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» Whitepaper « Processor AMC 3U CompactPCI® 6U CompactPCI® COM Express® basic Mini-ITX Flex-ATX 3U VPX The 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ Processor: A must have for all high-performance embedded computing appliances If it’s embedded, it ’s Kontron. Whitepaper The 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ Processor: A must have for all high-performance embedded computing appliances Intel® 3-D processor technology brings a new dimension of processing to the embedded computing space and comes with a great deal of improvements. What are the most important benefi ts for embedded appliances and how can engineers deploy them most effi ciently? Abstract With their increased performance levels, lowered TDP, improved high-end embedded graphics performance, optimized security, and broad scalability, the 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processors provide an attractive solution for a broad array of high performance embedded applications in target markets such as medical, communications, industrial automation, infotainment and military. This whitepaper gives engineers a closer look into the architectural improvements of the new 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processors and delivers the answers as to how they can integrate these most effi ciently into their appliances. CONTENTS Overview. 3 Improved architecture: a tick-plus . 3 Enhanced performance. 4 Turbo Boost 2.01 . 4 Extended AVX and SEE instructions . .5 Improved interface performance . 5 Additional power savings . 5 Enhanced media and graphics . 6 Secure manageability . .7 The new benchmark comes in different fl avours . 7 COM Express® basic Computer-on-Module . 8 Flex-ATX and Mini-ITX embedded motherboards . 8 AdvancedMC™ . 8 3U and 6U CompactPCI® blades . 9 3U VPX CPU boards . 9 Custom designs and application-ready platforms . 9 www.kontron.com 2 Whitepaper Overview dimensions. But as gate lengths approach sub-32nm dimensions, scaling becomes more challenging to overcome High-performance embedded computing applications, the fundamental physical limitations imposed by traditional such as image processing in automation and medical semiconductor materials. As the size decreases, planar applications, embedded cloud computing and digital transistors increasingly suffer from the undesirable off-state signal processing in communications, as well as signals leakage current, which increases the idle power required intelligence in military and aerospace platforms, all by the device [1]. To solve this issue and keep the pace share a common demand in terms of highest possible of technology advancement, yet another innovation was signal processing performance, throughput and graphics needed to fuel Moore’s Law for the years to come. processing. At the same time, this demand is frequently coupled with strict requirements in regards of power In 2012 Intel® has accomplished this with another radical effi ciency to deliver a level of performance per watt change in its transistor design. For the fi rst time in history, that fi ts the needs of space-, weight- and power- silicon transistors entered the third dimension. With the 3rd constrained (SWaP) applications that characterize many generation Intel® Core™ processors, Intel® is introducing embedded deployments. With the development of a new the tri-gate transistor, in which the transistor channel is 22-nanometer (nm) 3-D tri-gate transistor technology, raised into the 3rd dimension. Adding a third dimension to Intel® introduced several architectural improvements that transistors allows Intel® to increase transistor density to lay the groundwork to continuously fulfi l these tough 1.4 billion transistors on a die size of 160mm² and insert demands for the next years to come. more capabilities into every square millimetre of these new processors [2]. The current fl ow is now controlled on The 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processors, which are the three sides of the channel (top, left and right) rather than fi rst processors to leverage this new technology, provide just from the top, as in conventional, planar transistors. up to 20% enhanced computing power and up to 40% The net result is much better control of the transistor, a increased performance per watt compared to designs based maximization of current fl ow for when high performance is on the 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors. Embedded required and minimization when it is off to reduce leakage computing platforms that implement the new processors [3]. enable OEMs to build applications with increased processing density and I/O bandwidth within tight thermal envelopes. This also meets and exceeds the requirement for improved size, weight and power of embedded designs and enables designers to utilize the power of the latest quad-core Intel® processors for the fi rst time on small form factors such as COM Express®, AdvancedMC™ and 3U VPX. Additional improvements, such as extended Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) and SSE instructions as well as the support for OpenCL 1.1 provide developers Copyright: Intel® effi cient tools to reduce the development effort and Image 1: 3-D Tri-Gate transistors form conducting channels time-to-market for parallel computing applications. on three sides of a vertical fi n structure to maximize current Further advancements, such as the integrated Intel® HD fl ow on the one hand and reduce leakage current at the other Graphics 4000, that now features 30% more execution hand. Moreover, Tri-Gate transistors can have multiple of units than the previous generation and natively supports these vertical fi ns connected together to increase total drive three independent digital display interfaces, enables strength for higher performance [4]. sophisticated graphics intensive applications such as infotainment and digital signage with an immersive user experience. All of these architectural improvements are But the change in transistor design is not the only worth taking a closer look into the enhancements and architectural improvement in the 3rd generation over the how OEMs in the different verticals can unleash the full 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors. Together with the potential of this new processor architecture by leveraging 3-D tri-gate transistor technology Intel® also introduced standardized and proven platforms to minimize design and a new graphics architecture which offers up to twice risks and speed up time-to-market. the HD media and 3-D graphics performance compared to its predecessor. Further new features are support for low-power DDR3L memory, dynamic overclocking control of both the compute and graphics cores, power-management Improved architecture: a tick-plus improvements and security enhancements to guard against escalation of privilege attacks. With the introduction of the 32 nm process in 2009, Intel® maintained its historical doubling of chip functionality This signifi cant redesign is quite unusual in Intel's "tick- every two years by continually reducing transistor tock" chip-release cadence, in which a tick stands for a 3 www.kontron.com Whitepaper process shrink and a tock stands for a new architecture. Transistor Changing the chips’ architecture while at the same time Gate Delay shrinking the size of the underlying transistors is an (normalized) acceleration of Intel’s “tick-tock” model. This is why Intel® refers to the 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processor as "a 2.0 tick-plus" – a scaled-down version of the 2nd generation 1.8 Intel® Core™ processors, but with its own architectural improvements [2]. 1.4 37% Faster 32 nm Planar 1.2 Enhanced performance 1.0 18% Due to these improvements and as already mentioned in 22 nm 0.8 Trigate Faster the overview chapter, the 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processors now offer up to 20% enhanced computing power 0.6 Operating and up to 40% increased performance per watt compared Voltage to designs based on the 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 (V) processors. But this is not all: This increase in power effi ciency now also allows applications with tight thermal Image 2: 22 nm 3-D Tri-Gate transistors provide improved envelopes to take advantage of the parallel performance performance at high voltage and an unprecedented of up to four CPU cores and eight threads. This not only performance gain at low voltage [4] enables highly effi cient small form factor applications, such as extremely compact unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), but, due to the high level of integration, also allows Turbo Boost 2.01 consolidating multiple computing systems onto one single platform [5]. This results in reduced hardware costs, as one As for applications that are particularly power-hungry, the multicore system is less expensive than several single core new processors also provide the enhanced Intel® Turbo systems. The decreased system count also results in higher Boost 2.0 technology that has been introduced with the MTBF values of the consolidated installation and helps to 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors. Turbo Boost mode save valuable space for SWaP optimized high-performance increases the clock speeds of both the processor cores embedded computing applications. However, it’s important and the graphics unit independently. This automatically to be aware that standard boards for the consumer market shifts processor cores and processor graphics resources to are not designed to meet high MTBF requirements. Modules, accelerate performance, tailoring a workload to give users boards and systems that are intended to meet a high MTBF an immediate performance boost for their applications should be selected from embedded computer vendors such