AMD announces the Spartan UltraScale+ FPGA family for cost-sensitive and IO-intensive applications

amd spartan ultrascale+

The Spartan UltraScale+ FPGA family is the latest inclusion to AMD’s Cost-Optimized portfolio, a series of FPGAs designed to balance cost, power, and form factor with affordability. The UltraScale+ FPGA family is designed for cost-sensitive, low-power applications requiring high I/O count and substantial security. Devices in the Spartan UltraScale+ family offer a high I/O to logic cell ratio for FPGAs built in 28nm and lower process technology (the highest in the industry, according to AMD), consume up to 30% less power than compared to the previous generation, and feature robust security features that outclass the rest of the Cost-Optimized portfolio. This FPGA family is built on the same UltraScale+ architecture as previous Artix and Zynq products. They are the first AMD UltraScale+ FPGAs to feature a hardened DDR memory controller and PCIe Gen4 x8 support, “providing both power efficiency and future-ready capabilities for customers.” AMD Spartan UltraScale+ specifications: System Logic […]

Sapphire Edge+ VPR-4616-MB mini-ITX motherboard features “AMD Embedded+” architecture with Ryzen R2314 & Versal VE2302

AMD Embedded+ mini-ITX motherboard

Sapphire Edge+ VPR-4616-MB is a new mini-ITX motherboard on the “new” AMD Embedded+ “architecture” comprised of an AMD Ryzen Embedded R2314 processor and an AMD Versal AI Edge VE2302 adaptive SoC (also called FPGA SoC…). The motherboard supports up to 64GB ECC/non-ECC DDR4 memory for the CPU, 8GB of memory for the adaptive SoC, supports SATA and NVMe storage, dual video output, 2.5GbE networking, and offers a range of USB ports and M.2 sockets for expansion. AMD Embedded+ solutions target sensor fusion, AI inferencing, industrial networking, control, and visualization applications. SAPPHIRE Edge+ VPR-4616-MB specifications: AMD Embedded+ Architecture Adaptive SoC Subsystem Main IC – AMD Versal AI Edge VE2302 with dual Arm Cortex-A72 core processor @ up to 1.6 GHz, dual-core Arm Cortex-R5F, 23 TOPS AI engine, FPGA fabric, etc… System Memory – 2x 4GB LPDDR4 Storage 1Gbit OSPI NOR flash for local boot 64 Kbit EEPROM for Board-ID Expansion 160-pin […]

Linux 6.7 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.7 release

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.7, following Linux 6.6 LTS a little over two months ago: So we had a little bit more going on last week compared to the holiday week before that, but certainly not enough to make me think we’d want to delay this any further. End result: 6.7 is (in number of commits: over 17k non-merge commits, with 1k+ merges) one of the largest kernel releases we’ve ever had, but the extra rc8 week was purely due to timing with the holidays, not about any difficulties with the larger release. The main changes this last week were a few DRM updates (mainly fixes for new hw enablement in this version – both amd and nouveau), some more bcachefs fixes (and bcachefs is obviously new to 6.7 and one of the reasons for the large number of commits), and then a few random […]

Chatreey AM08 Pro (Ryzen 9 7940HS) mini PC review – Part 2: Windows 11 Pro

Chatreey AM08 Pro Windows 11 Pro review

I checked out the hardware of the Chatreey AM08 Pro mini PC using an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS CPU with an unboxing, a teardown, and the first boot in the first part of the review. Now it’s time for the 2nd part which will focus on Windows 11 Pro testing on the AM08 Pro. As previously said, I have received a version with a PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD, which I have replaced with a 1TB Samsung 990 Pro NVMe SSD, so a Windows 11 reinstall was needed (I could also use Linux and dd one drive to another, but I had a Windows 11 ISO). Since the installation lacks a WiFi driver,  I had to use the command oobe\BypassNRO to complete the installation. You can skip that step if you connect an Ethernet cable. The license was activated after connection to the Internet, so reinstallation is not a problem. Table […]

2023 Year in review – Top 10 posts, statistics, and what to expect in 2024

CNX Software Happy New Year 2024

It’s the last day and last article of the year, so we will look at some highlights of 2023, some traffic statistics on the CNX Software website, and speculate what interesting developments may happen in 2024. Looking back at 2023 The semiconductor shortage that had happened since 2020 started to fade away in early 2023, and supplies for most electronics components and devices seem to be adequate at this time, so that was a bright spot this year, and hopefully, it will stay that way in 2024 despite geopolitical tensions. We did not have any super exciting new Arm application processors from Rockchip, Amlogic, or Allwinner announced this year, although the Amlogic S928X penta-core Cortex-A76/A55 CPU started to show up in some 8K TV boxes. The launch of the Raspberry Pi 5 SBC with a Broadcom BCM2712 quad-core Cortex-A76 processor was probably the main highlight for Arm on this side […]

AAEON COM-R2KC6 – A COM Express Module featuring the AMD Ryzen Embedded R2000 Series

AAEON COM-R2KC6 front

AAEON, a Taiwan-based hardware manufacturer, has released the COM-R2KC6, a new COM Express module in the Type 6 compact form factor. This computer-on-module board is the first COM Express module to feature AMD’s mid-range processor series, the Ryzen Embedded R2000 series. The R2KC6 will be sold with an R2000 CPU, with TDP ranging from 15W to 45W and up to 4 cores and 8 threads (4C/8T). The R2000 SoCs provide up to two times the I/O connectivity and CPU core count of their R-series predecessors. Relatedly, ADLINK recently announced a COM Express Type 7 module based on AMD’s Ryzen Embedded V3000 processor. The COM-R2KC6 supports four simultaneous 4K displays through an embedded DisplayPort (eDP) connector and three Digital Display Interface (DDI) connectors. This means the integrated AMD Radeon Vega 8 graphics card can be used to its maximum potential. Additional graphics support is available through the board’s PEG x4 slot. […]

Chatreey AM08 Pro (Ryzen 9 7940HS) mini PC review – Part 1: unboxing, teardown, and first run

AM08 Pro Front and back sides

Chatreey AM08 Pro (also known as AM08pro) is a mini PC based on AMD Ryzen 7940HS CPU with up to 64GB dual-channel DDR5 RAM, one PCIe Gen 4×4 M.2 2280 SSD socket, one SATA3 2.5” drive, WiFi 6E (8852BE) and Bluetooth 5.2, also 2.5GbE Ethernet, a full-fledged Type-C USB port, a 3.5mm audio jack and 4x USB 3.0 porta. I have bought AM08 Pro from Aliexpress with an AMD Ryzen 7940HS (8C/16T, 4.0GHz up to 5.2 GHz), 16GB DDR5 RAM (2x8GB), and 512GB SSD. The review will be done following the usual procedure with the first part listing the specifications, checking out the package content, tearing down the system, and giving it a first try, before testing it more thoroughly with the pre-installed Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04 in the next parts. AM08 Pro specifications Model AM08 Pro CPU AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS (8 Cores, 16 Threads, 16MB Cache, 3.2 […]

AMD Ryzen Embedded 7000 Zen 4 SoC integrates Radeon RDNA 2 graphics, up to 28 lanes of PCIe 5 connectivity

AMD Ryzen Embedded 7000

AMD Ryzen Embedded 7000 Series is a new “Zen 4” processor with integrated Radeon RDNA 2 graphics designed for high-performance embedded systems targetting industrial automation, machine vision, robotics, and edge servers. The last two Ryzen Embedded families from AMD, namely the Ryzen Embedded V3000 and Ryzen Embedded 5000, mostly targeted headless networking and storage applications since the processors lacked any 3D GPU. But the new Ryzen Embedded 7000 processors bring back graphics with a Radeon RDNA 2 GPU clocked at up to 2.2 GHz and also come with up to 12 Zen4 cores clocked at up to 5.4 GHz, and feature up to 28 lanes of PCIe 5 connectivity. Ryzen Embedded 7000 Series specifications: CPU – Up to 12-core/24-thread “Zen 4” processor GPU – Radeon RDNA 2 graphics 1WGP @ 2.2GHz max with support for AV1/VP9 decode, H.264/HEVC decode/cncode Cache – Up to 1MB L2 cache/Core, up to 32MB L3 […]

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