Showing posts with label GIGABYTE Technology. Show all posts
ARM microchips are used by millions of people to connect everyday
devices and appliances over the internet. Arm’s designs lie at the heart
of almost every smartphone sold today. Many cheaper phones use its
off-the-shelf chips but for more sophisticated and expensive handsets,
chipmakers often customise Arm’s technology to produce more distinctive
features. With Intel backing out of the mobile processor market earlier
this year to focus on servers, modems and the “internet of things”,
there are few viable alternatives to Arm.
Television
Many
modern televisions enable users to watch programmes and films through apps such
as Netflix, which are powered by ARM-based processors. The firm’s technology is
also frequently used in remote controls and set-top boxes.
Smartphones
and tablets
ARM
technology helps power both smartphones and iPads. E-readers, such as Kindles,
and digital cameras also use the products.
Home
‘smart’ systems
Smart
household appliances often use ARM-based chips to give homeowners greater
control over their functions – and costs. This can include internet-connected
thermostats, allowing users to control their heating via their smartphone,
fridges that alert users when they have run out of groceries, and electricity
metres that can help save money on energy bills.
Wearable
gadgets
Fitness
trackers and smart watches are becoming increasingly popular with consumers.
These gadgets have relied on ARM technology for years.
Internal
car systems
ARM-based
chips are frequently used in cars to show drivers maps, offer voice recognition
and to control music. They are also being used in prototypes for self-driving
cars to power systems that trigger automatic electronic braking, for example.
The technology could also be used in smart roads warning drivers about spots of
black ice ahead.
Drones
Drones
are becoming increasingly popular, be it families flying them in the park or
photographers capturing aerial shots. They rely on tiny computers called
microcontrollers and ARM estimates that a quarter of the chips made last year
used its technology.
Energy
efficient cities
Street
lamps that dim themselves and parking meters that detect when spaces are empty
are examples of sensors being used by cities to cut costs and help inhabitants.
ARM believes this sector holds great potential for its business.
During our work with the Cavium ThunderX platform, we have had access to a single 48-core ARMv8 2.0GHz SKU. Cavium’s strategy is to target different processor models into different market. Aside from clock speed and core count, Cavium has feature-based differentiation for its different ThunderX product families. We received permission to publish information on the different SKUs and their unique features.
The four Cavium ThunderX families (ThunderX_CP, ThunderX_ST, ThunderX_SC, ThunderX_NT) have a similar base architecture. From this common architecture, each chip is tailored to its targeted application. There are a few common underpinnings but this is the basic block diagram that shows all potential components of the platform.
The ThunderX_CP family is targeted at compute workloads. These chips target public and private clouds, web caching and web serving, search, social media and similar applications. The main accelerator in this family is the vSwitch Offload Engine. If you think about the application workload this is targeted at, one will take advantage of the high speed networking, multitude of cores and RAM bandwidth.
With Cavium’s strong networking portfolio as well as 16x SATA III 6.0gbps ports (60% more than a comparable Intel single socket system), storage is an application where the ThunderX architecture is well suited. The ThunderX_ST family targets block, object and distributed file storage workloads, distributed database applications and Hadoop style workloads. It comes in 8-48 core variants and has additional hardware accelerators such as the compression engine available.
Building on the high core count and the high-end networking throughput, the Cavium ThunderX_SC is focused on applications like eCommerce web servers. Cavium includes hardware accelerators for SSL, IPSec, deep packet inspection, anti-virus and anti-malware to free CPU cycles. Cavium has IP that it uses in dedicated Nitrox III chips that it leverages here.
With Cavium’s background as a networking company, and given the specs of the ThunderX chips, one area we think the company will do well in is in the networking and SP cloud space. The ThunderX_NT targets network function virtualization (NFV) servers and the telecom clouds being deployed with a mix of high bandwidth along with hardware accelerators. Like the storage family, the networking focused family can scale from 8-48 cores.
Final Words
We have been working with a single socket Cavium ThunderX machine, the Gigabyte R120-T30 server thus far and the results have been impressive. Cavium is embracing a different approach to product differentiation than Intel. While Intel is generally focused on raw x86 performance, Cavium’s SoC design allows it to differentiate on features. This can include networking, storage accelerators and other vectors. The Cavium ThunderX family is the first ARMv8 chip we have seen, in production, that can legitimately match and outpace parts of the Intel Xeon E5 line in terms of performance.
Today
GIGABYTE Technology and Cavium announced a new set of servers built on the
industry-leading ThunderX family of workload-optimized ARM server SoCs.
According to Cavium, the collaboration brings the world’s most powerful 64-bit
ARM-based servers to market to address increasingly demanding application and
workload requirements.
"The momentum for ARM-based servers is building and the new range of server products from GIGABYTE and Cavium enhances choice for companies seeking to match compute needs with the most energy and cost-effective solutions,” said Lakshmi Mandyam, senior marketing director of server program, ARM. “It is excellent to see ARM partners at the heart of driving innovative solutions that are delivering to the rigorous demands of cloud data center application and workload diversity.”
The server launch comes on the heels of news that ARM is being acquired by Softbank investment group in Japan. At a joint event in Shanghai, GIGABYTE and Cavium officially announced the release of a range of 14 server SKUs – the results of co-operation based on the Cavium ThunderX platform, utilizing GIGABYTE’s almost 20 years of experience in the server industry. With these products, the partnership has produced a compelling, high performance alternative to the incumbent solutions in the market. GIGABYTE and Cavium had the honor of inviting ecosystem partners – ARM, Innodisk, Linaro, Qlogic, Red Hat, and Suse – all of which have committed resource to bringing ARM-based servers to the mainstream enterprise market – as guest speakers at the event. GIGABYTE and Cavium are working with these stakeholders to bring higher performance-per-dollar to the server market and open up a range of potential new applications.
This solution targets high performance volume servers deployed by Public/Private Cloud and Telco data centers. It is optimized for key Data Center workloads including compute, security, storage, and distributed databases. GIGABYTE ThunderX servers deliver comparable performance at a more compelling TCO than traditional x86 server systems.
Key GIGABYTE ThunderX Server Features:
- - Adoption of the first dual-socket ARM SoC architecture that scales
up to 48 cores per processor with up to 2.0 GHz core frequency
- - The highest integrated I/O capability with up to 160Gb of I/O
bandwidth
- - Four DDR4 72 bit memory controllers capable of supporting up to 1TB
of memory in a dual socket configuration at 2133MHz
- - Best in class performance per watt and performance per dollar for
storage and compute applications
- - A comprehensive range of designs, from cost-focused entry level
solutions to high density storage and compute focused platforms
-
"GIGABYTE has developed and is already shipping a range of Cavium ThunderX-based server products to customers in US, Europe and Asia,” said Andy Chen, AVP, Network and Communications Business Unit, GIGABYTE. “Our comprehensive portfolio of ThunderX-based systems is available for order and a number of customers have already received production units. We are seeing strong demand for these ARM-based platforms – especially from cloud service providers".
