A new Ryzen and a new Epyc series are designed as an embedded offer to bring hardware developers to integrate a particularly large number of cores in their hardware. Above all, thanks to the 10GbE and 2.5GbE support, many network- compatible devices are to be expected. However, old embedded series are not replaced.
Based on its Zen architecture, AMD now wants to provide two new chip series for the embedded market as well. So far, the G and R series have been important to AMD for this market. However, AMD does not replace, but complements the supply of chips. Above the R series, the new V series is positioned. These Ryzen V1000 called chips ( Raven Ridge base) are available from a TDP of 12 watts up to 54 watts, divided into the areas 12 to 25 watts and 25 to 54 watts. The chips of the respective segment offer a standard TDP of 15 or 45 watts and can be adjusted in their respective area up or down. Except for one CPU, all SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) offer four cores and eight threads. The smallest SKU offers half. A graphics unit is always part of the chips.
The operating system manufacturers already have support, according to AMD. Win driver and Siemens Mel are among them. Canonical’s Ubuntu will be available from version 16.04.1. Windows 10 should be the same as version 1709.
The chips are quite powerful, which is why AMD positions them against Intel’s Core i with four cores. Partially the desktop, some notebook chips are included for relative comparisons. However, if you look closely, you realize that the Intel counterparts are sometimes not listed as an embedded offer. For the comparisons, AMD has therefore used any Intel CPUs, even if they come from a completely different market segment.
Server chip as embedded product
Whom the performance of Ryzen V-Series for its hardware design is not enough, you can also access the EPYC series. AMD provides EPYC 3000 with 4, 8, 12 and 16 of cores, each once with and once without multi-threading enabled. From 12 cores on the package are two Zeppelin dies. The TDP is not as flexible as in the V-series and also significantly higher with values between 35 and 100 watts at the Epycs. Interestingly, AMD was unable to announce any Windows support at the launch for the Epyc CPUs. Instead, Redhat comes from RHEL 7.4. Canonical’s Ubuntu is listed as version 17.04.
As the main opponents AMD Intel looks just introduced new Xeon D. The products are positioned so that they should offer more performance at the same or significantly lower price. Exact prices, however, were not mentioned. On the performance side, AMD plans to counter mainly by many cores and PCIe lanes, a general power of Zen architecture, the competition. This is especially true for the Epyc chips. It should be noted here that the Xeon D from Intel are not classified as embedded chips. They are available as storage and network CPUs but still in the same market segment as the EPYC 3000th
The Epyc as well as Ryzen new releases also offer several enabled 10GbE network connections. An exception is the smallest Ryzen V1202B, which only controls Gigabit Ethernet. The Ryzen has a maximum of two ports, the Epyc even handles eight times 10GbE. They are also backwards compatible with 2.5 GbE, ie NBase-T aka 802.3bz. Whether 5GbE is supported, AMD could not say on demand. However, one does not see any real market in the segment for 5GbE.
AMD hopes to get into the network devices with the chips, be it NAS systems or SDN and NFV systems for network equipment suppliers.
