AMD Announces Low-power G-Series APUs

The miserly AMD APUs.

AMD today announced the immediate availability of two new solutions for those looking for extreme low power with x86 "Bobcat" CPU cores and DirectX 11-capable graphics.

The two new embedded G-Series APUs T40R and T40E have thermal design power (TDP) ratings of 5.5 and 6.4 watts, respectively, which is up to a 39 percent power savings compared to earlier versions. The very low power consumption and small 361mm² package is ideal for compact, fanless embedded systems like digital signage, kiosks, mobile industrial devices and many of the new emerging industry-standard small form factors.

"We have seen many of our embedded customers deploy fanless systems even with our 15W TDP processors in the past. Today we take the ground-breaking AMD Fusion APU well below 7W TDP and shatter the accepted traditional threshold for across-the-board fanless enablement," said Buddy Broeker, director, Embedded Solutions, AMD. "System designers can now unleash their creativity without being constrained by heat or size issues."

A fanless solution is crucial for many small embedded systems where the added cost for an active cooling system can be prohibitive or for environments where silent operation is a key requirement. Additionally, many embedded products are deployed in harsh environmental conditions where the presence of a fan represents a potential failure point for the system.

You likely won't be running these at home in your own personal rig, but there's now a better chance that you'll run into AMD's new Fusion chips out the real world without even knowing it.