AMD’s latest Ryzen is on COM Express Type 6 board from congatec

AMD’s latest Ryzen Embedded processor has been used by congatec in a COM Express Compact module with Type 6 pinout, intended for industrial PCs and thin clients where compute and graphics performance are critical for deep learning.

The Ryzen Embedded V2000 processor is at the heart of the conga-TCV2. According to congatec, it doubles performance per W and has twice as many CPU cores as earlier COM Express boards, but the Type 6 format is 76% the size but is 100% pin-compatible with earlier form factors.

The SoC integrates AMD Radeon graphics, with up to 7 GPUs. compute units. The 7nm Zen 2 cores in the CPUs account for the increased performance per W and the architecture optimisation also adds an estimated 15% more instructions per clock, says the company.

The processors have up to eight cores and16 threads on a single BGA and are designed for digitisation and parallel processing of edge analytics, part of the drive to edge computing the company has identified. They can also be used for workload balancing and consolidation using virtual machines based on the company’s RTS real time hypervisor implementations. They are also intended for embedded applications such as industrial box PCs and thin clients, conventional embedded computing systems and also smart robotics, e-mobility and autonomous vehicles where deep learning is used for situational awareness.

The 8-16 threads in the COMs based on the Ryzen Embedded V2748 and V2718 processors enable embedded system designs at the edge to execute twice as many tasks at given TDP ranges, explained Martin Danzer, director of product management, congatec. (The two other modules have 6-12 threads per core.) He added that the integrated graphics performance offers 3D graphics quality on up to four independent 4k60 displays.

The four boards (based on AMD’s Ryzen Embedded V2748, V2718, V2546 and V2516 processors) have TDP classes ranging from 54W-10W for power efficient operation. The COMs operate from 1.7-3GHz depending on the model.

Modules feature 4MB L2 cache, 8MB L3 cache, and up to 32GB energy-efficient and fast dual-channel 64-bit DDR4 memory with up to 3200 MT/s and ECC support for data security. They also include an integrated AMD Radeon graphics with up to seven compute units for high-performance graphics computing.

The COMs support up to four independent displays with up to 4k60 UHD resolution over three DisplayPort 1.4/HDMI 2.1 and one LVDS/eDP. Other interfaces include PEG 3.0, PCIe Gen 3 lanes, USB 3.1 Gen 2, USB 2.0, up to two SATA Gen 3, one Gbit Ethernet, eight GPOIs I/Os, SPI, LPC, and two legacy UARTs.

The supported hypervisor and OS include RTS Hypervisor, Microsoft Windows 10, Linux/Yocto, Android Q and Wind River VxWorks. For safety-critical applications, the integrated AMD Secure Processor helps with hardware-accelerated encryption and decryption of RSA, SHA and AES, advises the company. TPM support is also included.