Merit LILIN USA Corp announces the interoperability of their professional-grade IP and Analog camera lines with Control4 home automation technology. The solution will be showcased at the 2013 ISC West show in Las Vegas, where LILIN will be launched as the first video surveillance brand available through the Control4 online ordering portal. The combination of LILIN's vast array of camera models and features, along with the convenience of ordering directly through the online store, allows dealers to seamlessly add surveillance to their Control4 offering.LILIN's professional-grade IP (iMEGAPRO) and Analog video cameras feature industry-leading specifications and design that help to deliver astounding image quality as well as discreet surveillance. From the incredibly small mini-dome, the IPD2220, to the infrared vandal dome, the IPR320ESX, LILIN's 1080p cameras are the perfect fit for Control4 customers looking for complete HD coverage. Offering over 10 camera model types, the iMEGAPRO and Analog lines provide pristine footage suitable for almost any residential or commercial application.Control4 provides customizable, scalable, interoperable home automation solutions for residential, commercial, and/or hospitality surveillance needs. Equipped with total control of cameras, recorders, and PTZ's, this integration provides what every Control4 customer demands: connected control. With the LILIN and Control4 solution, customers can view their cameras from any connected TV or Control4 touch panel, check in on their homes via their smart phone, and even get email notifications when motion is detected in sensitive areas.LILIN's National Director of Sales, Albert Herrera stated, "Our partnership and product interoperability provides Control4 dealers an advantage in offering quality and performance. Control4 makes product selection and availability simple and convenient through their online ordering portal.""We've seen an extensive uptake in the integration of surveillance into Control4 - 85 percent of our homes with Control4 systems now include some form of security," said Control4 Vice President of Security & Communications Paul Williams. "When surveillance cameras are automated and integrated with a Control4 system, customers can be alerted when a security event occurs, and then can connect remotely from anywhere in the world to take action on their home, such as view cameras, or turn on lights. With Control4 and LILIN, our dealers will be able to design surveillance and automation systems to meet their clients' needs."The video surveillance/home automation integration will be displayed at LILIN booth #26041, and are available to authorized Control4 dealers online at: http://www.control4.com/dealer

ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, launched Emax 2, the first low-voltage circuit breaker with integrated energy management functions. Replacing existing traditional breakers with the Emax 2 breaker has the potential to achieve annual savings of 5.8 million megawatt-hours (MWh). This is the equivalent electric consumption of 1.4 million EU households per year.These energy savings would reduce emissions by 4 million tons of CO2, or the emissions of over 1 million cars, per year. For an individual building installation, a peak power reduction of up to 15 percent can be achieved by using Emax 2 in place of traditional breakers.Breakers like the Emax 2 are used where protection and control of large amounts of energy are used in a low-voltage environment like industrial and commercial buildings, data centers or ships. Replacing an existing breaker with the new Emax 2 is technically simple. Due to energy savings, the Emax 2 breaker will typically pay for itself within a year.The breaker contains a protection trip relay with an integrated power controller that measures and evaluates energy consumption, then manages the loads to maintain or reduce the peak power usage as determined by the user. This will also help prevent blackouts since the root cause is often peak demand exceeding supply.To manage energy, the electricity supply to non-essential equipment is switched off and back on again as soon as acceptable power levels are reached. Intelligent decision making is achieved by a built in controller and software that uses complex algorithms to decide when it is appropriate to switch the power while maintaining the overall functionality or productivity of the connected equipment.The breaker also has a communication module that allows it to share vital consumption and system reliability data directly with smart grid and other protocols."Breakers provide one of the largest untapped opportunities in the electric system to achieve energy savings. Breakers have been used to increase safety and protect electric circuits, but now for the first time we use them to save energy too," said Tarak Mehta, Head of ABB's Low Voltage products division."Because breakers are all around us, the total energy savings potential is massive. It's a great example of how we can use smart technology to reduce energy wastage. This is good news for the environment and for our customers who can achieve significant cost savings by switching to our new device," added Tarak.The development of the new Emax 2 breaker took several years and was led by ABB's development center in Bergamo, Italy.In 2012, ABB invested about $1.5 billion in research and development and continues to employ 7,000 technologists worldwide.ABB (http://www.abb.com/) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 145,000 people.

Phoenix Technologies Ltd., the global leader in UEFI firmware technology, products and tools, announced today its participation in the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) 2013 Beijing, at the China National Convention Center (CNCC) from April 10 to 11, 2013.Located in Booth E59 of the Technology Showcase at IDF, Phoenix will be demonstrating its flagship UEFI BIOS firmware, Phoenix SecureCore Technology 3.0, and several newly introduced UEFI developer tools, including WinHost 64, WinSetup, and Access Pro.Phoenix SecureCore Technology (Phoenix SCT) 3.0 UEFI BIOS firmware features multi-platform, multi-OS enablement. Fully compliant with the latest UEFI and PI specifications, Phoenix SCT 3.0 comes with native EDK II support and is also compatible with EDK 1117, easing maintenance efforts for OEM/ODM developers pursuing an efficient and economical transition to the next generation of the UEFI codebase.WinHost 64 is a 64-bit software simulator for the UEFI BIOS compiling environment that reads and evaluates Phoenix BIOS binary files. WinHost 64 is a user-friendly and cost-effective development tool that can be used on a laptop for compiling and saving the complete hardware set of the BIOS development environment with a Customer Reference Board (CRB) or evaluation board.WinSetup is a utility to access and edit Phoenix BIOS Setup from a local device under Windows. The newly configured setup is stored in the ROM during runtime, and the updated variables are saved without having to reboot the system.Access Pro is a manufacturing tool that functions as a unified device monitor and access tool for the ACPI table, CPU MSR, memory, PCI, SMBIOS, EFI Variables, and other areas. Developed specifically for Phoenix's OEM/ODM partners' onsite production needs, Access Pro provides a quick and easy way of viewing the BIOS performance log to help with boot speed optimization. Access Pro supports multiple operating systems, including Windows, Linux, UEFI Shell, and DOS, and its user friendly interface and broad functionality make it the ideal utility for hardware, firmware, QA, and production diagnostic engineers.Phoenix at the IDF 2013 BeijingLive demonstrations of Phoenix SCT 3.0, WinHost 64, WinSetup and Access Pro will be showcased at IDF 2013 Beijing from April 10-11. Phoenix will be located in booth E59.

Leading motherboard and graphics card maker is excited to announce its first MSI Gaming Graphics card. The new GTX 650 Ti BOOST Twin Frozr (MKT Name: N650 Ti TF 2GDC5/OC BE & N650 Ti TF 2GD5 BE) graphics card is equipped with NVIDIA's latest GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST graphics, 2GB of GDDR5 high-speed memory and PCI Express Gen 3. The new graphics card is fitted with the popular Twin Frozr III cooling design featuring proprietary dual 8 cm Propeller Blade fans, nickel-plated copper base and Superpipe technology.The core temperature and sound level of the MSI GTX 650Ti BOOST Twin Frozr is just 65°C and 25.37dB when operating at full capacity, the perfect balance for an optimum gaming environment. Through MSI's exclusive Afterburner overclocking utility, the new Gaming graphics card's performance can be boosted by simply adjusting power and timing. NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround technology and up to 4 display outputs from a single card are supported as well, delivering the best gaming and multi-tasking experience that an enthusiast can have.MSI delivers optimum gaming experienceThe GTX 650 Ti BOOST Twin Frozr is the first product released by MSI in its new Gaming series of graphics card. The dragon on the box, MSI's Gaming logo, symbolizes the explosive performance lying dormant within that gives gamers the edge in their games. When combined with the Twin Frozr III cooling module, the perfect balance between temperature and sound makes the best possible gaming environment a standard part of gaming.Twin Frozr III thermal design pushes temperatures down to 65°CMSI's Twin Frozr III cooling design has proven its worth through rigorous testing by professional media. The proprietary Propeller Blade technology, patented in multiple countries, incorporates special air-flow channels into the edge of the fan blades to not only increase cooling coverage but also boost air flow by 20% over conventional fan blades for even better cooling! Under a full load, the core temperature of the MSI GTX 650 Ti BOOST Twin Frozr graphics card is just 65°C and noise during operation is only 25.37dB as well, clear proof that MSI products not only help gamers stay cool but also keeps the noise down for the best user experience!Support for MSI's exclusive Afterburner overclocking utilityThe MSI GTX 650 Ti BOOST Twin Frozr graphics card supports NVIDIA GPU Boost technology that dynamically adjusts the graphics card's operating frequency to optimize gaming performance. When used with MSI's exclusive Afterburner overclocking utility, gamers can adjust the power and timing at will to tap into the maximum overclocking performance. Afterburner also incorporates the free Predator game video capture function. Desktop PCs can also be remotely controlled via a smart phone. Add one-touch burn-in and benchmarking with Kombustor and you have a graphics card overclocking utility that no gamer should do without.Support for single card 3D Vision Surround TechnologyIn addition to supporting the latest DirectX 11 standard, 3D Vision Surround technology means MSI GTX 650 Ti BOOST Twin can create a triple-monitor 3D surround environment on just one video card. Players that have 3D display monitors and 3D glasses will be able to enjoy the full visual experience offered by 3D games or movies. With up to 4 display outputs from a single card is also supported, gamers can enjoy the multi-tasking benefits of multiple display setups while enjoying their games.*For more information about the GTX 650 Ti BOOST Twin Frozr, please visit: http://www.msi.com/product/vga/N650Ti-TF-2GD5-OC-BE.htmlGTX 650 Ti BOOST Twin Frozr

In Secuteh Taipei 2013 and COMPUTEX 2013, AptObject Corporation will demonstrate the latest "AptBee Smart Energy, Safety and Security Management System Cloud Service".The "AptBee Smart Energy, Safety and Security Management System Cloud Service" integrates wireless sensor network and web-based database system, which can track energy usage and monitor environment safety and air quality to provide users service from the cloud. The goal of this system is to help users achieving carbon reduction and enhance the environmental safety.In the wireless sensor network, devices are responsible for data collection and equipment control, all the data and control commands are transmitted via wireless signal. The cloud web server is responsible for data storage and providing intelligence to control remote equipment.The Human-Machine Interface uses common browsers, users do not need to purchase or install any other special software. From your notebook, desktop PC or tablet, just log on to the system with your account and password, you can access and control all your own devices and browse all the latest and historical data of those devices.Each sensor device and the cloud system service all contain a certain degree of "intelligence", which makes them can analyze the data in real time; According to the settings of the system or devices, when abnormally, dangerous or emergency situation happens, the system triggers alarms and alerts users immediately. Therefore, the system service can be applied to the field of energy-saving and safety monitoring.Main FeaturesThe AptBee system cloud service is a multi-tier web-based database system, runs on Unix, Linux or Windows platform; based on the coverage size of sensor devices, the system can be distributed and clustered,Better off, the system supports a variety of device communication protocols from different vendors, simultaneously. Just in one user interface, user can monitor and operate all the authorized devices connected to the system.Compared with traditional monitoring and control systems, customers do not have to install special software and hardware to set up a system. This dramatically reduces the installation and maintenance costs.Another feature is the server-push technology; the server can actively "push" the latest information into users' browser or mobile App. So that users do not need to click refresh button to see the latest information. Therefore, this makes the system applicable to the real-time monitoring of the environment.AptBee system now had been setup in areas of health care, smart energy management, safety and security management and smart home appliations, providing services to corporate customers and householders.About AptObject CorporationAptObject Corporation, established in 2000, helps corporations and government agencies design and development software and hardware systems, provides feasible and helpful system solutions and increases operating efficiency and reduces operating costs.AptBee Smart Energy, Safety and Security Management System Cloud Service

Taiwan-based power supply firm Delta Electronics will present a full spectrum of products and systems for smart and green applications in industries and buildings at Hannover Messe 2013 from April 8-12.Delta plans to display industry automation solutions for various sectors, including the motion systems for factory automation, the industrial ethernet networking solution for intelligent traffic, water treatment, and power utilities and the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system solutions for green buildings.In addition, the firm plans to showcase live demonstration of iPEMS, a real-time industry monitoring and management system based on Internet of Things (IOT) technology.Delta noted that the firm will also exhibit electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions with smart features including residential charger, multi-standard DC quick charger, and site management systems at the Hannover Messe 2013.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) sees the opportunity for growth in a wave of digital gaming solutions ranging from gaming machines in casinos, amusement with prize (AWP), as well as video arcades in recreational facilities, Japan's Pachinko and Pachislo segment, and video lottery terminals (VLT) worldwide.AMD uses highly integrated, low-power consumption, and powerful parallel embedded computing solutions as well as Eyefinity multi-monitor display technologies to provide optimal solutions for emerging gaming platforms.AMD embedded solutions drive gaming machine innovationsAccording to Kevin Tanguay, Senior Manager of AMD Embedded Solutions, Digital Gaming, various categories of gaming machines commonly are seen in the gaming industry:- Casino machines; casinos often have dozens or even hundreds of gaming machines that offer Pachinko, slot, poker, baccarat, and other games- AWP gaming machines are often found in bars, clubs, coffee shops, small gambling establishments, and are quite popular in Europe- VLT machines connect players to the back-end network of betting agencies, and the size of prizes depend on the number of people betting- Arcade machines with 3D graphics capabilities, surround sound, and tactile feedback control devices, often are seen in department stores or entertainment facilities- Japan's unique Pachinko and Pachislot segment includes prize winning probabilities based on a random number generator (RNG).AMD's Embedded APUs are equipped with AMD Dual Graphics and Eyefinity technologies. The mainstream G-Series APU is well suited for the design of VLTs. The performance grade R-Series is well suited for VLTs as well as Pachinko and Pachislot machines. The performance grade AMD Embedded R-Series equipped with multi-screen output capabilities can collaborate with independent GPU products and is well suited for VLT, Pachinko and Pachislot, casino, AWP, and arcade gaming machines. AMD's embedded solutions offer a complete and comprehensive range of APU, GPU, CPU and chipset products -- the most advanced PC technology to help drive the embedded market. AMD also offers an exclusive and stable customer support system, a five-year long-term supply guarantee, and an exciting development roadmap for new products.Roadmap for AMD Embedded productsRegarding the scheduling for high performance APU products, supplies for the 2011 FS1 socket design standard "eLlano" APU will last for five years. The 2012 AMD R-Series APUs with Socket FS1r2 slot/pin designs include the 35W quad-core R-464L/2.3 (3.2) GHz, and R-460H / 1.9 (2.8) GHz, as well as the 35W dual-core R-272F / 2.7 (3.2) GHz and R-268D / 2.5 (3.0) GHz. R-Series APUs offer quad-core (R-4xx) or dual-core (R-2xx) configurations, provide DDR3 memory support, have a built-in DirectX 11 GPU, as well as PCIe bus controller, and support AMD Dual Graphics technology. In addition, there are also low-power consumption FP2 BGA flip-chip package versions such as the 25W quad-core R-464L/2.0 (2.8) GHz, 19W quad-core R-452L/1.6 (2.4) GHz, and 17W dual-core R-260H/2.1 (2.6) GHz and R-252F/1.9 (2.4) GHz models. These models are all equipped with A70M or A75 southbridge controller chips. In 2013, AMD will launch an FP2 (BGA) flip-chip packaging R-Series APU with upgraded clock speeds.Taking the high-performance AMD R-Series APU as an example, it has two built-in dual-core, 2MB L2 cache cores, DirectX 11 GPU, and 3x DP/DVI/HDMI/LVDS display interface driver circuits that are connected to the AMD A70M/A75 southbridge controller chip with an X4 UMI bus. The built-in GPU specifications for the R-Series APU support H.264 HD (1080p@60fps) as well as VC and DivX decoding standards; its built-in DDR3 memory controller supports DDR3-1600. 4K by 2K resolution display output is supported, and it can connect to four external monitors for crossover displays when equipped with a HDCP, 5.4Gb/s link rate interface; and can support a total of 10 parallel display outputs when connected to an external PCIe E6460/E6760 with six DisplayPort(DP) v1.2 interfaces or MXM modules.Compared to Intel's embedded solution, the AMD Embedded R-Series APU provides DirectX 11 hardware acceleration, four full HD screen resolution outputs, support for 4K by 2K@60Hz maximum resolutions, parallel dual graphics card technology (dual graphics), and OpenCL to provide support for fast parallel computing. When the graphics performance of AMD's 35W quad-core R-464L and R-272F, as well as Intel's 45W Core i7-2710QE, 35W Core i5-2520M, and Core i3-2310M platforms are compared using Futuremark 3DMark Vantage v1.1.0 and 3DMark 06 v1.2.0; if the measured performance value of Intel's Core i7-2710QE is standardized at 100%, then the performances of the Core i5-2520M and i3-2310M are 98% and 88%, respectively; and the performance values of AMD's R-464L and AMD R-272F can reach 210% and 142%, respectively, which is equivalent to between 1.4 and 2.1 times the graphics computing performance of the Intel Core i7/5/3-2x00 series.The FS1r2 (PGA) package AMD APUs in conjunction with the A70M/A70 bridge chip allow for the PCB area of the entire system to range in the ballpark of only 1437mm- to 1483mm-squared.On the product roadmap for low-power embedded G-series processors: in 2011, AMD launched FT1 BGA packaged chips without built-in GPUs such as the 18W dual-core T48L/1.4GHz, 18W single-core T30L/1.4GHz, and 5W single-core T24L/1GHz; mid-range single-core with built-in GPU products such as the 18W T52R/1.5GHz, 9W T44R/1.2GHz, and 5.5W T40R/1GHz; as well as the high-end dual-core G-Series with GPU models such as the 18W T56N /1.65GHz, 18W T48N/1.4GHz, 9W T40N/1GHz, and 6.4W T40E/1GHz. In 2012, AMD fully moved towards single-/dual-core built-in GPU solutions such as the 18W dual-core T56E/1.65GHz, 18W dual-core T48E/1.4GHz, and single-core 4.5W T16R/615MHz models.Roadmap for AMD Embedded GPU productsFor discrete embedded GPU products: in 2008, AMD launched the ATI Radeon E2400 embedded GPU consuming less than 20W of power, with 128MB of GDDR3, DirectX 10/OpenGL 2.0/UVD hardware acceleration, and support for RGB/DVI/HDMI/LVDS display interfaces. In 2009, AMD launched the ATI Radeon E4690 GPU consuming less than 30W of power, with 512MB of GDDR3, DirectX 10/OpenGL 2.0/UVD hardware acceleration, and support for RGB/DVI/HDMI/LVDS/DP v1.1 interfaces. In 2011, AMD launched the 20W AMD Radeon E6460 GPU with 512MB of GDDR5, DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.1/UVD3 hardware acceleration, and support for RGB/DVI/HDMI/LVDS/DP v1.1a/1.2 interfaces; as well as the 30W AMD Radeon E6760 GPU with 1GB of GDDR5, DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.1/UVD3 hardware acceleration, AMD Eyefinity technology (capable of six screen outputs), and support for RGB/DVI/HDMI/LVDS/DP v1.1a /1.2 display interfaces.For embedded GPU MXM modules, in 2008, AMD launched the ATI Radeon E2400 MXM 2.1a Type II module consuming less than 25W of power. In 2009, AMD launched the ATI Radeon E4690 MXM 3.0 Type A module consuming less than 35W of power. In 2011, AMD launched the AMD Radeon E6460 MXM 3.0 Type A module consuming 35W of power as well as the ultra-high performance AMD Radeon E6460 MXM 3.0 Type B module consuming less than 110W of power, and backed by a three-year supply period. In 2012, AMD launched ultra-high performance AMD Radeon HD 7970M MXM 3.0 Type B modules. The ATI Radeon E2400 MXM module will officially reach EOL in July of 2013 after its five-year supply period.Regarding AMD's embedded PCle add-in card range: for the less than 25W power consumption mainstream segment, AMD launched ATI Radeon E2400 PCIe add-in cards with dual DVI-I and a passive heat-sink design in 2010, , as well as AMD Radeon E6460 PCIe add-in cards with dual-DVI or quad-mDP, and quad-DVI with heat-pipe designs in 2011. For the less than 35W power consumption segment, AMD launched ATI Radeon E4690 PCIe add-in cards with dual-link DVI-I connectors and cooling fan or heat-pipe designs in 2009, as well as AMD Radeon E6760 PCIe add-in cards with dual-DVI and six mDP or six DVI connectors with heat-sink or heat-pipe designs in 2011. For the ultra-high performance (<110W) market, AMD launched the AMD Radeon HD 5770 and AMD Radeon HD 6850 PCIe add-in cards, as well as the AMD Radeon HD 7850M in 2012 with a three-year product supply guarantee.Specification differences between the AMD Radeon E6460 and E6760 are that the former has a package size of 33mm by 33mm with 20W power consumption, 160 shaders, and 64-bit 25.6GB/s bandwidth 512MB GDDR5; and the latter is a 37.5mm by 37.5mm multi-chip-module (MCM) with 35W power consumption, 480 shaders; and 128-bit 51.2GB/s bandwidth 1GB GDDR5. In 3DMark Vantage graphics performance benchmarks, the AMD Radeon E6460 scores 2195 and supports four-screen outputs, and AMD Radeon E6760 scores 5870 and supports six-screen outputs. Both the AMD Radeon E6460 and E6760 have MXM 3.0 Type A module and PCIe add-in card versions.APU acceleration technology activated by external GPU Dual Graphics processingTanguay said because AMD APUs are equipped with AMD Dual Graphics technology, as long as they work in conjunction with the AMD GPU add-in cards or modules, parallel computing between the APU's built-in GPU and the add-in cards can be activated. Test results indicate that the T56N APU with an E6460 GPU module/add-in card can enhance performance by 77%, R-Series APUs with an E6460 GPU module/add-in card can see performance enhanced by 40%, and the T56N APU with an E6760 GPU module/add-in card can achieve performance gains of 16%.Regarding the low-power consumption G-Series APUs; if the T40E has a performance benchmark of 1.0, then the relative performance of the T48E is 1.1, the T52R 1.33, T56N 1.67, and the T56N with an E6460 GPU can be enhanced to 2.4. As for embedded GPU modules; if the previous generation E2400 GPU has a performance benchmark of 1.0, then the E6460 GPU can reach 1.94, the previous generation E4690 can reach 2.88, and the E6760 can reach 3.94.Tanguay summarized that with its innovative silicon technology, AMD is able to build an ecosystem for its customers. AMD provides a complete series of APU and GPU chips with functionality, flexibility, and energy efficiency for gaming manufacturers. AMD's digital gaming solutions can take advantage of real-time 3D graphics technology to provide HD and multimedia video, and realize the ultimate in gaming and entertainment. At present, more than 120 platform solution providers as well as motherboard and peripheral suppliers worldwide have chosen AMD's embedded products to assist the gaming industry in developing lower TCO gaming machines. AMD's embedded chip business group can provide long-term and stable product supplies, strengthening the businesses of gaming manufacturers, and making it a trusted partner for the gaming industry.Kevin Tanguay, Senior Manager of AMD Embedded Solutions, Digital Gaming

In addition to introducing a full range of embedded application products that meet the OpenCL specification, US-based Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has collaborated with its industrial partners to develop multiple application procedures, code samples, and software libraries that can exert the parallel computing performances of the heterogeneous multicore architecture APUs and GPUs using the Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology from AMD.AMD constructs the heterogeneous multicore acceleration processor architectureKelly Gillilan, embedded solutions product marketing manager of AMD, stated that today's multicore processors are divided into homogeneous and heterogeneous models, and the latter is composed by two or more different types of cores. The accelerated processing unit (APU) architecture concept proposed by AMD has the heterogeneous multicore comprised of the x86 CPU that is known for its memory read/write capabilities and the multi-floating point/3D graphics computing GPU core. In June 2012, AMD, ARM, Imagination, MediaTek, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm established in the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HAS) Foundation to collaborate and promote the standardization of heterogeneous multicore.The first open source and free universal acceleration application programming interface (API) specification in the industry was the Open Computing Language (OpenCL) developed by the Khronos Group. AMD is the early incorporator and supporter of OpenCL and has created numerous application procedures with its technical partners, code samples, and software libraries through AMD's APP technology; which enables OpenCL to exert the full acceleration power of parallel computing in heterogeneous multicore systems.AMD offers a full series of OpenCL-compatible heterogeneous parallel processing application products ranging from the low power G-Series APU that is designed to consume only 4.5W to 18W of power with the maximum parallel computing performance of 80GFLOPs, to the high-performance R-Series designed to consume 17W to 35W of power and provide 500GFLOPs of parallel computing performance. The AMD Radeon GPU series, including the AMD Radeon E6460 GPU, adopts a BGA package and the MXM module or PCIe add-on card format, and is designed with a power consumption rate of 20W in conjunction with the 25GB/s bandwidth GDDR5 memory to produce a floating-point performance of 192GFLOPs. The E6760 GPU adopts a BGA package and the MXM module or PCIe add-on card format, and is designed with a power consumption rate of 35W in conjunction with 51GB/s bandwidth GDDR5 memory to produce a floating-point performances of 576GFLOPs. The E6970 GPU adopts the MXM module, and is designed with the power consumption rate of 95W in conjunction with 115GB/s bandwidth GDDR5 memory to produce a floating-point performance of 1.3 TFLOPs.The Basic Concept and writing style of OpenCLGillilan pointed out that OpenCL is different from the Open Graphic Language (OpenGL) used for image processing in the past, in that OpenCL incorporates GPUs for computing purposes. The platform defined by OpenCL means that the system's host (generally the CPU) framework shares resources with applications as well as a collection of multiple execution program kernels on devices. Each computer device receives from one to many compute units, and inside each unit there are from one to many basic processing elements.Take the array loop model of the C language as an example, the traditional code may be int i; for (i=0;i<n;i++) c[i]=a[i]*b[i]. However, when incorporated into OpenCL, the "Kernel" keyword must be added to the beginning and end of the code, and the code itself becomes int id = get_global_id (0); c[id]=a[id]*b[id]. That is, the array is broken into 1 to n pieces, and the system configures the n cores to perform the parallel computing. OpenCL would determine the front and back mapping relationships among the allocated kernels. After data from each Kernel is completed and outputted, the system would wait until all other core data is outputted and assembled before proceeding to the next step.Memory in OpenCL is divided into four major blocks - Global Memory is the read-only memory that can be reached by each computer device and internal compute unit; Global/Constant Memory DataCache is used by the OpenCL library; each computer device (meaning a CPU or GPU) has its own local memory; and the most basic internal compute unit of each compute unit has its own private memory.The OpenCL program writing model is also divided into: 1. Host executed codes; 2. Header, as each parallel computing code fragment allocated must be defined by a header and a declaration; and 3. Kernels, which are assigned and allocated by the OpenCL function to each part of the core.AMD recommended the industry to: 1. Create a development environment that can run under both Windows and Linux; 2. Download the latest AMD Catalyst software driver; 3. Download the AMD APP SDK development kit 2 (Microsoft Window 7 and later versions supported); 4. Perform the internal SDK sample programs; 5. Attempt to establish and execute a program sample; 6. Start writing the program and modify the program samples that are transferred into the SDK; and 7. Establish a unique code as well as write them into the hardware platform, and run it through a simulator or in a debug environment.AMD has also established the OpenCL Zone dedicated webpage where developers can download the startup training manual documents, APP SDK Development Kit, etc., for free. Other industry partners include the Sage Probe/EDK hardware debug package from Sage Electronic Engineering and the multicore coding, algorithm transplantation, and debug consultation services offered by Texas Multicore Technologies (TMT).Viosoft uses OpenCL to accelerate the network packet processing applicationsNext, Charles Chiou, the Taiwan country manager of Viosoft, explained the OpenCL development tools and resources, and provided samples for network packet processing under the AMD APU platform. Chiou believed that the traditional CPU and GPU has to go through the slower PCI/PCIe bus communication, which forms a packet transmission bottleneck and has a higher power consumption cost. An APU has more than 80 built-in Radeon graphics processing units for parallel computing, which can be applied to visual computing and Internet transaction security codecs. APU outperforms the traditional CPU with independent GPUs in both the unit/watt performances as well as system volume size, and can handle the needs of the next-generation network packet processing applications.Chiou used Vodafone (Australia) as an example, which offers free packets (such as those on Facebook), discounts through other Internet ISP networking, advertising content for viewing packets, and zero rate Internet shops (where the advertising suppliers are responsible for the costs). Traditional networking equipment that monitors only packet traffic such as routers, firewalls, NAT internet Redirection and VPN virtual private network devices cannot handle these types of network packet billing mechanisms that are based on the different content types and sources.Viosoft is currently collaborating with AMD to implement the Teranium project plan, which uses OpenCL plus GPUs to accelerate packet processing. The OpenCL is controlled by the x86 architecture that can monitor the centralized data of basic network packets, focus on the various packets of the Internet and distinguish the timing and user-generated content, and focus on audience-specific advertising or promotional activities while filtering junk mail and preventing attacks by viruses or malicious network packets.Chiou indicated that the current mainstream network equipment is Deep Content Inspection. However, to meet the demands of zero-rate and pay by the sender side network packets with certain requirements, the network equipment must evolve to have the systemic content processing technology that uses the software definition method to monitor and filter a wide range of packets. After Viosoft has incorporated the OpenCL optimized network packet program into the APU chip of a 1U rack-mounted dual AMD APU chip system with dual 10Gbit LAN interface, the APU chip can fully exert the offload engine function and increase the IP packet forwarding performance by up to 50% (5Gbps).Viosoft is currently collaborating with AMD to implement the Teranium project plan, which is the optimized 4x10Gbit (4-port) network interface driver with the deep-packet inspection extensible framework that can bypass the TCP/IP software stack layer of the Linux core. Their research found that it is not enough to drop the load of the CPU. The correct strategy is to transfer a large amount of packets from the CPU to the GPU for parallel processing. Of course, like the device driver code, the data packet scheduling and the panel controlling codes must still be executed within the CPU. Meanwhile, researchers can endeavor to determine the best method to resolve problems such as the number of copies made in the memory, CPU/GPU communication bottlenecks, and load scheduling.OpenCL parallel acceleration computing can enhance performance from tens to hundreds of timesChiou described the acceleration performance made by the actual OpenCL by stating that a CPU with an external AMD Radeon 5450 HD GPU card is used in conjunction with the Persimmon board with an Embedded G-Series APU. Under OpenCL, the APP acceleration enables the parallel computing DES coding, DES decoding, AES coding, and AES decoding for the CPU and GPU. For the DES coding part, Radeon HD 5450 increased from 0.25 to 8.0 and G-Series APU significantly increased from 0.57 to 52.67. For the DES decoding, the Radeon HD 5450 increased from 0.25 to 5.5 and the G-Series APU significantly increased from 0.62 to 52.25. For the AES coding, the Radeon HD 5450 increased from 0.11 to 13.4 and the G-Series APU significantly increased from 0.85 to 59. For the AES decoding part, the Radeon HD 5450 increased from 0.4 to 9 and the G-Series APU significantly increased from 0.62 to 72.42. Overall, the acceleration can improve performances from 22 to 120 times.Finally, Chiou introduced the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) kit developed by Viosoft for the AMD APU platform and downstream developers. The IDE kit is comprised of GNU and Linux Embedded Editions. Viosoft also developed the ARRIBA remote cross-platform virtual debugging technique. The client embedded Linux AMD APU platform is located in Atlanta but can be remotely controlled by engineers at Austin, Texas. After running the VMON virtual device, the engineers' computers can communicate with the AMD APU platforms on the other end even while using a Windows or Linux operating system, and then list the internal modules and code snippets to perform single-step executions and debugging steps.Kelly Gillilan, embedded solutions product marketing manager of AMDCharles Chiou, the Taiwan country manager of Viosoft

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has launched a full range of OpenCL-compatible heterogeneous parallel processing products, including traditional x86 CPU, GPU and integrated APU chips, as well as embedded GPU chips/MXM modules and add-on cards, etc.Not only has AMD won acclaim with its AMD Turbo CORE, AMD Eyefinity, and AMD Dual Graphics technologies, AMD is also committed to establishing a comprehensive heterogeneous multi-core industrial alliance and ecosystem with the midstream and downstream hardware and software industry sectors to bring embedded systems into the new realm of heterogeneous parallel processing.Careful observation of the embedded market and continued R&D investmentsArun Iyengar, corporate vice president and general manager of the AMD Embedded Solutions Group, indicated that the scope of applications for the embedded market is very broad. The sales cycle for the entire product line is considerably longer than in other markets. During the early stages of the cycle, suppliers would have 3 months to send samples and selections to customers. After the design is adopted (design win) the SI certification stage is approximately 12 to 18 months. Finally, moving a product from engineering prototype to mass production for the customers would stretch for another 36 to 60 months. This entire process could take up to a decade for defense military institutions.The embedded market is more focused on the optimal heat dissipation rate by adopting low power consumption, no cooling fan, higher functionality integration, and more compact designs to create the smallest sized products with optimal energy efficiency in order to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO). The customers hope suppliers can fully understand its product strengths and weaknesses, provide solutions, and tailor the various solutions to respond to the specific needs of the market.Iyengar indicated that AMD is carefully observing the development of the entire embedded market and continues to invest in its R&D. Since June of 2012, AMD's Embedded Solutions Division has been organized into an independent group. In October of 2012, CEO Rory Read indicated that the embedded market has become the group's rapid-growing emerging business; and 2013 is regarded as the first year for AMD embedded solutions.AMD, a pioneer in the embedded market for many yearsIyengar stressed that AMD has been a pioneer in the embedded market for numerous years. From the Am386 and Am486 processors in 1991, the Am5x86 in 1995; the Elan SC520 in 1999; the acquisition of Alchemy Semiconductor and National Semiconductor (NS) by the AMD Geode processor business group between 2002 and 2003; the addition of the 64-bit AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon, AMD Turion, and Mobile AMD Sempron processors into the embedded market; and the ATI Radeon E2400 GPU launched in 2008, and only reached EOL this July. In 2009, AMD launched the ATI Radeon E4690 GPU with 2D and 3D multimedia graphics performance and multi-screen output capacity that is suitable for a wide variety of embedded applications in gaming consoles, consumer electronic products, digital billboards, and industrial control boards, as well as for applications in the medical, defense, and aerospace fields. AMD also introduced the BGA flip chip packaging that is suitable for small size ASB1 processor systems.AMD released the Embedded G-Series APU platform in 2011, and launched the Embedded R-Series APU platform that focuses on high-end graphic performance in 2012. In 2013, AMD will launch embedded applications that are integrated with high-performance graphics and computing performances as well as the SoC silicon chip program that can connect a wide range of I/O peripherals together as one.AMD will continue to provide product supply, open-source operating system support, drivers, software libraries, development platforms, and technical support for its embedded market products for 5 to 7 years. AMD will also provide diverse product selection from the initial silicon circuit design stage to the engineering sample stage, and will eventually link and intimately collaborate with the existing industrial ecosystem.Market is at a heterogeneous multicore emerging stageIyengar used a three-stage CPU evolution schematic diagram to illustrate his point. The single-core CPU has long since reached its development bottleneck. The homogenous system would also reach the power, parallel oriented software, and performance bottlenecks as the number of cores has increased to a number that cannot continue to be sustained. The heterogeneous system is at a burgeoning stage. The data parallel mechanism enabled by energy efficient GPUs can ensure the continued improvement of performance, although in extending performance, the traditional programming models must be subverted and changed.Iyengar also mentioned the developmental history from the early single-core microprocessors to the homogenous multi-core systems, and the advent of the heterogeneous multi-core system. The AMD APU combines the serial data processing of the traditional CPU with the parallel data processing of the traditional AMD Radeon GPU into one. Products like the AMD Embedded G-Series APU (G-T16R APU) have the average power consumption rate of only 2.3W and an I/O controller chip that consumes less than 1W; it is suitable for extremely small and convenient-to-carry embedded mobile devices without a cooling fan. The AMD Embedded R-series APU comprises the quad-core x86 core and the AMD Radeon 7000 GPU core with 384 parallel arithmetic units, which provide high performance that can rival independent GPU graphics performance with DirectX 11 hardware acceleration specifications and can use the OpenCL and DirectCompute software to provide program solutions to enhance the performance of embedded platform computing to another level.Embedded product line and key technologies of AMDThe AMD embedded product line is divided into different series. The R-Series APU provides appropriate performance, energy efficiency, and above high definition (HD) visual experiences. The G-Series APU emphasizes low power consumption as well as unprecedented GPU integration, and is suitable for mini and fanless system designs. In addition, the AMD Radeon GPU provides amplified 3D and multimedia performance specifically for embedded systems, and its product delivery cycle is ensured for up to five years.Iyengar introduced the first key technology of the AMD APU, the AMD Turbo Core. Taking the AMD R-464L as an example, the x86 core clocks at 2,300 MHz and its GPU clocks at 496MHz. Under the general load balanced state of the x86 core and its GPU, each clock remains unchanged. When the system enters the multi-threaded parallel processing state, the clock of the x86 core would dynamically increase by a maximum of 39% (up to 3,200 MHz), but the clock of the GPU remained unchanged. When implementing programs that emphasize 3D graphic processing, the clock of the x86 core remained at 2,300MHz, but the clock of its GPU would dynamically increase by a maximum of 38% (685MHz). Depending on the needs of the load, the APU can provide bidirectional and dynamic clock adjustments for the GPU and the x86 core.The other key technology is the AMD Eyefinity technology. The AMD R-series APU can provide external connections and has parallel display ports for four monitors. When connected to an external PCIe add-on graphics card with six DisplayPort (DP) v1.2 interfaces, the system can expand its access capacityto up to ten monitors. The general embedded systems designs based on the Intel CPU can only enable either the internal GPU or the external Radeon GPU chip even with the additional add-on standalone GPU chip. However, the AMD APU is equipped with AMD Dual Graphics technology that enables the internal Radeon7000 GPU core to operate in parallel with the external Radeon E6460/E6760 GPU chip to further compact and enhance the 3D and multimedia graphics computing performance.Iyengar indicated that the AMD G- and R-series APUs can be applied to digital billboards, casino gaming machines, IP-TVs, x86 set-top boxes, medical applications, POS terminals and phone booth kiosks/automatic ticketing systems, thin clients, video conferencing, human machine interfaces (HMI), and industrial control applications, as well as communications machines/infrastructures.Unifying the industry to form the heterogeneous system architecture (HSA) foundation for the promotion of the parallel processing technologyIyengar stated that parallel computing can be applied to video and image processing such as machine recognition, medical imaging, intelligent billboards, and video surveillance; digital signal processing such as telecommunications and national defense; network traffic packet processing; and green high performance computer (HPC) applications. AMD offers a full series of OpenCL-compatible heterogeneous parallel processing application products ranging from the low power consumption G-Series APU that is designed to consume only 4.5W to 18W of power with 80GFLOPs of maximum parallel computing performance to the high-performance R-Series designed to consume 17W to 35W of power and provide 500GFLOPs of parallel computing performance.The AMD Radeon GPU series, including the AMD Radeon E6460 GPU, adopts a BGA package and the MXM module or the PCIe add-on card format, and is designed with a power consumption rate of 20W in conjunction with the 25GB/s bandwidth GDDR5 memory in order to deliver its 192GFLOPs floating-point performance. The E6760 GPU adopts a BGA package, the MXM module, or the PCIe add-on card formats; and is designed with the power consumption rate of 35W in conjunction with the 51GB/s bandwidth GDDR5 memory in order to deliver its 576GFLOPs floating-point performance. The E6970GPU adopts the MXM module, and is designed with a power consumption rate of 95W in conjunction with the 115GB/s bandwidth GDDR5 memory in order to deliver its 1.3 TFLOPs floating-point performance.In June 2012, AMD brought together ARM, Imagination, MediaTek, Texas Instruments (TI), Samsung, and Qualcomm to form the nonprofit HSA Foundation in order to establish a complete industrial chain from the Silicon Intellectual Property (Silicon IP) to the software developers and to promote the standardization of the heterogeneous system architecture.AMD has unified many of its industry partners such as Sage Electronic Engineering, LLC.; ALT Software; CORELIS; Core Avionics & Industrial, LLC.; Express Logic; ELTAN; Green Hills Software; Texas Multicore Technologies, Inc. (TMT); Fluendo; Viosoft; etc.; to cooperate in finding a solution that can ensure prompt R&D and system integration for the OEM manufacturers. For example, Gizmo, the AMD Embedded G-Series APU based small development platform, has the circuit board area of only 4x4 inches and provides I/O peripheral interfaces such as USB ports, 5.1 channel connectors, VGA ports, PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, and SATA ports. The Gizmo development platform was originally developed under collaboration by AMD, Sage, Viosoft, and Texas Multicore; provides Windows, Linux, and RTOS operating system and associated drivers; and its back-end software and technical support is provided by the nonprofit technology community GizmoSphere.Iyengar also indicated that AMD and ARM are long-term and strategic cooperation partners with close and well established working relationships. AMD will add the 64-bit ARM authorized ARM processor chips into its production line, and continue to supply the x86 architecture chips, while increasing investments in software development. He concluded that AMD will continue to expand investments in the embedded market, as well as provide superior products that focus on key market applications while satisfying the needs of the consumers and the market.Arun Iyengar, corporate vice president and general manager of the AMD Embedded Solutions Group

This year, Advantech exhibits in the Smart Grids area of the Hannover Messe. This area offers hardware and software solutions meeting the needs of the energy economy, drawing from smart metering, smart grids, smart buildings and information and communication technology.Advantech, world leader in industrial computing and the leading supplier of open, computing platforms for the Power & Energy market, offers comprehensive system integration, hardware, software, customer-centric design, embedded systems and automation products as well as global sales, technical and logistics support.Advantech is dedicated to exploring new technologies for the power and energy industry. With an edge in the research and design of industrial products, Advantech provides rugged and highly reliable system components.Advantech's products can be applied to various power and energy markets, including: renewable solar and wind power generation, hydro, steam and gas turbine and alternator control, nuclear simulation, substation automation systems, electrical car charging station solutions and building energy saving systems.For power stations, Advantech provides the computing power for generator control systems as well as the communications infrastructure of wireless, fibre-optic or copper, Ethernet or I/O. Advantech's display products are used by operators to monitor processes, while data acquisition is achieved by a wide range of devices and cards installed remotely or built-in to PCs, including Advantech's ADAM range. Powerful, open PLC platforms support a wide range of IEC-61131 soft controller products from our software partners, which make available all the necessary protocols such as IEC-60870 and IEC-61850.Step-up substations are supported with 61850-3 certified platforms for control, SCADA, protocol gateways and data storage and analysis. Advantech's UNO-4600 series Substation Automation Computers can operate as HMI/SCADA, Terminal (serial-port) Servers, Protocol or Communication Gateways, Cyber Security Servers (UTM), and Substation/Networking Recorders. With IEC 61000-4 certification for EMC, Shock and Vibration, and 48VDC and 90 ~ 250 VAC/ VDC single or redundant power supplies, the modular UNO-4600 series are able to communicate with different devices across substations and serve as excellent computing platforms. The UNO-4600 series also comes with diverse communication interfaces and flexible expansion capabilities, including Ethernet ports with LAN redundant teaming functionality, USB and serial ports , PCI, PCIe, miniPCIe and PC/104 expansion slots, and IRIG-B. Thus, according to their application needs, customers can choose the most suitable configuration to easily develop their own substation solutions.Advantech will also be showing hardware and software-based security solutions, including IPsec VPN tunnel and stateful firewall, and application whitelisting, making a Secure Substation Computer. Remote management of such devices will be supported using Intel's AMT technology and Advantech's SUSIAccess.The latest technology in SCADA systems for Smart Grids incorporates multi-touch display and Advantech will show its latest touch-panel computers.Advantech's UNO-4600 series Substation Automation Computers can operate as HMI/SCADA, Terminal (serial-port) Servers, Protocol or Communication Gateways, Cyber Security Servers (UTM), and Substation/Networking Recorders.