Ampere SoC Designed for Cloud Computing Comes with 32 ARMv8 Cores @ 3.3 GHz, Supports up to 1TB RAM

Ampere is a brand new company that has just launched to “address memory performance, cost, space and power constraints for emerging hyperscale cloud applications and next-generation data centers”, and whose founders include Renee James (CEO), former president of Intel, among other “semiconductor and cloud computing experts”.

Their upcoming 64-bit Arm server processors aim to achieve those goals via thirty two custom Armv8-A cores operating at up to 3.3 GHz, support for up to 1TB of RAM, and a 125 Watts power envelop, or around 4 Watts per core.

Ampere SoC specifications listed by the company:

• Processor Subsystem
  • 32x Armv8 64-bit CPU cores up to 3.3 GHz with Turbo
  • 32 KB L1 I-cache, 32 KB L1 D-cache per core
  • Shared 256 KB L2 cache per 2 cores
• System Memory
  • 32 MB globally shared L3 cache
  • 8x 72-bit DDR4-2667 channels
  • Advanced ECC and DDR4 RAS features
  • Up to 16 DIMMs, 1 TB/socket
• Storage – 4x SATA Gen 3 ports
• System Resources
  • Full interrupt virtualization
  • I/O virtualization
  • Enterprise server-class RAS
    • End-to-end data poisoning
    • Error containment and isolation
    • Background L3 and DRAM scrubbing
  • Expansion – 42x lanes of PCIe Gen 3 with up to 8 controllers: x16 or two x8/x4, x16 or two x8/x4, x8 or two x4, and two x1
• USB – 2x USB 2.0 ports
• Advanced Power Management – Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI) v6.x, Dynamic Frequency Scaling (DFS), on-die thermal monitoring, dynamic power estimation and Turbo mode
• Power – 125 Watts TDP
• Process – TSMC 16 nm FinFET+

The SoC complies with SBSA Level 3 and SBBR (server base boot requirements) specifications, and supports EL3 secure memory and secure boot. There’s also a built-in Gigabit Ethernet port not shown in the block diagram, nor the specs, but mentioned in the product brief. CPU and I/O virtualization is also supported for running workloads and applications within virtual machines.

An Ampere Development Platform is also available with the following hardware and software features:

• 19” chassis with an evaluation board featuring a built-in power supply, DRAM memory, storage disks and networking
• Boot and Power management firmware
• Arm Trusted Firmware (ATF)
• AMI AptioV UEFI BIOS with support for all the device peripherals, VGA and a configuration GUI
• CentOS Operating System
• GCC and LLVM tool chains
• AMI MEGARAC BMC firmware for baseboard management
• Built-in support for workload accelerators
• Documentation and collateral

The processors are sampling now, and mass production is schedule to start in H2 2018.

Via Twitter and Sanders

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