New-Tech Europe Magazine | Oct 2017 | Digital Edition

simplified, using open standards tools like MATLAB® or OpenCL/OpenCV libraries. And it is not only the vision system that can leverage this HSA processing performance. All forms of perceptive computing play a role too. These enable a robot to understand what we say. The AMD G-series System-on-Chip (SoC) perfectly matches all the points discussed above. It offers HSA combining x86 architecture with powerful GPU, PCIe and a wealth of I/ Os. On top of this, AMD G-Series SoCs have an additional benefit, which is not at all common but extremely important for the growing demands of application safety: an extreme high radiation resistance for highest data integrity: Guaranteed data integrity is one of the most important preconditions to meet the highest reliability and safety requirements. Every single calculation and autonomous decision depends on this. So, it is crucial that, for example, data stored in the RAM is protected against corruption and that calculations in the CPU and GPU are carried out conforming to code. Errors, however, can happen due to so-called Single Events. These are caused by the background neutron radiation which is always present and originates when high energy particles from the sun and deep space hit the earth’s upper atmosphere and

Figure 4: A single simple raw picture without any filtering from the camera. Fredrik Bruhn, CEO (left) and Research Engineers Fabian Kunkel

algorithms in distributed, highly integrated sensor logic. Thus, software developers can now also take advantage of a powerful processing component that has been sitting on the sidelines and woefully underused - the graphics processor. In fact, the graphics processor can accomplish parallel compute-intensive processing tasks far more efficiently than the CPU, which is important for increased parallel computational loads. The key to all this is the availability of Heterogeneous System Architecture, which in terms of x86 technology has mainly been driven by AMD but has also been joined by many industry leaders. HSA supporting microarchitectures seamlessly combine the specialized capabilities of the CPU, GPU and various other processing elements onto a single chip – the Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). By harnessing the untapped potential of the GPU, HSA promises to not only boost performance – but deliver new levels of performance (and performance-per-watt) that will fundamentally transform the way we interact with our devices. With HSA, the programming is also Figure 3: Susceptibility of common electronics for the background neutron radiation cross-section Single Event Ratio (Upset/device*hour). In order to compare different technologies, the SER values have been normalized to a size of 1 GByte for each relevant technology.

generate a flood of secondary isotropic neutrons all the way down to ground or sea level. The Single Event probability at sea level is between 10-8 to 10-2 upsets per device*hour for commonly used electronics. This means that within every 100 hours one single event could potentially lead to unwanted, jeopardizing behavior. This is where the AMD embedded G-Series SoCs provides the highest level of radiation resistance and, therefore, safety. Tests performed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center showed that the AMD G-Series SoCs can tolerate a total ionizing radiation dose of 17 Mrad(Si). This surpasses the requirements by far, when comparing it to current maximum permissible values: For humans, 400 rad in a week is lethal. In standard space programs usually components are required to withstand 300 krad. Even a space mission to Jupiter would only require a resistance against 1 Mrad. Additionally, AMD supports advanced error correction memory (ECC RAM) which is a further crucial feature to correct data errors in the memory caused by Single Events.

Figure 5: x can be used for illustration. Unibap is the owner of this picture

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