How about a vivid, practical example? Let's take a look at the remarkable Smart Sharpen feature. Smart Sharpen is a workhorse tool that lets users create crystal clear images by minimizing noise and halo effects.  To find the perfect image, the tool lets users choose the preferred algorithm and dynamically adjust the amount and radius of sharpening and noise reduction.
Early in 2013, AMD and Adobe collaborated to use OpenCL™ to help increase performance for just the “de-noise” portion of the Smart Sharpen feature. The results were good--we saw overall Smart Sharpen performance double simply by leveraging AMD graphics technology for this one portion of the Smart Sharpen pipeline¹.
With the newest release of Adobe Photoshop CC, AMD and Adobe developers looked deep into the code to help take maximum advantage of OpenCL™ across the entire Smart Sharpen pipeline and thereby fully leverage AMD GPU compute power. The results are nothing short of spectacular. Take a look at this video for comparison:

In fact, we found that the new AMD A10-7850K APU processed images up to 11 times faster with OpenCL On versus Off when we used it to process a 21 MP image with the new OpenCL™-optimized Adobe® Photoshop® CC Smart Sharpen feature². We also found up to 46 times faster performance³ on our top-of-line AMD FirePro™ W9000 card when compared with CPU-only processing, even with an image as large as 64 MP!  Yes, you read it correctly—up to 46 times faster!
What you are seeing is the impact of the close collaboration between AMD and Adobe to bring the promise of heterogeneous computing--where the system and software are designed to make the best, most intelligent use of all of the CPU and GPU resources on board--to the most demanding creative workflows. These speed boosts are critical to your workflow. They can mean the difference between having the freedom to adjust and tweak until you get the image exactly the way you want it or accepting a “good enough” outcome in the face of repeated processing delays and interruptions to your creative flow.
We are seeing great overall competitive performance on both benchmarks and application tests with our recently launched “Kaveri” products. This new lineup is topped by the AMD A10-7850K APU powered by 12 Compute Cores* featuring AMD Radeon ™ R7 Graphics for revolutionary, responsive computing and next generation gaming (*Visit AMD.com/computecores). 

    
Reviews so far include such accolades as the “Gold Award” from PC Perspectives, and “Dam Good Value,” and “Dam Good” awards from Hardware Canucks.  Joel Hruska from Extremetech wrote, “With HSA enabled, however, (Libre Office) performance skyrockets — AMD’s A10-7850K is more than 5x faster than the Core i5-4670. This, more than any other result, points to the potential of HSA.”

 Here are the results of our competitive testing for the new performance-enhanced Smart Sharpen now shipping with Adobe’s latest Photoshop CC): Here's a video showing the benchmark in action: The ultimate goal of all this is for the technology to keep pace with the user's creativity. We think this represents a dramatic step in the right direction.One of Adobe's most innovative and, frankly, remarkable new features for Photoshop CC is Perspective Warp, which lets the user adjust the perspective of a select part of an image while leaving other areas untouched to create the perfect image.

 Adobe developers have tapped OpenGL to take advantage of AMD GPUs to accelerate on-screen rendering so users can see and modify their results instantaneously. You will also find that same interactive, on-screen speed at work, with the outstanding new 3D beautify and 3D print preview features in the latest version of Adobe Photoshop CC.
The new release of Adobe Photoshop CC represents another important step forward in the development of intelligent application workflows that make full use of all the processing resources available in a system. Adobe continues to show real leadership in taking advantage of heterogeneous compute design. Working together, AMD and Adobe ensure that users’ creativity is never limited by performance.
Supporting Resources

• Press Release: AMD Delivers Peak Performance for Key Features and Creative Workflows in Latest Photoshop® CC
• Slides from AMD Developer Summit 2013 technical session: Smart Sharpen using OpenCL™ in Adobe Photoshop CC - Challenges and Achievements, by Joseph Hsieh at Adobe
• Smart Sharpen performance demo video from the AMD Developer Summit
• AMD Beats Intel with Photoshop CC video
  
• Adobe® Creative Cloud™ provides cross-platform acceleration for AMD graphics on both Windows and Apple computers, including the all-new Apple Mac Pro system with dual AMD FirePro™ graphics
• Details about AMD and Adobe
• For more information about AMD APUs
• For more information about AMD FirePro™ Graphics support for Adobe
• For more information about Adobe
• For more information about AMD

 1.AMD tests are performed on optimized AMD reference systems. PC manufacturers may vary configuration yielding different results. Test project used the new Smart Sharpen effect with Adobe Photoshop CC pre-release build, version 1.0.0.157 from 4/23/2013, test image: 5616x3744, 60.2MB, .PSD format. A notebook PC with AMD A10-5850M APU with AMD Radeon™ HD 8650G Graphics, 2x2GB DDR3-800 RAM, video driver 12.105.0.0 - 07-Apr-2013, SSD hard drive and Window 8 Professional (x64) build 9200 took 14.84 seconds with GPU acceleration on versus 31.03 seconds with GPU acceleration off. RIN-27

 2.The AMD A10-7850K APU can process images at up to 11 times faster with the  new OpenCL™- optimized version of the Adobe® Photoshop® CC Smart Sharpen feature. AMD tests are performed on optimized AMD reference systems. PC manufacturers may vary their configuration yielding different results. Test project used the Smart Sharpen feature in Adobe® Photoshop® CC, updated January 2014, test image: 5616x3744, 60.2MB, .PSD format.  A desktop PC with AMD A10-7850K APU with AMD Radeon™ R7 Series graphics, 2x4GB DDR3-2133 RAM, video driver 13.300.0.0 - 22-Dec-2013 (RC1), Window 8.1 build 9600, took 52.63 seconds with OpenCL off, 4.39 seconds with OpenCL on.  KVD-4

 3. The AMD FirePro™ W9000 graphics card can process images  up to 46 times faster with the 2013 preview of a new OpenCL™- optimized version of the Adobe® Photoshop® CC Smart Sharpen feature. AMD tests are performed on optimized AMD reference systems. PC manufacturers may vary their configuration yielding different results. Test project used December 2013 preview of a new OpenCL™- optimized version of the Adobe® Photoshop® CC Smart Sharpen feature, test image: 8000x8000, .PSD format.  A desktop workstation with Intel® Xeon® E5506 processor, AMD FirePro™ W9000 graphics card, 3GB DDR3-1600 RAM, video driver FirePro 13.152.4, Window 7-x64, took 529.5 seconds with OpenCL off, 11.2 seconds with OpenCL on.  FP-86

 4. The AMD A10-7850K APU can process images at up to 3.2X the speed of an Intel i5-4670K with the updated (January 2014) Adobe® Photoshop® CC Smart Sharpen feature. AMD tests are performed on optimized AMD reference systems. PC manufacturers may vary their configuration yielding different results. Test project used  the Adobe® Photoshop® CC Smart Sharpen feature, updated January 2014, test image: 5616x3744, 60.2MB, .PSD format.  A desktop PC with AMD A10-7850K APU with AMD Radeon™ R7 Series graphics, 2x4GB DDR3-2133 RAM, video driver 13.300.0.0 - 22-Dec-2013 (RC1), took 4.39 seconds with OpenCL on. A desktop PC configured with an Intel Core i5-4670K with Intel HD 4600 graphics, 2x4GB DDR3-1600, video driver 10.18.10.3379 - 17-Dec-2013, took 13.87 seconds with OpenCL™ on. Both systems used the same SSD hard drive and Window 8.1 build 9600.  KVD-3

 Back in the late 80’s I worked my way through my undergrad as a CNC machine operator for a manufacturer. Since then, I have only been a stone’s throw away from manufacturing.  I started as a systems engineer in a product company working with manufacturers to build chassis, populate motherboards and assemble systems for us.  Then I later became a product marketing manager working with ODMs to design devices into their products.  Now, in my current role, as the Strategic Marketing Manager focused on Industrial Control and Automation at AMD, one of my primary responsibilities is to track the existing and developing trends that are prevalent in Industrial Control and Automation applications.

 There are many different sources for information on these trends which include my personal experience and exposure to manufacturing operations, research studies, a variety of periodicals, numerous whitepapers, and webinars from a wide range of vendors. Taking all of this information and filtering out the individual opinions to drill down to the most relevant and reliable information can be a daunting task.  However, what I have learned is that there are nine existing and developing trends that seem to be having the most influence on manufacturing operations and industrial control and automation applications.  These trends include: efficiency, sustainability, connectivity, security, usability, safety, integration, scalability, and reliability.

 While there is certainly overlap in both the causes and the effects of these trends, and it can be argued whether these are good or bad trends, the bottom line is that these trends are driving the industry.  In some cases they are helping to drive resurgence of the American manufacturing industry.  In other cases they are helping to improve working conditions in factories.  In most cases, these trends are helping to make manufacturers more agile, eco friendly, and ultimately, more competitive.  Thus, I am working on figuring out what I can do to help drive these trends into the products that are being developed to serve industrial control and automation applications.  Whether you are directly involved in manufacturing, or just a stone’s throw away, take a look at my webinar to learn a little bit more about each of these trends and think about whether you should be considering them in the operations you control and products you design.

 Cameron Swen is a Strategic Marketing Manager for Industrial Control and Automation in the Embedded Solutions Business Unit at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

AMD's rich history in server-class silicon includes a number of notable firsts including the first 64-bit x86 architecture and true multi-core x86 processors. AMD adds to that history by announcing that its revolutionary AMD Opteron™ A-series 64-bit ARM processors, codenamed “Seattle,” will be sampling this quarter.

AMD Opteron A-Series processors combine AMD's expertise in delivering server-class silicon with ARM's trademark low-power architecture and contributing to the Open Source software ecosystem that is rapidly growing around the ARM 64-bit architecture. AMD Opteron A-Series processors make use of ARM's 64-bit ARMv8 architecture to provide true server-class features in a power efficient solution.

AMD plans for the AMD Opteron™ A1100 processors to be available in the second half of 2014 with four or eight ARM Cortex A57 cores, up to 4MB of shared Level 2 cache and 8MB of shared Level 3 cache. The AMD Opteron A-Series processor supports up to 128GB of DDR3 or DDR4 ECC memory as unbuffered DIMMs, registered DIMMs or SODIMMs.

The ARMv8 architecture is the first from ARM to have 64-bit support, something that AMD brought to the x86 market in 2003 with the AMD Opteron processor. Not only can the ARMv8-based Cortex A-57 architecture address large pools of memory, it has been designed from the ground up to provide the optimal balance of performance and power efficiency to address the broad spectrum of scale-out data center workloads.

With more than a decade of experience in designing server-class solutions silicon, AMD took the ARM Cortex A57 core, added a server-class memory controller, and included features resulting in a processor that meets the demands of scale-out workloads. A requirement of scale-out workloads is high performance connectivity, and the AMD Opteron A1100 processor has extensive integrated I/O, including eight PCI Express Gen 3 lanes, two 10 GB/s Ethernet and eight SATA 3 ports.

Scale-out workloads are becoming critical building blocks in today's data centers. These workloads scale over hundreds or thousands of servers, making power efficient performance critical in keeping total cost of ownership (TCO) low. The AMD Opteron A-Series meets the demand of these workloads through intelligent silicon design and by supporting a number of operating system and software projects.

As part of delivering a server-class solution, AMD has invested in the software ecosystem that will support AMD Opteron A-Series processors. AMD is a gold member of the Linux Foundation, the organisation that oversees the development of the Linux kernel, and is a member of Linaro, a significant contributor to the Linux kernel. Alongside collaboration with the Linux Foundation and Linaro, AMD itself is listed as a top 20 contributor to the Linux kernel. A number of operating system vendors have stated they will support the 64-bit ARM ecosystem, including Canonical, Red Hat and SUSE, while virtualization will be enabled through KVM and Xen.

Operating system support is supplemented with programming language support, with Oracle and the community-driven OpenJDK porting versions of Java onto the 64-bit ARM architecture. Other popular languages that will run on AMD Opteron A-Series processors include Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby. The extremely popular GNU C compiler and the critical GNU C Library have already been ported to the 64-bit ARM architecture.

Through the combination of kernel support and development tools such as libraries, compilers and debuggers, the foundation has been set for developers to port applications to a rapidly growing ecosystem.

As AMD Opteron A-Series processors are well suited to web hosting and big data workloads, AMD is a gold sponsor of the Apache Foundation, the organisation that manages the Hadoop and HTTP Server projects. Up and down the software stack, the ecosystem is ready for the data center revolution that will take place when AMD Opteron A-Series are deployed.

Soon, AMD's partners will start to realise what a true server-class 64-bit ARM processor can do. By using AMD's Opteron A-Series Development Kit, developers can contribute to the fast growing software ecosystem that already includes operating systems, compilers, hypervisors and applications. Combining AMD's rich history in designing server-class solutions with ARM's legendary low-power architecture, the Opteron A-Series ushers in the era of personalised performance.

 Lawrence Latif is the Manager of Technical Communications at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. This blog contains forward-looking statements concerning AMD, and features of AMD’s future products, the ability of AMD to win in traditional server segments with new Arm-based products in 2014, the benefits from AMD’s new technology partnerships and the timing of future products that incorporate AMD’s products, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are commonly identified by words such as "would," "may," "expects," "believes," "plans," "intends," "projects," and other terms with similar meaning. Investors are cautioned that the forward-looking statements in this document are based on current beliefs, assumptions and expectations, speak only as of the date of this blog and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.