Cavium is currently demonstrating the new 64-bit ARM server processors of the "Thunder" series at Computex in Taipei . However, the 48-core processors are not meant to occupy niches, but are expected to compete directly with General Purpose Server chips. However, different versions of the CPUs are intended to target specific applications, such as storage, networking or security.
Cavium's strategic goal is to go beyond the niche market for low-power server chips, or even micro-server chips that Intel uses with Atom-based server processors. Rather, it wants to attack the Xeon series of the market leader. According to Cavium, these chips consume only about 20 to 95 watts in a unit with multiple Ethernet controllers and other system elements, while a comparable Intel Xeon chip requires over 100 watts of power dissipation. The specialist Boston, for example, had demonstrated last year an ARM server that could be powered by a bicycle dynamo .
It is based on an ARMv8 architecture developed by Cavium, which enables up to 2.5 GHz clocking and supports fast memory as well as virtualization and broadband input / output.Four variants of this system-on-a-chip (SoC) called ThunderX are to be tested as samples from the fourth quarter. They are manufactured by Globalfoundries in a 28 nanometer process. For certain tasks, they include hardware accelerators.
These include the ThunderX_CP for use in web servers, content delivery systems, web caching, or analytics for social media, and the ThunderX_ST for Hadoop and Storage, which includes data protection, security, and compression accelerators. Front-end Web servers and security appliances use the ThunderX_SC, and the ThunderX_NT is for media servers, embedded applications of all sizes, and virtualized networking capabilities.
As partners Cavium Canonical and Hewlett-Packard can show: Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS is optimized for the Cavium chips, HP will use Cavium processors in its server series Moonshot. In addition, the Taiwanese manufacturer Gigabyte server with Thunder processors announced.
The first high-end chips with up to 48 cores will later be followed by cheaper ones with 8 and 16 cores as well as fewer memory controllers. The company also plans dual-socket designs, which then access up to 96 cores through a single processor interface. It did not say anything about the performance.Caviums ARM server processors are tailored to different applications. Source: Cavium
The large number of cores distinguishes Caviums processors from other ARM server designs. For example , AMD is currently delivering an 8-core ARM server SoC , similar to Applied Micro, although this company had already announced plans for an ARM-based 64-bit general-purpose server chip in 2011. Also from Broadcom there are so far only indefinite plans in this direction.
AMD claims to ship 64-bit server SoCs from 2016 onwards. Samsung, meanwhile , is said to have abandoned plans for ARM server chips, while the pioneer Calxeda had to file for bankruptcy in January because he was unsuccessful with 32-bit ARM server chips. At the same time, Cavium is working with MIPS processors for embedded devices. The series planned here is called Octeon.