AMD Expands Low-Power, G-Series Processor Family For Embedded Applications

Three new SoC additions deliver top-to-bottom options for gaming, imaging, industrial control, and other common x86 applications

At Embedded World today, AMD announced its 3rd Generation AMD Embedded G-Series SoCs and the Embedded G-Series LX SoC, providing customers a broadened portfolio of performance options. The latest offerings expand developers’ ability to scale x86 platforms, starting with the entry-level AMD Embedded G-Series LX SoC, which is pin compatible to the previous generation G-Series SoC devices. Also announced today are two new, higher performing 3rd Generation AMD Embedded G-Series SoCs, codenamed “Prairie Falcon” and “Brown Falcon,” which introduce for the first time pin compatibility for G-Series processors with the higher performance AMD Embedded R-Series SoC.

The new products expand upon the low power capabilities of the award-winning AMD Embedded G-Series SoC platform, bringing scalable performance, power, and price across the CPU, GPU, multimedia, and I/O controller hardware, helping to lower development costs for AMD customers. Together, the new G-Series processors deliver immersive, graphically rich experiences across a broad range of platforms, from entry-level to mainstream gaming, digital signage, imaging, and industrial control.

“The latest AMD Embedded G-Series SoC additions offer our customers a broad range of mainstream embedded solutions, including two that are in the same package as the higher-performance R-Series,” said Scott Aylor, corporate vice president and general manager, AMD Enterprise Solutions. “The new SoCs further our commitment to provide embedded design engineers with an evolutionary path toward the highest levels of power efficient compute and graphics capabilities, and a strong value proposition for a broad range of embedded applications.”

The new G-Series’ balanced set of peripheral support, performance options, and overall energy efficiency are expected to make an immediate impact with AMD customers and the embedded ecosystem.

“The embedded market is an incredibly dynamic space right now, enabled by more immersive graphics and significant gains in power efficiency and performance,” said Shane Rau, IDC. “The advent of versatile system on chip (SoC) solutions that are pin-compatible across a range of performance and price, coupled with comprehensive embedded software stacks, are giving product engineers a much greater range of choices in building dynamic, graphically rich next gen systems.”

3rd Generation AMD Embedded G-Series SoC

The low-power AMD Embedded G-Series is designed to deliver an immersive, graphically rich experience and smooth system performance, all in a compact, energy efficient SoC with low power consumption and significant memory bandwidth for mainstream embedded applications. With impressive gains in compute and graphics performance compared to the prior generation embedded G-Series, the new additions to the lineup are ideal for thin clients, IP set-top boxes, and TVs, casino gaming, industrial control and automation, digital signage, and communications networks. The new models include “Excavator” x86 CPU cores and 3rd generation Graphics Core Next (GCN) graphics with support for OpenGL ES, OpenCL™, DirectX® 12, and EGL. For greater design flexibility, the new 3rd Generation Embedded G-Series SoCs, and the AMD Embedded R-Series SoC announced last fall are also all pin compatible.

3rd Generation AMD Embedded G-Series SoC Family key features and specifications:

• Up to 2 “Excavator” x86 cores

• AMD Radeon™ graphics (up to 4 GCN compute units1)

• 4K x 2K H.265 decode (10-bit compatibility on select devices) & multi-format encode & decode

• Multiple display technology – HDMITM 2.0, DP 1.2, eDP 1.4

• 6~15W Thermal Design Power (TDP)

• Up to 2 Channels DDR4/DDR3

• Integrated AMD Secure Processor

• 10-year planned longevity

  Embedded G-Series LX Family SoC

  The Embedded G-Series LX SoC is a new, low-power x86 SoC offering compelling performance for the price with advanced multimedia and display features. It features the “Jaguar” CPU core with support for Error Correcting Memory (ECC) and GCN, as well as support for DirectX® 11.2, OpenGL 4.3, and OpenCLTM 1.2. The Embedded G-Series LX SoC is ideally suited for numerous applications, including retail point-of-sale terminals, digital signage, arcade gaming, and industrial control. The AMD Embedded G-Series LX SoC uses the same FT3b socket as its predecessor codenamed “Steppe Eagle” and provides a higher-performance migration path for AMD Geode™ customers.

G-Series LX key features and specifications:

• 2 “Jaguar” x86 cores

• AMD Radeon™ Graphics Core Next (GCN) graphics

  o Multi-format encode & decode

  o Multiple display technology – HDMITM 2.0, DP 1.2, eDP 1.4

• 6~15W TDP

• Single-channel DDR3

• AMD Secure Processor

• Industrial temperature – extended temperature SKUs

  The first 3rd Generation AMD Embedded G-Series SoCs are available immediately with additional offerings planned in the first and second quarter of this year. The first AMD Embedded G-Series LX products are expected to be available in March.

Supporting Resources

• Learn more about the new AMD Embedded G-Series product family

• AMD Embedded Processor product page

• Follow @AMDEmbedded on Twitter

• Become a fan of AMD on Facebook

• Follow AMD on Twitter @AMD

• Industry Support

Congatec                                                                                                     “The new AMD Embedded G-Series SOCs boast vibrant, immersive graphics, high performance, and low power for robust yet fanless designs,” said Christian Eder, Marketing Director of Congatec. “We’re excited about the pin compatibility of the 3rd Generation G-

Series                                                                                                           I-Family with the R-Series as this scalability makes it even easier to incorporate these processors into multiple COM Express designs.”

Mentor                                                                                                   “Using the new, highly scalable AMD G-Series embedded processors, embedded developers can perform evaluation, prototyping, and development by downloading the freely available Mentor Embedded Linux Lite and Sourcery CodeBench Lite tools,” said Scot Morrison, general manager, platform business unit, Mentor Graphics Embedded Systems Division. “The combination of the AMD Embedded processors and the Mentor Embedded Linux make for a powerful hardware/software platform solution to create dynamic, immersive applications with great multimedia capabilities targeting markets such as digital gaming, point-of-sale (POS), and electronic signage/displays.”

RTS                                                                                                                 “As a leader in embedded virtualization and real-time hypervisor technology, RTS has been working closely with AMD hardware partners to bring robust embedded solutions to market for the industrial and medical ecosystems,” said Gerd Lammers, CEO of RTS. “With scalable SoC performance, the AMD G-Series processer family is an ideal fit for running real-time virtual applications.”

Sapphire                                                                                                       “Sapphire and AMD have long collaborated to bring innovative products to the embedded market,” said Adrian Thompson, VP of Marketing for SAPPHIRE Technology. “With software compatibility from the entry-level LX to higher performing processors, our board level solutions based on the newest AMD G-Series embedded processors will enable customers to incorporate these scalable products quickly and easily into their projects. This new generation brings hardware and software scalability, excellent performance and immersive graphics for immersive multimedia applications.”