AMD Embedded Radeon targets multiple 4K displays
AMD’s high-end GPUs not only deliver high-performance graphics, but are heavy-duty compute engines as well. Of course, there is a tradeoff for this performance and flexibility that is not always worthwhile for embedded applications, where displays are the name of the game and computing chores are not as heavy. In this case, embedded GPUs without OpenCL support are more applicable. These display-oriented applications are where AMD’s Embedded Radeon solutions fit.
The AMD Embedded Radeon E9170 is available in MCM (see photo), MXM, and PCI Express (PCIe) form factors. It delivers embedded display support in a compact package with a sub-40W TDP. The top end can support up to five 4K displays simultaneously to provide an immersive multimedia environment for applications ranging from medical imaging to gaming. The outputs support HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4.
The GPU has eight computational units and the boards come with 4 GBytes of 128-bit GDDR5 memory. Although the systems do not support GPU computation applications, they do support 4K HEVC/H.265 and AVC/H.264 decode and encode. The Radeon E9170 is based on AMD’s Polaris architecture GPU.
The PCIe boards come in two versions. The E9175 full height board uses less than 50W while the low profile, half-length E9173 uses less than 35W, although it is limited to three Display Port connections and it has only 2 GBytes of 64-bit GDDR5 memory.
The platforms use an optimized, 14-nm FinFET manufacturing process. The result is a platform that delivers three times the performance/W compared to the prior generation of embedded AMD GPUs. The hardware is designed to handle industrial applications where there are stringent shock and vibration requirements.
The hardware comes with DirectX 12 software support as well as cross-platform Vulkan API support. 2D and 3D rendering with 4K displays is supported as well. The boards support AMD Eyefinity with up to four displays. Eyefinity spreads a single desktop across multiple displays.
The boards target long-life-cycle and next-generation designs with planned availability through 2024.
amd; www.amd.com
William Wong is on the editorial staff of electronicdesign.com where this article first appeared
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
