Excavator (microarchitecture)
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AMD Excavator Family 15h is a
microarchitecture In computer engineering, microarchitecture, also called computer organization and sometimes abbreviated as µarch or uarch, is the way a given instruction set architecture (ISA) is implemented in a particular processor. A given ISA may be impl ...
developed by
AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
to succeed Steamroller Family 15h for use in
AMD APU AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), formerly known as Fusion, is a series of 64-bit microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), combining a general-purpose AMD64 central processing unit (CPU) and integrated graphics processing unit ...
processors and normal CPUs. On October 12, 2011, AMD revealed Excavator to be the code name for the fourth-generation
Bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...
-derived core. The Excavator-based
APU APU or Apu may refer to: Film and television * ''The Apu Trilogy'', a series of three Bengali films, directed by Satyajit Ray, with the fictional character Apu Roy, comprising: ** ''Pather Panchali'' (''Song of the Little Road'') (1955), the first ...
for mainstream applications is called ''Carrizo'' and was released in 2015. The ''Carrizo'' APU is designed to be HSA 1.0 compliant. An Excavator-based APU and CPU variant named ''Toronto'' for server and enterprise markets was also produced. Excavator was the final revision of the "Bulldozer" family, with two new microarchitectures replacing Excavator a year later. Excavator was succeeded by the
x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...
Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...
architecture in early 2017.


Architecture

Excavator added hardware support for new instructions such as
AVX2 Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) are extensions to the x86 instruction set architecture for microprocessors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). They were proposed by Intel in March 2008 and first supported by Intel with the Sandy Bridge ...
,
BMI2 Bit manipulation instructions sets (BMI sets) are extensions to the x86 instruction set architecture for microprocessors from Intel and AMD. The purpose of these instruction sets is to improve the speed of bit manipulation. All the instruction ...
and
RDRAND RDRAND (for "read random"; known as Intel Secure Key Technology, previously known as Bull Mountain) is an instruction for returning random numbers from an Intel on-chip hardware random number generator which has been seeded by an on-chip entropy s ...
. Excavator is designed using High Density (aka "Thin") Libraries normally used for
GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobil ...
s to reduce
electric energy consumption Electric energy consumption is the form of energy consumption that uses electrical energy. Electric energy consumption is the actual energy demand made on existing electricity supply for transportation, residential, industrial, commercial, and o ...
and die size, delivering a 30 percent increase in
efficient energy use Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the process of reducing the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a building allows it to use less heating and cooling energy to ...
. Excavator can process up to 15% more instructions per clock compared to AMD's previous core Steamroller.


Features and ASICs


Processors


APU lines

There are three
APU APU or Apu may refer to: Film and television * ''The Apu Trilogy'', a series of three Bengali films, directed by Satyajit Ray, with the fictional character Apu Roy, comprising: ** ''Pather Panchali'' (''Song of the Little Road'') (1955), the first ...
lines announced or released: # Budget and mainstream markets (desktop and mobile): ''Carrizo'' APU #* The ''Carrizo'' mobile APUs were launched in 2015 based on ''Excavator'' x86 cores and featuring
Heterogeneous System Architecture Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) is a cross-vendor set of specifications that allow for the integration of central processing units and graphics processors on the same bus, with shared memory and tasks. The HSA is being developed by the HSA ...
for integrated task sharing between CPUs and GPUs, which allows a GPU to perform compute functions, which is claimed provide greater performance increases than shrinking the feature size alone. #*''Carrizo'' desktop APUs were launched in 2018. The mainstream product (A8-7680) has 4 Excavator cores and a GPU based on GCN1.2 architecture. Also, an entry-level APU (A6-7480) with 2 Excavator cores is also launched. # Budget and mainstream markets (desktop and mobile): ''Bristol Ridge'', and ''Stoney Ridge'' (for entry level notebooks), APUs #* Bristol Ridge APUs utilize
socket AM4 Socket AM4 is a PGA microprocessor socket used by AMD's central processing units (CPUs) built on the Zen (including Zen+, Zen 2 and Zen 3) and Excavator microarchitectures. ''AM4'' was launched in September 2016 and was designed to replace the ...
and DDR4 RAM #* Bristol Ridge APUs have up to 4 Excavator CPU cores and up to 8 3rd generation GCN GPU cores #* Up to a 20% CPU performance increase over Carrizo #* TDP of 15W to 65W, 15–35W for mobile # Enterprise and server markets: '' Toronto'' APU #* The ''Toronto'' APU for server and enterprise markets featured four x86 Excavator CPU core modules and
Volcanic Islands Geologically, a high island or volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...
integrated GPU core. #* The ''Excavator'' cores has a greater advantage with IPC than ''Steamroller''. The improvement is 4–15%. #* Support for HSA/ hUMA,
DDR3 Double Data Rate 3 Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DDR3 SDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) with a high bandwidth ("double data rate") interface, and has been in use since 2007. It is the higher-speed ...
/
DDR4 Double Data Rate 4 Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DDR4 SDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory with a high bandwidth ("double data rate") interface. Released to the market in 2014, it is a variant of dynamic rando ...
,
PCIe 3.0 PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common mot ...
, GCN 1.2 #* The ''Toronto'' APU was available in BGA and SoC variants. The SoC variant had the southbridge on the same die as the APU to save space and power and to optimize workloads. #* A complete system with a Toronto APU would have a maximum power usage of 70 W.


CPU Desktop lines

There are no CPUs
Steamroller A steamroller (or steam roller) is a form of road roller – a type of heavy construction machinery used for leveling surfaces, such as roads or airfields – that is powered by a steam engine. The leveling/flattening action is achieved through ...
(3rd gen
Bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...
) or Excavator (4th gen Bulldozer) architectures on high-end desktop platforms. Excavator CPU for Desktop announced on 2nd Feb 2016, named Athlon X4 845. In 2017, three more desktop CPUs (Athlon X4 9x0) were launched. They come in Socket AM4, with a TDP of 65W. In fact, they are APUs with their graphics cores disabled.


Server lines

The AMD Opteron roadmaps for 2015 show the Excavator-based ''Toronto'' APU and ''Toronto'' CPU intended for 1 Processor (1P) cluster applications: * For 1P Web and Enterprise Services Clusters: ** ''Toronto'' CPU – quad-core x86 Excavator architecture ** plans for ''Cambridge'' CPU – 64-bit
AArch64 AArch64 or ARM64 is the 64-bit extension of the ARM architecture family. It was first introduced with the Armv8-A architecture. Arm releases a new extension every year. ARMv8.x and ARMv9.x extensions and features Announced in October 2011, AR ...
core * For 1P Compute and Media Clusters: ** ''Toronto'' APU – quad-core x86 Excavator architecture * For 2P/4P Servers: ** ''Warsaw'' CPU – 12/16 core x86 Piledriver (2nd gen Bulldozer) ( Opteron 6338P and 6370P) ** no plans for
Steamroller A steamroller (or steam roller) is a form of road roller – a type of heavy construction machinery used for leveling surfaces, such as roads or airfields – that is powered by a steam engine. The leveling/flattening action is achieved through ...
(3rd gen
Bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...
) or Excavator (4th gen Bulldozer) architectures on high-end multi-processor platforms


References

{{AMD processor roadmap AMD x86 microprocessors AMD microarchitectures X86 microarchitectures