Advanced Micro Devices recently formally announced its new dual-core AMD Opteron processors for embedded applications. The new breed of chips includes microprocessors with reduced power consumption and will be supplied for the next five years to support various devices throughout their life-cycle.

“Enterprise-class storage and telecom infrastructure are two areas that can experience a huge performance boost from AMD’s dual-core products,” said David Rich, director of 64-bit Embedded Markets at AMD.

Dual-core AMD Opteron family of processors for embedded applications consists of processor models 165, 265 and 865 clocked at 1.80GHz as well as the lower-power 55W version of each. AMD Opteron processors feature dual-channel PC3200 memory controller, 2MB L2 cache (1MB of L2 cache per core), SSE3 technology and are to be made using 90nm process technology.

“The dual-core AMD Opteron processor with Direct Connect Architecture and HyperTransport technology is superb for the storage market, where performance is measured by how quickly information can move within a system. HyperTransport outperforms any other available chip-to-chip link option in terms of reducing latency and is the industry leader in delivering bandwidth,” Mr. Rich added.

AMD64 processors are currently being designed into a number of forthcoming high-end embedded systems. Beyond network storage and telecommunications, industries such as military computing, homeland security and medical imaging should also recognize the performance and efficiency of true dual-core technologies.

In addition to offering support and supply longevity, AMD is further enabling the embedded design community with a new upcoming Reference Design Kit from Critia Computer, expected to be available in Q3 of 2005. This RDK represents a Compact PCI design and will help speed customers’ development of communications infrastructure and high-end embedded products.