AMD Launches Embedded Radeon E9170 Polaris GPUs For Thin Clients, Medical Imagery And Aerospace Displays

Based on the familiar 14nm FinFET Polaris architecture, the Embedded Radeon E9170 Series is firmly in the middle of the AMD's low-power graphics portfolio. Members of the family include the E9171, which is availed in a MCM form-factor, the E9174/E9172, which are MXM-based, and the PCIe-based E9175/E9173.

Each SKU is tailored to meet the needs of a wide range of industries. For example, the PCIe cards could be used in digital casino game machines which remain stationary and don't really have to worry about vibrations that could compromise the electrical connection to the system board. The MCM variant, however, could be integrated directly into custom boards, making it perfect for high-stress military and aerospace industries to power cockpit displays.

AMD also sees the Embedded Radeon E9170 Series being used for thin clients, medical imaging (i.e., X-ray and ultrasound machines), and digital signage. These embedded Radeon feature 8 compute units, support up to five simultaneous displays (all can be 4K), supports 4K HEVC decode and encode, have a total board power of 35 watts to 50 watts, and offer peak single precision performance of 1.2 TFLOPs. In addition, AMD plans to make chips in this series available and will support it through 2024.

“Developers are continuing to push the boundaries on what’s possible for embedded systems, demanding more performance, more features and more design options, all while significantly reducing power consumption. At the GPU level, it is critical to provide versatile solutions that do not compromise on graphics performance or 4K multi-display capabilities,” said Colin Cureton, director of product management, AMD Enterprise Solutions.

“The new AMD Embedded Radeon E9170 Series GPU not only achieves up to 3X the performance-per-watt over previous solutions, but is the first ‘Polaris’-based Embedded GPU available in the MCM form factor to enable sleek designs in a variety of sizes, striking the optimal balance of performance and power efficiency.”

AMD will make the PCIe and MXM module versions of the Embedded Radon E9170 Series available later in October. The MCM variant will begin shipping in November.