AMD is positioning its x86 processors in the embedded board market, with an design ecosystem similar to that of ARM.
AMD’s main interest in the embedded processor market centres a round its Fusion devices and the low power Geode LX800 processor.
The LX800 is used in Kontron’s latest Pico-ITX single board computer, the KTLX800/pITX.
The Geode LX800 is a sub-1W 500MHz processor, so the board’s 5- 7W power consumption makes it suitable for a range of industrial applications.
The board firm sees the general availability of software for the x86 ecosystem as a big plus for many embedded applications.
The KTLX800/pITX comes with up to 1Gbyte of DDR RAM system memory. Its interfaces range from one 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet and four USB 2.0 through two serial RS232 serial connectors (interfaces that continue to be key for industrial applications) to 16 configurable GPIOs for implementing application-specific I/Os.
As a x86 board there is obviously support for Windows XP, Windows XP Embedded, Windows Embedded Standard 7, but also Linux.
AMD’s other embedded processor is Fusion which has been designed into ETX and XTX COM systems.
According to Congatec, Intel’s discontinuation of the 855 chipset family left a major gap in the market particularly for ETX computer modules, which primarily affected the higher performance range of applications.
“This gap has now been closed by processor manufacturer AMD with the Fusion architecture, which also opens up new graphics-oriented applications,” said the supplier.
The firm’s AMD Fusion architecture-based ETX and XTX COM modules are the conga-EAF and conga-XAF.
The difference between the XTX and the ETX standard is that XTX no longer supports the ISA bus, but instead a four-lane PCI Express bus.
XTX also has more S-ATA and USB interfaces than ETX.