In 2010, Applied Micro made a strategic decision; courageous or foolhardy, depending upon where you sat in the communications processor world. That decision was to sign an architectural license for ARMs 64bit v8 processor cores and to embark on the design of a multicore device.
The company incoming CEO at the time perceived the need to rethink the architecture of server processors in order to achieve a better balance between power and performance and to make such processors more attractive economically. In itself, the decision to follow the ARM route was not an issue; the interesting factor was that ARM had still to finalize the v8 architecture. It was, to a certain extent, a case of the chicken arriving before the egg. Early involvement allowed Applied Micro to help ARM to complete the v8 specification and to write more than 20,000 instruction set verification tests.
Spin forward to 2014 and the fruits of Applied Micro labors can be seen in the shape of X - Gene, although the development process passed an interim stage in which an FPGA based version of the processor was created. The reason for the interest in the v8 architecture- not only from the supply side but also from developers- is the need to reduce the amount of power consumed by server farms and the like. Instead of chasing raw performance, data center developers are now looking to maximize parameters such as performance per Watt, as well as getting the most performance for their money.
Gaurav Singh, Applied Micros VP of engineering and product development, said: X-Gene is an ARMv8 compatible design. Its a high-performance CPU compared with existing ARM designs and we are looking for the device to provide 80 to 90% of the performance that operators would expect from a high-end Intel Xeon processor. Singh described X-Gene. It is a four-issue out of order CPU running at 2.4GHz. It has a range of high-end features and includes performance optimization for hypervisors.
The company incoming CEO at the time perceived the need to rethink the architecture of server processors in order to achieve a better balance between power and performance and to make such processors more attractive economically. In itself, the decision to follow the ARM route was not an issue; the interesting factor was that ARM had still to finalize the v8 architecture. It was, to a certain extent, a case of the chicken arriving before the egg. Early involvement allowed Applied Micro to help ARM to complete the v8 specification and to write more than 20,000 instruction set verification tests.
Spin forward to 2014 and the fruits of Applied Micro labors can be seen in the shape of X - Gene, although the development process passed an interim stage in which an FPGA based version of the processor was created. The reason for the interest in the v8 architecture- not only from the supply side but also from developers- is the need to reduce the amount of power consumed by server farms and the like. Instead of chasing raw performance, data center developers are now looking to maximize parameters such as performance per Watt, as well as getting the most performance for their money.
Gaurav Singh, Applied Micros VP of engineering and product development, said: X-Gene is an ARMv8 compatible design. Its a high-performance CPU compared with existing ARM designs and we are looking for the device to provide 80 to 90% of the performance that operators would expect from a high-end Intel Xeon processor. Singh described X-Gene. It is a four-issue out of order CPU running at 2.4GHz. It has a range of high-end features and includes performance optimization for hypervisors.
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