement with clock gating to contribute to overall lower power consumption

Advanced GPU enables parallel processing and high-performance graphics

Heterogeneous computing for industrial control and automation, communications and other processor heavy applications. OpenCL enables CPU and GPU parallel processing, which benefits applications development in these areas
Graphics (DirectX 11, OpenGL) and dual independent display; high-resolution support for a superb visual experience
Expanded software development options and extended application lifetime with advanced graphics APIs

Ideal platform for low-power and high-performance designs

For Industrial Control and Automation: low-power and heterogeneous computing advantage enabled by the integrated GPU deliver more than 150 GFLOPS of compute performance over and above the compute capability of the x86 CPU cores6
For Digital Signage: eye-catching, high-definition multimedia content delivery connected through a variety of display technologies (DP, HDMI™, VGA, LVDS)
For Electronic Gaming Machines: dedicated hardware acceleration engines for video decode (UVD) and encode (VCE) as well as digital content management (SAMU)
For SMB storage: high-performance SOC in a small form factor with a myriad of integrated USB and SATA I/O enables a fanless design, reducing system cost

Models and pricing

Models available at launch include:

GX-420CA SOC with AMD Radeon™ HD 8400E Graphics
Quad-core, 25W TDP, CPU freq. 2.0GHz, GPU freq. 600MHz
GX-415GA SOC with AMD Radeon™ HD 8330E Graphics
Quad-core, 15W TDP, CPU freq. 1.50GHz, GPU freq. 500MHz
GX-217GA SOC with AMD Radeon™ HD 8280E Graphics
Dual-core, 15W TDP, CPU freq. 1.65GHz, GPU freq. 450MHz
GX-210HA SOC with AMD Radeon™ HD 8210E Graphics
Dual-core, 9W TDP, CPU freq. 1.0GHz, GPU freq. 300MHz
GX-416RA SOC
Quad-Core, 15W, CPU Freq. 1.6GHz, No GPU

Pricing ranges from $49 - $72 for the SKUs.
Supporting Resources

Visit the AMD Embedded G-Series SOC platform site
Visit the AMD Embedded Solutions blog
Watch a summary video about the AMD Embedded G-Series SOC
Get technical support at the AMD Embedded Developer Support site
For more AMD Embedded products, visit the AMD-Based Embedded Product Catalog

About AMD

AMD (NYSE: AMD) is a semiconductor design innovator leading the next era of vivid digital experiences with its ground-breaking AMD Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) that power a wide range of computing devices. AMD's server computing products are focused on driving industry-leading cloud computing and virtualization environments. AMD's superior graphics technologies are found in a variety of solutions ranging from game consoles, PCs to supercomputers. For more information, visit www.amd.com.

AMD, the AMD Arrow logo and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

AMD GX-415GA scored 209, AMD G-T56N scored 98, and Intel Atom D525 scored 93, based on an average of Sandra Engineering 2011 Dhyrstone, Sandra Engineering 2011 Whetstone and EEMBC CoreMark Multi-thread benchmark results. AMD G-T56N system configuration used iBase MI958 motherboard with 4GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. AMD GX-415GA system configuration used AMD "Larne" Reference Design Board with 4GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. Intel Atom D525 system configuration used MSI MS-A923 motherboard with platform integrated 1GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. All systems running Windows® 7 Ultimate for Sandra Engineering and Ubuntu version 11.10 for EEMBC CoreMark. EMB-37
OpenCL 1.2 currently supported in the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows Vista; Microsoft Windows 7; Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 7; Microsoft Windows 8 classic mode; Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 8; Linux(Catalyst drivers). OpenGL 4.2 currently supported in the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows Vista; Microsoft Windows 7; Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 7; Microsoft Windows 8 classic mode; Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 8; Linux(Catalyst drivers). Ongoing support options TBA.
AMD GX-415GA scored 864, AMD G-T56N scored 724, and Intel Atom D525 scored 162, based on an average of 3DMark06 1280x1024 and PassMark Performance Test 7.0 2D Graphics Suite benchmark results. AMD G-T56N system configuration used iBase MI958 motherboard with 4GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. AMD GX-415GA system configuration used AMD "Larne" Reference Design Board with 4GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. Intel Atom D525 system configuration used MSI MS-A923 motherboard with platform integrated 1GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. All systems running Windows® 7 Ultimate with DirectX 11.0. EMB-38
Calculation: AMD G-Series SOC FT3 BGA package dimension 24.5mm x 24.5mm = 600.25 mm2 SOC; AMD G-Series APU FT1 and Controller Hub two-chip platform: 19mm x 19mm + 23mm x 23mm = 890 mm2; 33% improvement. EMB-40
The low-power x86 microprocessor class includes: GX-420CA @ 25W TDP (scored 19); GX415GA @ 15W (25), GX217GA @ 15W (17), GX210HA @ 9W (20), G-T56N @ 18W (12), G-T52R @ 18W (7), G-T40N @9W (14), G-T16R @ 4.5W (19), Intel Atom N270 @ 2.5W (20), Intel Atom D525 @ 13W (9), Intel Atom D2700 @ 10W (12) & Intel Celeron G440 @ 35W (5). Performance score based on an average of scores from the following benchmarks: Sandra Engineering 2011 Dhrystone ALU, Sandra Engineering 2011 Whetstone iSSE3, 3DMark® 06 (1280 x 1024), PassMark Performance Test 7.0 2D Graphics Mark, and EEMBC CoreMark Multi-thread. All systems running Windows® 7 Ultimate for Sandra Engineering, 3DMark® 06 and Passmark. All systems running Ubuntu version 11.10 for EEMBC CoreMark. All configurations used DirectX 11.0. AMD G-Series APU system configurations used iBase MI958 motherboards with 4GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. All AMD G-Series SOC systems used AMD "Larne" Reference Design Board with 4GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. Intel Atom D2700 was tested with Jetway NC9KDL-2700 motherboard, 4GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. Intel Celeron system configuration used MSI H61M-P23 motherboard with 4GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. Intel Atom N270 system configuration used MSI MS-9830 motherboard with maximum
supported configuration of 1GB DDR2 (per http://download.intel.com/design/intarc ... 320436.pdf,) and Intel GM945 Intel Atom D525 used MSI MS-A923 motherboard with platform integrated 1GB DDR3 and integrated graphics. EMB-36
Calculation based on performance of GX-420GA GPU running at 600MHz = 0.6 GHz. 0.6 x 256 FLOPs = 153.6 GFLOPS. EMB-43