AMD debuts embedded ‘Bald Eagle’ APUs, CPUs with HSA capabilities

Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday introduced its new family of embedded accelerated processing units (APUs) and central processing units (CPUs) with heterogeneous system architecture (HSA) capabilities. The new chips code-named “Bald Eagle” are based on the design known as “Kaveri”, which is already available for desktops.

The fresh family of AMD RX-series chips with HSA capabilities consist of five models. The new processing units feature one or two dual-core Steamroller modules (two or four cores in total), 1MB or 4MB level two cache (512KB or 1MB cache per x86 core), AMD Radeon graphics engine with three, six or eight GCN compute units (192/384/512 stream processors in total) operating at up to 686MHz, dual-channel DDR3 memory controller with hUMA [heterogeneous unified memory architecture] technology, up to 35W thermal design power and so on. The new RX-series chips are compatible with AMD A77E core-logic-set.

The latest embedded solutions from AMD are targeted at gaming machines, medical imaging, digital signage, industrial control and automation (IC&A), communications and networking infrastructure that require industry-leading compute and graphics processing technology.

Unlike the previous-generation embedded chips from AMD, the new APUs better support GPGPU [general purpose processing on graphics processing units] technology thanks to HSA capabilities. Highly-parallel processing capabilities of the Bald Eagle/Kaveri will allow to more efficiently process various applications that take advantage of GPGPU technologies.

“When it comes to compute performance, graphics performance and performance-per-watt, the 2nd generation AMD embedded R-series family is unique in the embedded market,” said Scott Aylor, corporate vice president and general manager of AMD embedded solutions. “The addition of HSA, GCN and power management features enables our customers to create a new world of intelligent, interactive and immersive embedded devices.”

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KitGuru Says: Thanks to availability of the new RX-series APUs, more programs for embedded devices will take advantage of the GPGPU and HSA technologies, which is a good thing for AMD in general. The latter is currently the only provider of embedded chips with the aforementioned technologies.

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