14 DAY TRIAL // Advanced Micro Devices is branching out, no longer satisfied with just a small part of the consumer and enterprise IT industries.
The latest deal that the Sunnyvale, California-based company revealed, is one that will get a certain graphics processor in airplanes.
More precisely, the company has reached an agreement with Rockwell Collins, a high-profile name in the industry for communications and avionics systems.
The Radeon E2400 is the embedded chip that will be utilized in the Pro Line Fusion integrated flight deck.
“The rapid and accurate visualization of data and access to information are essential for professionals in the aerospace and defense industries,” said Richard Jaenicke, director, embedded client business, AMD.
“The AMD Radeon E2400 was specifically designed to meet customers’ demand for high-quality graphics with a stable, long-lasting supply, making it ideal for system designers such as Rockwell Collins.”
There are several benefits that AMD's Radeon E2400 can bring to avionics systems.
For instance, since the chip comes with advanced 3D acceleration, OpenGL 2.0 is fully supported, as is Shader Model 4.0, anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing.
All these contribute to realistic 3D imagery on the 15.1-inch primary flight deck LCD displays most aircrafts use.
Not only that, but the E2400 boasts 128 MB of GDDR3 and, being small even with that RAM integrated, can let systems use simpler and more compact designs.
Finally, clock settings are adjustable, leading to a good control over how much power the whole gadgetry uses.
All in all, the AMD Radeon E2400 should let aircrafts generate realistic models of the external environment and improve awareness of terrain, runways and obstacles in conditions of low visibility. Pilots should have an easier time making informed decisions.
We don't know how soon planes will start getting products jointly developed by AMD and Rockwell Collins. In the meantime, those interested can go here for details on the embedded chip.