GizmoSphere Launches an AMD APU-Based Gizmo Board For Hobbyists

By Nathan Kirsch

AMD today announced that the newly launched Gizmo board, a low-cost board geared toward x86-based embedded system development available from GizmoSphere, is powered by an AMD Embedded G-Series Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). Gizmo is a 4-inch by 4-inch x86 development board that can run a variety of operating systems including Android, Linux, RTOSes and Windows. The Intel NUC that we reviewed back in November is also 4″ x 4″ in size, so it looks like this form factor is really starting to take off!

GizmoSphere Gizmo Board

The Gizmo board includes the G-T40E dual-core processor running at 1.0 GHz, combined on a single die with AMD Radeon HD 6250 discrete-class graphics. The board provides a performance capacity of 52 gigaFLOPS (GFLOPS) at less than 10 watts.

Gizmo board specifications:

  • AMD G-Series APU: G-T40E Dual Core @ 1.0 GHz with Radeon HD6250 GPU. Up to 52.8 GFLOP capacity, 6.4W TDP.
  • A55E Controller Hub
  • 1GB DDR3 SDRAM
  • JTAG header for SmartProbe development & debug
  • Low and High Speed card edge connectors for expansion:
    • High Speed Connector – Standard PCIe 64-pin card edge gold fingers, 2x PCIe links, LVDS, 1x SATA and 1x USB 2.0
    • Low Speed Connector – Standard PCIe 36-pin card edge gold fingers, GPIOs, 1x USB 2.0 signal, SPI, PWM, A/D, D/A and C/T
  • Video Output – VGA display connector
  • Ethernet – RJ-45 port connector
  • USB – 2 standard type A USB connectors, pin header w/ 2 USB connectors
  • SATA – one connector
  • Audio – Line-in, Line-out and MIC signals
  • Power – 12VDC power supply with cables
  • Size – 4” x 4” (10 x 10 cm)

gizmo explorer kit

Packaged as part of a development kit, the Gizmo board is available now through GizmoSphere.org for $199. Here is a video on how to use the Gizmo Board:

“Gizmo is an excellent board for the next generation of embedded systems development,” said Kamal Khouri, director of Embedded Products, AMD. “The new board will serve the diverse and growing embedded development community and is especially useful for those wanting to incorporate the advanced capabilities possible by harnessing a heterogeneous architecture. Developers ready to take advantage of a high-performance, full I/O-featured x86 development board will find tremendous value in Gizmo.”

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