50 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
50 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
# AMD Family 15h [SOC|Processors]
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## Abstract
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Family 15h is a line of AMD x86 products first introduced in 2011. The initial
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microarchitecture, codenamed "Bulldozer", introduced the concept of a "Compute
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Unit" (CU) where some parts of the processor are shared between two cores and
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some parts are unique for each core. Family 15h offerings matured into various
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models with increased performance and features targeting Enterprise, Client,
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and Embedded designs. Notice that a particular model can address more than one
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market(see models references below).
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## Introduction
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The first CU designs were 2 x86 cores with separate integer processors but
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sharing cache, code branch prediction engine and floating point processor. A die
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can have up to 8 CU. The floating point processor is composed of two symmetrical
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128-bit FMAC. Provided each x86 core is doing 128-bit floating point arithmetic,
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they both do floating point simultaneously. If one is doing 256-bit floating
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point, the other x86 core can't do floating point simultaneously. Later models
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changed how resources were shared, and introduced other performance improvements.
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Family 15h products range from SOCs to 3-chip solutions. Devices designed to
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contain on-die graphics (including headless) are commonly referred to as APUs,
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not CPUs.
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Later SOCs include a Platform Security Processor (PSP), a small ARM processor
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responsible for security related measures: For example, if secure boot is
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enabled, the cores will not exit reset until the BIOS image within the SPI
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flash is authenticated through its OEM signature, thus ensuring that only OEM
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produced BIOS can run the platform.
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Support in coreboot for modern AMD products is based on AMD’s reference code:
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AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA™). AGESA contains the
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code for enabling DRAM, configuring proprietary core logic, assistance with
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generating ACPI tables, and other features.
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While coreboot contains support for most models, some implementations use a
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separate cpu/north/south bridge directory structure. Newer products for models
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60h-6Fh (Merlin Falcon) and 70h-7Fh (Stoney Ridge) rely on modern SOC directory
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structure.
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## References
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1. [Models 00h-0Fh BKDG](https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/42301_15h_Mod_00h-0Fh_BKDG.pdf)
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2. [Models 10h-1Fh BKDG](https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/42300_15h_Mod_10h-1Fh_BKDG.pdf)
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3. [Models 30h-3Fh BKDG](https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/49125_15h_Models_30h-3Fh_BKDG.pdf)
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4. [Models 60h-6Fh BKDG](https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/50742_15h_Models_60h-6Fh_BKDG.pdf)
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5. [Models 70h-7Fh BKDG](https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/55072_AMD_Family_15h_Models_70h-7Fh_BKDG.pdf)
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