AppliedMicro rolled out its 64-bit, ARM v8-based X-Gene server SoC last week at ARM TechCon 2011. The company put on a 1-hour presentation that I unfortunately missed. However, the presentation with slides is now on line and they will provide you with some additional information to whet your curiosity. I’ll give you the link to see the video, but first here are just a few slides to help you better understand this announcement.
First, here’s a photo of the ARM v8 processor core layout that’s going into the AppliedMicro X-Gene SoC:
AppliedMicro plans to put as many as 128 of these 64-bit ARM v8 cores on one chip along with “ARM-based” network accelerators. AppliedMicro also announced that TSMC will make the SoCs using 40nm and 28nm fab processes. According to the presentation, each processor core will dissipate about 2W, so the 128-core design might not be in the immediate future but 10 such 64-bit cores consuming 20W, now that’s mighty compelling. Here’s a block diagram:
Now the first actual X-Gene chip isn’t going to be available until late 2012. Meanwhile, AppliedMicro wants/needs to jumpstart software development and is doing so with an FPGA emulation board based on Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGAs that will be available early in 2012. Here’s a photo of the X-Gene FPGA emulation board:
Finally, here’s a shot of the X-gene FPGA emulation board with some critical blocks including the multicore, 64-bit ARM v8 processor complex and the on-chip terabit routing fabric highlighted:
To see the full video presentation and the slides, click here.
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