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timemerchant
I hope a RISC offering is finally successful in delivering a cheaper server. All ...
TingLu
I am not sure anyone noticed that AMCC implemented entire X-Gene core into 2 of ...
AMCC demos 64-bit ARM server chip
10/27/2011 5:27 PM EDT
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Applied Micro Circuits Corp. fired a shot across the bow of Intel, demonstrating the first 64-bit ARM server processor here. The X-Gene chip is the first of an array of competitors that will attack Intel's multi-billion dollar server franchise with cheaper, lower power ARM SoCs.
AMCC's X-Gene packs multiple 3 GHz cores complaint with the ARM 64-bit V8 architecture announced today at ARM Tech Con. The cores are quad-issue, out-of-order superscalar designs. The chip also sports Ethernet MACs, PCI Express and Serial ATA linked on an 80 GByte/second fabric.
The company showed a working version in an FPGA emulation it will ship in January. Silicon will sample in the second half of 2012.
Two other companies are developing 32-bit ARM server chips. Marvell has announced a quad-core ARM Cortex A9, and startup Calxeda has discussed plans for a 5W 32-bit ARM chip.
Calxeda is expected to announce its chip next week. Hewlett-Packard is expected to use it in some server systems.
In January, Nvidia said it is working on a full line of ARM computer processors spanning handhelds to supercomputers. ARM named Nvidia as one of three lead partners licensing the 64-bit V8 architecture along with AMCC and Microsoft.
"A new paradigm for developing data centers based on energy efficiency will certainly help make data centers scale realistically with future demand growth," said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst from Linley Group (Mountain View, Calif.), speaking in an AMCC press release.
"Our next-generation of multicore SoCs will bring in a new era of energy efficient performance that doesn’t break the bank on a limited power supply," said Paramesh Gopi, chief executive of AMCC, also in the press release.
"We think there's an opportunity to fundamentally change the server market," said Lance Howarth, executive of vice president of market of ARM, speaking at an AMCC event at ARM TechCon.
"Volume servers are punishingly inefficient in today's workloads," said Andrew Feldman, chief executive of SeaMicro, a startup that has been shipping 32-bit Atom based servers and is now working with AMCC. "We're dazzled by what we could do with the [AMCC] technology here," he said.
EDN posted a demo of the X-Gene chip in an FPGA implementation conducted by Vinay Ravuri, general manager of AMCC's processor products.
Standing room only at the X-Gene demo.
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iniewski
10/27/2011 7:39 PM EDT
This is very interesting....AMCC getting into ARM server processor biz! Kris
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Neo1
10/27/2011 10:17 PM EDT
Nvidia, AMCC, Calxeda, HP, hmm.. surely the arena is hotting up in the pwoer efficient server space. Who would have imagined 5 years back that ARM would try to wiggle it's way into the enterprise space. A very bold step into Goliaths for the the little David.
This opens up a lot of new oppurtunities for linux/windows based enterprise startups banking on ARM technology.
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cdhmanning
10/28/2011 3:26 PM EDT
Not at all surprising really.
Power consumption and cooling (flip sides of the same coin) have always been a problem for servers.
The only thing really keeping ARM out of server space has been the lack of 64-bit
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TingLu
10/27/2011 11:21 PM EDT
When nVidia's implementation will come out?
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rick.merritt
10/30/2011 10:58 AM EDT
They haven't said, but I suspect they will try to have something sampling in 2012 and in production in 2013--probably initially leveraging their graphics cores and thus more focused on clients than servers
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TingLu
10/31/2011 10:54 AM EDT
AMCC started to work with ARM really early. nVidia is probably behind since there was rumor that it was working x86 chip design. I guessed it changed course when MS announced Windows ARM support at beginning of this year. Although lack of vision, nVidia has immense amount of execution power. I will not feel surprised it will catch up from behind.
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kinnar
10/28/2011 3:18 AM EDT
AMCC has come up very fast with the working FPGA prototype of 64bit ARM V8 Series of Processors. When can the silicon will release it will be in high demand if the manufacturer announces the support for the operating system.
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DBSingh180
10/28/2011 1:15 PM EDT
MS is going to support ARM starting windows 8. I have a sense that it's also going to be for 64-bit.
The most encouraging part of this news article is a chip company demonstrating a new architecture using FPGA and not wasting huge sum on getting a test vehicle done for architecture eval.
Hope good sense prevails and this continues....
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timemerchant
10/30/2011 4:12 AM EDT
It was a matter of time. Well done. IBM charged AMCC a wack for the PowerPC 4xx cores, and MIPS did the same to their customers, while ARM charged modest licencing fees (see annual statements). Don't worry too much about the Intel/ ARM competition, the competition between the various ARM vendors will be fierce. It will take a while before you can walk into a store and assemble a motherboard, some RAM, an Intel or AMD 64-bit quad core and cheap hard drive. As for porting software, memory mapped I/O on the ARM and C/C++ software favours RISC; just look at the output of a compiler, and anyway, if you need to write in assembler, anything is better than the curse of the x86 instruction set. There is one Intel, the pie for ARM is cut into over a hundred pieces.
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TingLu
10/31/2011 10:42 AM EDT
If I am Intel, I will be worried. I think Intel should seriously consider to license v8 Architecture as they did many years ago to create Xscale. Combining with its processing technology and server experience, it will leave no room for other v8 licensees to grow in this sector.
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TingLu
10/31/2011 11:05 AM EDT
I am not sure anyone noticed that AMCC implemented entire X-Gene core into 2 of 6 Xilinx V6 FPGAs from presentation. Although it is 64-bit processor, I am suspecting its performance might be below ARM 32-bit Cortex-A15 processor, at least per MHz performance. Xilinx just released Virtex-2000T device. If AMCC could get hold of those devices, it will be their dream comes true. They could fit entire chip into one 2000T device.
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timemerchant
11/3/2011 6:30 AM EDT
I hope a RISC offering is finally successful in delivering a cheaper server. All those promises in the mid 1980s about RISC is cheaper never materialised. I went through the Sun, DEC and SGI workstations, and they were anything but cheaper. They are now at the bottom of some landfill. If 64-bit is really the issue, then we can only see how poorly SPARC, PowerPC and MIPS have executed in competing with the x86-64. Bit of a pity that ARM decided to only release the architecture specs to silicon partners, as it will take some time to develop simulators and debuggers, and even ARM had to buy compiler vendor Keil to make headway when they had a compiler product that was marketed like some middle eastern market. It started off at $4500 and eventually letters arrived with a $2500 price. Thankfully I never bought at $4500. This is going to take at least two years to unfold, but getting some standard will be like herding cats.
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