Powerful 15W Ryzen embedded processor performance

Impulse Embedded, a provider of industrial computing systems and solutions, announces the availability of Aaeon Technology’s latest Pico-ITX single board computer. The PICO-V2K4 is at present the smallest form factor single board computer to feature the AMD Ryzen V2000 embedded processor family. This compact board measures just 3.94” x 2.84” and offers rich I/O features and expansion options in a low TDP package which offers excellent performance per watt. This combination of high-speed computing power and high-performance graphics is perfect for true embedded applications such medical imaging, industrial automation, machine building and digital signage.

The V2000 series of embedded processors feature AMD's Zen2 architecture, with the 7nm die being half the size used in the Ryzen Embedded V1000 series which have proved popular in digital signage-based applications. As a result of this die shrinking process, AMD has been able to squeeze twice the number of cores into the same size chip with no impact on its thermal properties, an important consideration in the embedded industry. For graphic performance, the Ryzen Embedded V2000 series has been upgraded from the Vega compute units to the newer generation of AMD Radeon compute units offering much better graphical performance.

The V2000 processors offer flexibility between workload and power demands. They are set to 15W as default but can be increased to 25W for compute-intensive applications or reduced to 10W for temperature or power-restricted applications. The 8-core 16-thread Ryzen V2718 offers impressive performance for a low-power chip providing a core frequency of 1.70GHz and an impressive max turbo frequency of 4.15GHz. The lower power Ryzen V2516 has 6-cores and 12-threads with a core frequency of 2.10GHz and a max turbo frequency of 3.95GHz offering similar performance to a 65W 10th Generation Intel Core i5 processor at a fraction of the power.

The impressive computing performance is backed up by support for up to 16GB of LPDDR4x 3733MHz onboard system memory plus optional onboard 64GB NVMe SSD storage with an M.2 2280 M-key with PCIe Gen 3 x4 and SATA signals and a single SATA III port for additional storage expansion.

The board comes with two Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports, two high-speed 10Gbps USB3.2 Gen 2 ports, both on the rear I/O panel, one USB3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port plus support for four USB2.0 ports and four COM ports all on headers supporting RS-232/422/485 signals, 8-bit digital I/O is also supported.

For display purposes, there are two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort which is provided via USB-C, and for machine builders and OEMs looking to develop a bespoke HMI solution, an onboard LVDS/eDP interface for pairing directly to a flat panel LCD.

As part of their Embedded System Services Impulse can offer a complete “board to display” pairing service including the LCD of your choice, a custom display BIOS, touch screen options and interface cables for an all-in-one modular HMI solution. We can even help with designing and build a fully bespoke HMI system for plugging straight into your device or machine.

Impulse has been working with Aaeon Technology for almost 30 years, delivering embedded board solutions for a wide range of projects in various industrial markets and applications that demand rugged and long-lifetime platforms. Impulse can fully configure the PICO-V2K4 single board computer to users’ exact specification in their UK-based engineering facility with any choice of storage, peripherals, and embedded operating system.

With their Embedded Systems capabilities, Impulse creates reliable, repeatable, and revision-controlled systems which can reduce project costs and development time. Their team of in-house engineers and specialists, all with decades of experience, can offer you fully deployable embedded computing solutions straight out of the box.