AMD Unveils ARM-based CPU and Development Platform

The newly unveiled AMD Opteron A-Series processor – codenamed ‘Seattle’ is AMD’s first ever ARM (News - Alert)-based CPU that is capable of bringing about a new age in data management.

Along with the new CPU series, AMD also unveiled a development platform which includes an evaluation board and a comprehensive software suite. Seattle processors are built using 28 nanometer process technology and they will be aptly supported by a broad set of tools and software including a standard UEFI boot and Linux environment based on the Fedora Project, a Red Hat (News - Alert)-sponsored, community-driven Linux distribution.

Suresh Gopalakrishnan, corporate vice president and general manager at AMD server business unit, said, “The needs of the data center are changing. A one-size-fits-all approach typically limits efficiency and results in higher-cost solutions. The new ARM-based AMD (News - Alert) Opteron A-Series processor brings the experience and technology portfolio of an established server processor vendor to the ARM ecosystem and provides the ideal complement to our established AMD Opteron x86 server processors.”

The newly released development kit is said to be loaded with a Micro-ATX motherboard, A1100 processor, four DIMM slots for up to 128GB of DDR3 DRAM, PCI (News - Alert) Express connectors configurable as a single x8 or dual x4 ports and eight SATA ports.

The Seattle processors can support 4 or 8 core ARM Cortex-A57 processors and features support for 8 lanes of PCI-Express Gen 3 I/O, 8 Serial ATA 3 ports and two 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports. It is compatible with standard power supplies and is packed with 4 MB of shared L2 and 8 MB of shared L3 cache.

The Seattle processors should help users design software for servers and AMD is also planning to release a micro-server design that leverages the new Opteron A-series. The company is also working with other industry majors in order to realize a robust 64-bit software ecosystem for ARM-based designs from compilers and simulators to hypervisors, operating systems and application software.

AMD stated that it is working towards realizing customized solutions that deliver highest performance with the lowest power consumption instead of forcing users to purchase one-size fits all server platforms and the new Opteron A1100 series is part of that effort.