Multicore Packet Processing Forum

Posts Tagged ‘multicore processors review’

By Eric Carmes – 6WIND Founder and CEO

As we are now close to the end of the year, it’s an appropriate time to summarize major 2011 news stories about multicore technology. Processor suppliers are listed in alphabetical order.

• Calxeda: In November, Calxeda launched the ARM-based EnergyCore™ processor targeting low-power servers (Press release). Calxeda was the first company to announce an ARM-based processor to compete with Intel’s server solutions.
• Cavium Networks: In 2011, Cavium extended the range of OCTEON II processors with the 10 and 32-core versions. In October, Cavium also announced the OCTEON Fusion™ series (CNF71xx and CN72xx) integrating multicore CPUs and DSPs (respectively 4 and 6 in the CNF7130) to address the base station market (Press release).
• Freescale: In June Freescale announced the new QorIQ Advanced Multiprocessing Series (Press release). This incorporates a new, multithreaded 64-bit Power Architecture® core, 28-nm process technology and up to 24 virtual cores.
• Intel: Intel continues to release enhanced versions of the embedded multicore Intel® Architecture platforms. Intel also released the Data Plane Development Kit, an optimized software library for high performance packet processing (DPDK page).
• LSI Logic: In February, LSI announced the expansion of the Axxia™ Communication Processor family with the ACP3423, targeted at equipment such as multi-radio base stations and wireless backhaul (Press release). The ACP 3423 features two PowerPC® 476FP processor cores and a wide array of intelligent micro-coded offload engines.
• NetLogic: Of course the main news was the planned acquisition of the company by Broadcom. On the technical side, NetLogic is now shipping the XLP multithreaded MIPS-based processor. In September, NetLogic also announced the XLP II architecture with the most powerful processor of the series that will have 20 cores and 80 threads (Press release).
• Tilera: Tilera is now shipping the first processor in the 64-bit TILEGx series. The TILEGx8036 implements 36 processor cores. The 100-core processor version (TILEGx8100) is expected to be available in Q1 2012.

Please feel free to comment on this list if you think information is missing.