AMD R-Series APU heterogeneous system architecture for embedded applications
May 24, 2012 by Tony DeYoung
The AMD Embedded R-Series APU combines the new “Piledriver” CPU architecture with discrete-class AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics in a heterogeneous multicore embedded processing platform. It is designed for embedded mid- to high-end graphics-intensive applications such as digital signage, casino gaming, point-of-sale systems and kiosks, as well as parallel-processing-intensive applications spanning medical imaging and security/surveillance.
Software developers can take advantage of APU programmability through OpenCL, OpenGL and DirectCompute.
Traditional embedded solutions using just a CPU run serially with any parallelization occurring in multiprocessor (typically 2-8 cores) systems or virtually via time-splicing control of the individual CPU cores. With the addition of an integrated GPU, tasks can be distributed over hundreds or thousands of very small and highly-specialized cores enabling parallel execution in a single step to create a parallel compute architecture.
