64-core Chip AppliedMicro could trigger war ARM core

A ten-year-olds to handle core counts in x 86 may have lulled the chip, but the competition has just started to collect on ARM processors.

AppliedMicro, which is making ARM processors in 64-bit, will put up to 64 cores in its next Gene-chip X 3 server, said Gaurav Singh, vice President of engineering and product development at the company, during the Hot Chips Conference in Cupertino, California.

[Keep on news headlines of the day tech with InfoWorld to today's headlines: Wrap Up newsletter.]

The nearest rival to Gene X-3 will be the chip maker Cavium Networks ThunderX. The ThunderX is a 48-core server and arm was announced in June.

The X 3 is a great upgrade from another version, the X-2 Gene, which will have up to 16 cores. Gene-X 3 will be available for producers of servers for testing next year.

Added CPU core is a mode of consumption to increase processing power. ARM processors are typically used in smartphones and tablets, AppliedMicro's goal is to put as many low-power cores as possible in a dense server so performance can be increased when the customers need.

"It is possible to increase the density of performance," said Singh.

ARM-based chips are also smaller, so you can cram more CPU cores within a dense server. X 86 server chip comparison are larger, generate more heat and must fit within the limits of a power system.

AppliedMicro's goal is to operate the X 3 with up to 64-core speeds up to 3.0 GHz servers that draw up to 160 watts of power, Singh said. The company is betting its chips for use in web hosting, cloud applications and high-performance computing.

The chip maker has started adding core as an alternative to increase the CPU clock speed, which caused the chips draw more power. 64 cores in Gene-X 3 core count plans any x 86 or ARM chip servers to date.

Intel has gone to 15 households on its x 86 server chips, Advanced Micro Devices to 16 cores on its x 86 and Opteron chips 8-core Opteron chips in its upcoming A1100 codename for Seattle, which relies on the arm.

The first multicore Power4 chip, was introduced by IBM in 2001. War between Intel and AMD core took off in 2004 and slowed at the turn of the Decade. 64-bit servers have not yet mailed arm, but has now dismissed AppliedMicro first salvo on the front of the arm.

The first 64-bit server arm will come out in a few months and "absolutely by the end of the year," said Singh.

The first server will come with the X-Gene chip 8-core, which was introduced in 2011. AppliedMicro will bring performance improvements to 2 X-Gene and Gene-X 3, while reducing the size of the chip, which will make it possible to keep adding more cores, while keeping the power draw in check, said Singh.

Singh admitted the Gene-X has taken longer than expected, but the company was putting in a lot of effort to develop the hardware and software ecosystem.

"We had to open a lot of doors to show that we were a viable alternative," said Singh. "We had to drive a lot of that ourselves, just to make sure that the debugger, OSes and all were up and running."

Intel, Nvidia and AMD Supercomputing chip with 60 core and higher of the ship, but those are considered co-processors who work alongside the main CPU.

AppliedMicro shared details of his X-2 Gene and Gene-3 X Hot Chips Conference.

Agam Shah covers PC, Tablet PC, server, and semiconductor chips for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. E-mail address of Agam is agam_shah@idg.com

View the original article here