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AMD releases more details of Carrizo, the successor to Kaveri APU

By Wong Chung Wee - on 24 Feb 2015, 8:45am

AMD releases more details of Carrizo, the successor to Kaveri APU

(Image source: AMD)

Touted as the first Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) 1.0 compliant processor, the AMD Carrizo is officially launched. In comparison with its predecessor, the Kaveri APU, the previous gen APU didn’t come with full HSA capabilities due to its lack of support for graphics context switching. The Carrizo is the succeeding APU that boast of the new “Excavator” CPU cores, as well as the next generation Radeon Graphics Core Next (GCN) engine that supports Mantle, DirectX12, and Dual Graphics.

The AMD Carrizo APU combines the CPU cores, the GPU, and multi-media accelerators on a single die. It also manages to integrate the Southbridge chipset on same APU die. This translates to more efficient power management between the CPU and GPU. Also, they are closely coupled for power savings; by sharing the same memory interface, and having lower latency in inter-processor communication. However, the GCN cores are driven by their own power supply, separate from the Excavator core. In a nod to enterprise level computing, Carrizo incorporates the AMD Secure Processor with ARM TrustZone technology. The thermal envelope of the new APU is in the range of 15- to 35W.

The block diagram of the Carrizo APU. (Image source: AMD)

According to Carrizo’s block diagram, the Excavator module is made up of a pair of x86 CPU cores based on its high-density library design. Despite being based on the same 28nm technology as the Steamroller, the new library design makes use of GP-GPU metal stack to enable greater density. This translates to a 23% area reduction, in comparison with the Steamroller library implementation. The extra die real estate also enables the integration of the Southbridge chipset for a reduction of managing out-of-chip communication with I/O units.

(Image source: AMD)

The Excavator core incorporates ten AVFS modules that make up its voltage and frequency sensor. According to AMD, this allows for precise setting of “optimal operating point for a given power or performance level across process, voltage and temperature ranges.” Its aim is to further optimize Carrizo’s performance per watt.

(Image source: AMD)

Another major improvement of Carrizo is its voltage adaptive operation that lowers the operating frequency of both CPU and GPU whenever the operating voltage is higher, by a margin, than average. This is supposedly able to reduce power that is usually wasted in attempting to cover such voltage variations. These are the challenges faced in delivering a quality, low voltage to the APU. To reiterate, the Carrizo APU will replace Kaveri while its notebook APU companion, Carrizo-L will replace the Beema APU. The Carrizo-L will feature up to four “Puma+” GPU cores but unlike its desktop partner, its graphics cores are still based on the current GCN architecture. Its thermal envelope is in the range of 10- to 25W. Both Carrizo and Carrizo-L are featured in the FP4 ball-grid array (BGA) and they share the same “single, scalable infrastructure” so that applications and services developed can also be shared amongst the two. According to AMD, Carrizo is slated for launch this quarter so do stay tuned for more updates

(Source: AMD)

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