AMD announced R-Series embedded processors

On Monday AMD announced R-Series of Accelerated Processing Units (APU), aimed at graphics-intensive embedded applications. New CPUs combine the latest AMD microarchitecture, Radeon HD 7000 series Graphics Processing unit (GPU), and HD Media Accelerator. CPU part of the R-Series chips employs 2 or 4 cores, backed up by L2 cache and dual-channel DDR3 memory controller. Thanks to "Piledriver" cores, the processors support the most current extensions to x86 instruction set, including Advanced Encryption Standard and Advanced Vector Extensions. The integrated GPU incorporates up to 384 Radeon cores depending on SKU, and provides discrete-class graphics performance. On-chip HD Media Accelerator performs a variety of video processing tasks, such as video decoding, stereoscopic 3D processing and dynamic picture adjustments. The APUs support VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort and DVI interfaces and may connect to up to 4 displays simultaneously. The chips are produced in BGA and PGA packages. A number of companies already announced or are going to announce new products based on R-Series APUs: Advantech-Innocore, Axiomtek, DFI and iBase, just to name a few.

At the launch time, AMD R-Series family included a variety of dual- and quad-core processors with standard (35 Watt) and low-power requirements. R-4xxx processors have 4 CPU cores, up to 2.3 GHz clock speed, 4 MB of level 2 cache and HD 76x0G graphics. R-2xxx APUs have only 2 cores, 1 or 2 MB L2 cache, and GPU from HD 74x0G or HD 75x0G series:

Model	Cores	Frequency	Turbo Frequency	L2 cache	Socket Type	Graphics	TDP
R-Series R-252F	2	1.9 GHz	2.4 GHz	1 MB	FP2	HD 7400G	17 Watt
R-Series R-260H	2	2.1 GHz	2.6 GHz	2 MB	FP2	HD 7500G	17 Watt
R-Series R-268D	2	2.5 GHz	3 GHz	1 MB	FS1r2	HD 7420G	35 Watt
R-Series R-272F	2	2.7 GHz	3.2 GHz	1 MB	FS1r2	HD 7520G	35 Watt
R-Series R-452L	4	1.6 GHz	2.4 GHz	4 MB	FP2	HD 7600G	19 Watt
R-Series R-460H	4	1.9 GHz	2.8 GHz	4 MB	FS1r2	HD 7640G	35 Watt
R-Series R-460L	4	2 GHz	2.8 GHz	4 MB	FP2	HD 7620G	25 Watt
R-Series R-464L	4	2.3 GHz	3.2 GHz	4 MB	FS1r2	HD 7660G	35 Watt

Looking at the APUs' specifications in the table above, it's not difficult to notice that the R-Series line-up very closely resembles the line-up of second generation "Trinity" A-Series APUs, that were launched last week. Specifically, AMD R464-L is identical to A10-4600M, R-460H is the same as A8-4500M, and R-460H is not different from A6-4400M. Low-power R-460L and R-260H have the same features as A10-4655M and A6-4455M SKUs respectively. R-252F, R-268G and R-452L processors are unique to R-Series family, and do not relate to any APUs in the A-Series consumer lineup.