AMD Working to Create A New Yocto Linux Platform For Xilinx SoCs
While over the past year AMD has been hiring more Linux engineers especially for server and even client CPU computing, following their Xilinx acquisition they also have their sights set on embedded Linux. Yesterday is the first time I've seen AMD hiring for embedded Linux talent with a focus on the currently Xilinx branded hardware.
Most interesting is their recruiting of a "Senior Embedded Linux Software Engineer." This new position will be "the primary technical point of contact for the embedded Linux systems" and "Technical lead for: Creation and maintenance of Yocto based Embedded Linux platform running on Xilinx SoC solutions."
See the job posting if you're an embedded Linux expert and potentially interested in it or their other AMD Linux jobs.
It will be interesting to see what comes of this new embedded Linux push for AMD/Xilinx. There already has been OpenEmbedded and Yocto support for various Xilinx products and developer boards. See this Wiki page for some of the current Yocto support details on Xilinx hardware. Yocto as a refresher is the Linux Foundation backed project that provides a stack for creating IoT/embedded Linux distributions. Yocto has been going on for more than a decade and leading in the embedded Linux space and backed by vendors like Arm and Intel.
Coming back rather full circle, AMD originally joined the Yocto Project back in 2014. Back then they joined and became an advisory board member but not much came of it with their hardware at the time not being that compelling and the company under financial pressure (that was also the time period after AMD joined the MeeGo project that has since been discontinued). It's now a very different situation today with Ryzen Embedded and also the Xilinx portfolio. Yocto members page puts AMD as a silver member while Xilinx is with the likes of Arm, Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, and others as the flagship platinum member tier.
Another decade full circle is this embedded Linux hiring is for Dresden, Germany. AMD hasn't maintained any significant footprint in Dresden since they exited the fab business. However, Xilinx does have an office in Dresden. What's ironic is back during the exciting days of AMD's Fab 36 in Dresden, AMD's since closed Operating System Research Center (OSRC) was based there with at the time their excellent pool of talented open-source/Linux developers. It's been ten years since the AMD OSRC sadly closed and around two dozen Linux engineers let go, but at least they are now back to ramping up their Linux efforts. It's fascinating to think though how better positioned they could have been for today's dominant Linux use on servers and clouds down to IoT and edge computing if the OSRC had never been disbanded during their financial difficulties.
In any event, it will be interesting to see how the new AMD/Xilinx Yocto Linux platform plays out. AMD is also working on other interesting software integration that may play out here like their in-progress work bringing Radeon ROCm to Xilinx hardware.
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