Top 10 shifts in chips, comms

Rise of the mega data center

At the other end of the extreme, cloud computing gained steam. A dozen or so mega data centers from companies such as Amazon, eBay, Facebook and Google commanded an increasing share of business and an outsized portion of the innovation in severs, switching and storage.

The big back end systems were at the receiving end of the growth in mobile and Internet data of all types. They fueled the flood with their own social networks and Instagrams. In presentation after presentation, industry observers pointed to a rising data deluge.

Facebook courted the open source movement, flinging open its doors to show the world exactly what sorts of systems it wants to buy. In reaction, Google cracked its doors slightly, but most mega data centers continued to work under the cover of NDAs as they sorted out their road maps.

Related stories:

Slideshow: Facebook remakes the server

Google opens doors to its data centers -- sort of


Ten shifts in chips, comms:

• A down year
• The shift to the mobile cloud
• The rise of the mega data center
• Moore’s Law slows
• The winners: ARM
• MIPS on the ropes
• More winners: Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm
• Roads diverge for Wintel
• The Losers: Elpida, Nokia, AMD, Renesas, STM, TI
• The next big thing in networking: SDN