n
In-vehicle computer technology is one of
the fastest growing domains in embedded de-
sign today, spanning a diverse range of appli-
cations including digital signage, infotainment,
mobile communication and navigation for
commercial and municipal vehicles from buses
to taxis, police cars, and railways, off-road ap-
plications and beyond. Whether the goal is to
inform tourists about local attractions via seat-
back video monitors, provide Internet access
to passengers, track and coordinate the loca-
tions of maintenance or mass transit vehicles,
or even remotely inspect municipal infrastruc-
ture with vehicle-mounted cameras, GPS-as-
sisted in-vehicle computing systems can provide
users with helpful, targeted information that
optimizes travel experiences and/or transporta-
tion operations in real time.
Designing and implementing ruggedized com-
puting systems for space-constrained in-vehicle
installations can pose many challenges for sys-
tem designers, especially if they want to inte-
grate higher performance on an even smaller
footprint. High-performance video and graph-
ics capabilities can be especially difficult to
achieve if trying to accommodate graphics
cards or ad hoc disparate chipsets. These are
generally ill-suited for in-vehicle installations,
because their edge connectors take up more
space and expose it to additional shock and vi-
bration that can lead to system integrity issues.
In-vehicle computers also need to be especially
sensitive to power consumption constraints.
Low power draw is important if a computer is
to be powered by, for example, a taxi vehicle
battery. Thus, even if high performance is re-
quired, there is a certain limit of thermal
design power (TDP) that cannot be exceeded.
The same applies to system cooling. Fan-cooled
systems are vulnerable to airborne particulates
and debris, as well as to shock, vibration and a
wide temperature-range – all of which are
common environmental factors for vehicle-
based systems. The consequence is that for
highest performance requirements fanless cool-
ing technologies need to be implemented. To
meet the steadily increasing design goals of
improving performance for in-vehicle com-
puting, OEMs require a tightly integrated, high
performance processing platform with ultra-
compact form factor that conserves system
space and helps reduce susceptibility to shock
and vibration as well as high and low tempera-
tures.
A milestone in this area has been reached with
the AMD Embedded G-Series APUs. APUs
combine a low-power CPU and a discrete-
level GPU into a single accelerated processing
unit. Compact high-performance architectures
like these reduce the footprint of a traditional
three-chip platform to just two chips – the
APU and the companion controller hub. One
benefit of APUs is that they can offload data
parallel processing from the CPU to the HD-
caliber GPU, including multimedia streaming.
Freed from this task, the CPU can focus on
compute, memory, and I/O requests with much
lower latency, thereby improving real-time
video and graphics processing performance
via a fully optimized data path and shared ac-
cess to the memory controller. The CPU takes
care of the scalar processing, including memory,
networking, and storage processing, and also
runs the operating system, applications and
user interface. The on-die GPU offloads graph-
ics and multimedia processing using Single
Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) parallel
processing, driving high-definition video and
graphics displays with great efficiency.
The integration of AMD Radeon HD graphics
on the AMD G-Series APUs provides an addi-
tional hardware acceleration boost that opti-
mizes the video pipeline, ensuring smooth
video playback. These APUs support dual in-
dependent displays leveraging a combination
of display technologies including DisplayPort,
DVI, VGA, and HDMI. All this is combined
on a single chip design which results in a
lower TPD to performance ratio compared to
multi chip implementations. The supported
TDP profiles start at 4.5 watts and extend to
18 watts – with average power as low as 2.3
Rugged computer offers stunning
graphics for on-board applications
By Kevin Hsu,
Sintrones
Sintrones VBOX-3200 is
a versatile on-board computer
system for high-performance
digital signage, infotainment,
mobile communication and
navigation applications in com-
mercial and municipal vehicles.
This article explains why
Sintrones selected the AMD
G-Series APU, combining
CPU and discrete level GPU
in a single accelerated
processing unit.
Figure 1.Optimized in-vehicle-
solution for digital signage,
infotainment, mobile commu-
nication and navigation appli-
cations is based on the AMD
G-Series APU.
32
April 2014
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