Showing posts with label Arm Kit. Show all posts
Parties to work together to accelerate virtualized BBUs based on General-Purpose Processors
SAN JOSE, CA December 8th, 2016 - Today, Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), a leading provider of semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing for Enterprise, Telco, MSP and cloud data centers, announced an agreement with China Unicom to accelerate the design and development of Virtualized BBU and provide a path for 5G adoption. The collaboration will focus on commercializing vBBU systems using general purpose hardware based on Cavium’s ThunderX® workload optimized data server processors which are built on ARM architecture. In addition, Cavium has joined the China Unicom CORD Industry Alliance and will drive adoption of open source architecture and technologies in China together with China Unicom.
China Unicom and Cavium will work together on new innovative fronthaul solutions, system architecture and vBBU performance and deployment. This collaboration allows Cavium to align with China Unicom’s commercial networks technology development and innovation, research feasibility of Next Generation Virtualized Wireless Access Network, perform lab and field testing, evaluate results, drive deployment of developed technologies into commercial network, carry out lab and field performance test and assessment, accelerate pilot and application of new technical innovations in real-world networks.
“We are very pleased to collaborate with China Unicom in this critical area. As network capacity continues to be stretched and the user demands continue to grow the industry is faced with significant challenges which cannot be solved by traditional means,” said Raj Singh General Manager of the Wireless Broadband Group at Cavium. “The use of advanced general purpose hardware such as Cavium’s ThunderX workload optimized data severs allows us to provide a highly scalable virtualized solution for these requirements.”
“Virtualized network based on general purpose hardware and open source technologies represents the overall direction for future network changes. China Unicom partners with Cavium, a leader in virtualized BBU technology field, to drive R&D of virtualization products based on general purpose processors, thus laying a solid foundation for building new generation of network infrastructure,” said Dr. Tang Xiongyan, CTO of Network Technology Research Institute, China Unicom.
About Cavium
Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), offers a broad portfolio of integrated, software compatible processors ranging in performance from 1Gbps to 100Gbps that enable secure, intelligent functionality in Enterprise, Data Center, Broadband/Consumer, Mobile and Service Provider Equipment, highly programmable switches which scale to 3.2Tbps and Ethernet and Fibre Channel adapters up to 100Gbps. Cavium processors are supported by ecosystem partners that provide operating systems, tools and application support, hardware reference designs and other products. Cavium is headquartered in San Jose, CA with design centers in California, Massachusetts, India, China and Taiwan. For more information, please visit: http://www.cavium.com.
Media Contact
Angel Atondo
Sr. Marketing Communications Manager
Telephone: +1 408-943-7417
Email: angel.atondo@cavium.com
Microsoft has announced a partnership with Qualcomm to bring Windows 10 - real Windows 10, not the aborted cut-down version formerly known as Windows RT - to the company's ARM processors.
Microsoft's previous attempts at playing with non-x86/AMD64 platforms have not exactly set the world aflame. The company has long offered an embedded Windows release which supports ARM and other non-x86/AMD64 architectures, and recently made that available to a wider audience under the moniker Windows 10 IoT Core. Although Windows 10 IoT Core does indeed run on ARM-based devices, in particular the popular Raspberry Pi single-board computer, it's not Windows as most users would know it; instead it's a cut-down operating system designed to run a single application at a time, and built with the intention of winning over embedded developers from Linux and other non-Windows kernels to the Windows ecosystem.
The closest Microsoft has ever come to a true release of a consumer-centric Windows version on ARM was Windows RT, launched alongside Windows 8 on Microsoft's Surface family of tablets. While one or two hardware partners licensed Windows RT, it was soon abandoned by both third parties and Microsoft itself: Microsoft confirmed in 2015 that Windows RT would not be updated to a Windows 10-based version, and sank the final nail into its coffin a few months later by leaving Windows RT out of its so-called 'Universal' Windows Platform.
Now, though, Microsoft is having another crack of the whip, and it's convinced Qualcomm to come along for the ride. Devices built around Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon processors will, the companies have jointly announced, be able to run Windows 10 - and this time it's truly the same release of Windows you'd find on an x86/AMD64 device. Not only will it run Windows 10, mind you, but also Windows 10's considerable ecosystem of applications - including those compiled exclusively for Win32 under the x86 architecture and the Universal Windows Platform.
'To deliver on our customers' growing needs to create on the go, we announced today that Windows 10 is coming to ARM through our partnership with Qualcomm,' explained Microsoft's Terry Myerson in a blog post late last night. 'For the first time ever, our customers will be able to experience the Windows they know with all the apps, peripherals, and enterprise capabilities they require, on a truly mobile, power efficient, always-connected cellular PC.'
Technical details of how the system will work have not yet been released, but the secret lies in emulation: a translation engine will take the x86/AMD64 instructions from the operating system and the software it's hosting and translate them into ARM instructions for the host processor. It's a tried-and-tested approach which gave machines like the Acorn Archimedes and Commodore Amiga basic x86 support in the 1980s and 1990s, though one which typically comes with a considerable performance hit - something for which Qualcomm's latest chips, it is to be hoped, can compensate.
A video demonstrating Windows 10 and Adobe Photoshop running on an ARM-based device is reproduced below, with Qualcomm and Microsoft promising to launch the first units some time next year.
BARCELONA, SPAIN – Oct. 25, 2016 –Cavium,
Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), a leading provider of semiconductor products that
enable intelligent processing for enterprise, data center, cloud, wired
and wireless networking, will showcase highly optimized platforms
enabling OpenStack® deployments based on Cavium’s award-winning ThunderX®, LiquidIO® and FastLinQ™ Ethernet adapter product lines during OpenStack Summit being held in Barcelona Spain October 25 - 28.
OpenStack
is the most widely deployed open source software for building clouds.
Enterprises use OpenStack to support rapid deployment of new products,
reduce costs and improve internal systems. Service providers use
OpenStack to give customers reliable, easily accessible cloud
infrastructure resources, supporting technologies including VMs, bare
metal and containers.
Cavium's
ThunderX ARMv8 based workload optimized processor integrates key
capabilities that are critical for the most demanding Public and Private
Cloud workloads. The OpenStack cloud infrastructure enables end users
to fully utilize ThunderX features for critical workloads such as cloud
storage with CEPH, Apache Hadoop for Big Data Analytics, distributed
data bases such as MySQL and Cassandra and secure web serving with
NGINX. ThunderX is also optimized for networking specific workloads such
as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Load-Balancing for Telco
applications.
Cavium's
LiquidIO II Intelligent Server adapters fully support and seamlessly
integrate OpenStack software value-add functionality for application
acceleration, network configuration and provisioning, security, and
isolation in multi-tenant compute clusters. LiquidIO Open Virtual Switch
(OVS) offload enables various Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and
security features as a workload specific Virtual Network Function (VNF)
or as a Service Function Chain (SFC) with seamless configuration and
provisioning using OpenStack platform.
Cavium
QLogic FastLinQ 45000 Series comprise the next generation of Ethernet
adapters with the capability to support 10/25/40/50/100GbE while
delivering a broad set of protocols, features, speeds and capabilities,
including Universal RDMA, and stateless offloads for server and network
virtualization. FastLinQ Ethernet Adapters are integrated with common
OpenStack deployment and orchestration frameworks like Mirantis FUEL
which enables OpenStack cloud deployments and operations to be
simplified and accelerated.
Cavium will showcase the following ThunderX, LiquidIO and FastLinQ product lines in booth B36:
- ThunderX: 64–bit ARMv8 based SoC family of workload optimized processors with a range of SKUs and form factors optimized for hyperscale data centers targeting cloud computing and NFV, which include volume compute, storage, secure compute and networking specific workloads.
- Software Ecosystem partners supporting ThunderX including Canonical, Red Hat and SUSE
- LiquidIO: 10/25/40GbE Intelligent Server and network appliance adapters accelerating network performance for SDN and NFV application by offloading Open vSwitch and standard Overlay tunnel protocols with OpenStack API services and plugins. Cloud data centers benefit with additional high performance security and storage offloads including IPsec protocol acceleration with the highest performance and low CPU utilization.
- QLogic FastLinQ™ – 10/25/40/50/100GbE Ethernet adapters that accelerate the deployment of OpenStack by delivering the ability to orchestrate and manage an OpenStack deployment with technologies like the Plug-in for Mirantis® Fuel for automatic SR-IOV configuration, QConvergeConsole (QCC) for OpenStack physical and logical topology maps and ability to deliver QoS for network functions.
To schedule a meeting with Cavium during OpenStack Summit, please contact your local sales account manager or Lilly Ly (lly@cavium.com).
About Cavium
Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), is a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing in enterprise, data center, cloud and wired and wireless service provider applications. Cavium offers a broad portfolio of integrated, software-compatible products ranging in performance from 100 Mbps to 100 Gbps that enable secure and intelligent functionality for compute, network connectivity, storage and wireless applications. Cavium's processors are supported by ecosystem partners that provide operating systems, tool support, reference designs and other services. Cavium's principal office is in San Jose, CA with design team locations in California, Massachusetts, India and China. For more information, please visit : http://www.cavium.com
Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), is a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing in enterprise, data center, cloud and wired and wireless service provider applications. Cavium offers a broad portfolio of integrated, software-compatible products ranging in performance from 100 Mbps to 100 Gbps that enable secure and intelligent functionality for compute, network connectivity, storage and wireless applications. Cavium's processors are supported by ecosystem partners that provide operating systems, tool support, reference designs and other services. Cavium's principal office is in San Jose, CA with design team locations in California, Massachusetts, India and China. For more information, please visit : http://www.cavium.com
At the World Robot Conference 2016, which ran from Friday to Tuesday in a southern suburb of Beijing, some companies complained that the event is unlikely to help them due to the overheated market. Manufacturers looking to automate have had a hard time finding workers to operate their robots, and the industry is still struggling with how to better integrate operation systems. The frenzy in China's robotics market is cooling, and people are raising more practical questions about how to best implement robotics in manufacturing.
Beijing-based Yaskawa Shougang Robot Co showcases its industrial robots at the World Robot Conference 2016 in Beijing. Photo: Chen Qingqing/GT
On
a chilly Friday afternoon, dozens of attendees at the World Robot Conference
2016 in suburban Beijing gathered around an industrial robotic arm
demonstrating its delicate grip and wide range of motion.
The
six-axis robotic arm can be used in a wide range of applications such as
assembly, dispensing, materials handling and packaging.
"I
am not surprised by the progress these exhibitors have made in automation. I
know many Chinese factories are equipped with industrial robots to increase
efficiency," an attendee surnamed Zhang told the Global Times on Friday at
the conference, which ended on Tuesday.
China
has been considered a growth market for industrial robots over the last few
years, Vitaly Nedelskiy, president of the Russian Association of Robotics, said
at the conference on Friday.
China's
supply of industrial robots grew by a robust 17 percent in 2015, Nedelskiy
noted. Companies installed 68,000 robots last year, though the ratio of robots
to workers remains far below the global average.
Globally,
the average ratio of robots to workers, known in the industry as robot density,
stood at 69 installed robots for every 10,000 employees in 2015, according to
the International Federation of Robotics (IFR).
By
comparison, China's average robot density is about 49 robots per 10,000
workers, Nedelskiy noted.
Under
its "Made in China 2025" or China's "Industry 4.0," the
Chinese government has set a target for China to have 150 robots per 10,000
workers by 2020.
To
achieve the goal, the country's industrial enterprises would have to add
600,000 to 650,000 industrial robots by the end of the decade, according to the
IFR.
Because
the government is encouraging Chinese manufacturers to install more automated
machinery and robots to boost efficiency, about 3,400 companies around the
country are now engaged in the robotics business, domestic industry news site
robot.ofweek.com reported in May.
However,
the development of China's robotics industry has been uneven and the market has
grown overheated, leaving major challenges that need to be addressed, industry
experts said during the conference.
Men
and machines
Despite
the rapid growth of China's robotics industry, which had about 20 percent of
the domestic market share in 2015, the country lacks workers trained to run the
machines, said Qu Daokui, president of Shenyang SIASUN Robot & Automation
Co. The lack of workers is one of the major issues many Chinese factories are
facing today.
With
the government so clearly behind the robotics industry, factories have jumped
to acquire automated machinery. The city of Dongguan, South China's Guangdong
Province, often referred to as "the world's factory," has adopted a
strategy called "Robotics-powered Smart Manufacturing" to improve the
productivity of local manufacturers.
There
are nearly 200 robot manufacturers in Dongguan, according to a document the
local government sent to the Global Times in February. So far, 400 factories
have been equipped with a total of 10,000 robots.
Although
they have the robots, they still need people to operate them, said Qu, whose
company acquired a German vocational training institution in February.
"More
and more factories are asking us to teach them how to use [industrial robots],
instead of just installing them, which illustrates how important it is to
educate more skillful workers," Qu told the Global Times.
The
lack of trained workers has weighed on some small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) in the Pearl River Delta, said an employee in charge of automation at an
original equipment manufacturer in Dongguan, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity. Dongguan is an industrial powerhouse in the Pearl River Delta
region.
The
situation also jeopardizes the government's goal of automating more of the
city's manufacturing industry.
"It's
hard to find sufficient skillful workers who can handle those machines, and
some factories only use automated machines when local officials visit their
production lines, and they go back to labor-intensive production after [the
officials] leave," the employee told the Global Times on Sunday.
The
factories benefit from the government subsidies they receive for rebranding
themselves as an "automated business," but few local SMEs actually
benefit from installing industrial robots, the employee said.
As
it turns out, operating a robot is a multidisciplinary task involving the
integration of software, hardware and core technologies, experts said.
A
lot of people just think "I'll buy a robot and place it and connect
it", but they end up with a lot of problems, said Oussama Khatib, director
of robotics laboratory at Stanford University.
Technology
and the future
For
those who focus on research and development (R&D) in the robotics sector,
more effort needs to be made to make the machine smarter by introducing more
advanced technologies, but China has a long way to go, industry representatives
said.
The
rise of China's robotics industry has encouraged a growing number of companies
to enter the field, but many of them don't bother with developing their own
core technology and stick to manufacturing low-end products, said Gan Zhongxue,
chief technology officer of the ENN Group.
"Some
elements like the RV reducer and controller are still produced by foreign
companies," he told the Global Times on Friday. An RV reducer, one of
reduction gears, is used for transmission and the controller is used for
controlling the machine.
Purchasing
those components from overseas raises the manufacturing costs for Chinese
robotics companies.
As
far as technological trends are concerned, companies will be concentrating on
the collaboration between humans and machines, simplified applications and
light-weight robots, the IFR said in its World Robotics Report 2016.
And
the demand for industrial robots will likewise be driven by a whole assortment
of factors, such as the handling of new materials, energy efficiency, and
better developed automation concepts, the report said.
For
now, a large part of industrial robots are operating under digital control
systems, but a more harmonized human-robot interaction requires greater
flexibility and autonomous operation in unstructured environments, which is
unlikely to be achieved for the moment, said Zuo Shiquan, head of the equipment
industry institute at the CCID Institute affiliated with the Ministry of
Industry and Information Technology.
"Although
the application of robots in China has expanded in recent years, the next step
ought to be to improve R&D, which will help keep us from falling behind our
foreign competitors," he told the Global Times.
By Chen Qingqing Source:Global Times Published: 2016/10/24 19:38:39
Nobody tell Linux, okay?
Intel's followed up on its acquisition of Altera by baking a microprocessor into a field-programmable gate array (FPGA).
Intel's followed up on its acquisition of Altera by baking a microprocessor into a field-programmable gate array (FPGA).
The Stratix 10 family is part of the
company's push beyond its stagnating PC-and-servers homeland into emerging
markets like high-performance computing and software-defined networking.
Intel says the quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53
processor helps position the device for “high-end compute and data-intensive
applications ranging from data centres, network infrastructure, cloud
computing, and radar and imaging systems.”
Compared to the Stratix V, Altera's
current generation before the Chipzilla slurp, Intel says the Stratix 10 has
five times the density and twice the performance; 70 per cent lower power
consumption at equivalent performance; 10 Tflops (single precision); and 1 TBps
memory bandwidth.
The devices will be pitched at
acceleration and high-performance networking kit.
The Stratix 10 “Hyperflex architecture”
uses bypassable registers – yes, they're called “Hyper-Registers”, which are
associated with individual routing segments in the chip, and are available at
the inputs of “all functional blocks” like adaptive logic modules (ALMs),
embedded memory blocks, and digital signal processing (DSP) blocks.
Designs can bypass individual Hyper-Registers,
so design tools can automatically choose the best register location. Intel says
this means “performance tuning does not require additional ALM resources … and
does not require additional changes or added complexity to the design's
place-and-route.”
The company reckons the design also
cuts down on on-chip routing congestion.
There's more on the architecture in
this white paper.
Oh, and it's got an on-chip ARM core.
Did we mention that? ®
It looks like Intel (NSDQ:INTC) has finally realized the potential of ARM
(NSDQ:ARMH) business prospects. The chipzilla entered into a licensing
agreement with ARM last week, which allows it to manufacture ARM-based mobile
SoCs for fabless chipmakers such as Qualcomm, Apple and Nvidia. The move would
combine Intel’s industry-leading chip fabrication processes with ARM’s highly
efficient mobile designs, and the joint synergies could potentially shake up
the entire semiconductor industry. Let’s take a closer look to have a better
understanding of it all.
- Intel recently struck a licensing agreement with ARM to manufacture its chips.
- The Move could boost Intel's revenues significantly.
- It could also bring upon a cash crunch on Intel's competitors, that could ultimately slow down their rate of progression.
Welcoming
ARM, with arms wide open
Let
me start by saying that Intel has had the world’s most advanced chip
fabrication technologies for several years now. It’s manufacturing lead was as
long as 18 months, back in 2014 and the chipzilla is expected to still stay
ahead of its peers (Taiwan Semiconductor, GlobalFoundries and Samsung) at least
up till 2018. Intel’s competitors were thriving till date due to increasing
business from ARM, but now that Intel has entered the scene with similar
intentions, the bulk of this business would pretty much go to the chipzilla due
to its manufacturing lead. After all, in the cut throat semiconductor industry,
everyone would want their performance chips to be manufactured on the latest
nodes.
2015 Rank
|
2014 Rank
|
Vendor
|
2015 Revenue
|
2015 Market Share (%)
|
2014 Revenue
|
2015-2014 Growth (%)
|
1
|
1
|
TSMC1
|
26,566
|
54.3
|
25,175
|
5.5
|
2
|
3
|
Globalfoundries2
|
4,673
|
9.6
|
4,400
|
6.2
|
3
|
2
|
UMC3
|
4,561
|
9.3
|
4,621
|
-1.3
|
4
|
4
|
Samsung Electronics4
|
2,607
|
5.3
|
2,412
|
8.1
|
5
|
5
|
SMIC
|
2,229
|
4.6
|
1,970
|
13.1
|
6
|
6
|
Powerchip Technology5
|
985
|
2
|
917
|
7.4
|
7
|
7
|
TowerJazz
|
961
|
2
|
828
|
16.1
|
8
|
10
|
Fujitsu Semiconductor
|
845
|
1.7
|
653
|
29.4
|
9
|
8
|
Vanguard International
|
736
|
1.5
|
790
|
-6.9
|
10
|
9
|
Shanghai Huahong Grace Semiconductor
|
651
|
1.3
|
665
|
-2
|
Top 10 for 2015
|
44,814
|
91.7
|
42,431
|
5.6
|
||
Others
|
4,077
|
8.3
|
4,281
|
-7
|
||
Total Market
|
48,891
|
100
|
46,812
|
4.4
|
·
- The global semiconductor foundry
business is estimated to be around $48.8 billion in
size. If Intel manages to slice up even 10% of this market, which shouldn’t be
that hard since it currently has the world’s most-advanced chip fabrication
technologies, its incremental revenues could be to the tune of $4.8 billion.
That’s a significant bump in its top-line, representing an increase of about
8.7% over its FY15 revenue. So its needless to say that Intel would be
opening a big revenue stream with this move. Intel can later use this
additional cash flow to fund its race to global 5G domination.
· -
More to the point, the semiconductor
industry requires billions of spending each year, earmarked towards improving
manufacturing technologies. If Intel manages to take away a sizable market
share from Taiwan Semiconductor and GlobalFoundries, then the their constrained
cash flows could hamper their R&D and capex spending, and ultimately result
in their growth slowdown. So the move to manufacture ARM chips not only serves
as an incremental revenue driver for Intel, but also limits the growth of its
foundry competitors. Talk about taking down two targets with one blow.
·
- Also, once Intel starts manufacturing
ARM-based chips, its factory utilization rate and production volumes would
increase. This should allow the chipmaker to attain better economies of scale,
improve its manufacturing efficiency and at the end of the day, it would become
easier for Intel to keep its fabs busy with the onset of this deal. Its foundry
operations for ARM-based chipmakers would act as a hedge against the slowing
down PC sales. These benefits should translate into better gross margins.
·
- And lastly, the move allows Intel to
capitalize on the mobile opportunity, while it still can. The chipzilla won’t
have to design its own Atom chips for mobile devices anymore in order to tap
the smartphone/tablet segment. So Intel would now be able to cater to the
mobile market, without having to invest billions in contra revenue or
mobile-related R&D spending. I believe that this is a low-risk, high-reward
opportunity for Intel and its shareholders.
Tempering excitement
Just like any other business move,
this one brings its own set of challenges and limitations as well.
· -
First of all, Intel won’t be a
chipmaker like Qualcomm, Apple or Nvidia. It will just be a foundry catering to
other fabless firms. This pretty much means that Intel’s revenue would be
limited to its production volume, regardless of how profitable or popular those
chips become. So its revenue stream could end up being as volatile and seasonal
as Micron’s.
·
- Secondly, if Intel continues in this
direction, it might also end up opening its foundry business to ARM-based
server chipmakers such as Cavium, AMD and Qualcomm. This may prove to be a
death knell for Intel’s highly profitable x86 server business. It could fuel
the growth of ARM servers and there’s a solid chance that they’d end up
cannibalizing Intel’s Xeon sales. So Intel must not head in this direction.
·
- More to the point, Intel’s excess
fabs aren’t running 10nm processes. Manufacturing 10nm chips on large scale
volume by 2018 would require a lot of retooling on Intel’s part. This would
most certainly bump up chipzilla’s capital expenditures over the next few
years, without providing any sort of guarantee that fabless chipmakers would
pick Intel for their manufacturing needs.
Putting it all together
Intel finally realized that other
foundries are its competitors as well. If the chipzilla succeeds in taking
business away from them, it would bring upon a cash crunch and ultimately slow
down the rate of progress of competition. So the move not only stands to boost
Intel’s revenues, but can also potentially impede the growth of its
competition. I see this as an excellent business move forward for Intel and its
shareholders.
