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| Intel |
As part of the sponsorship agreement, the 49ers will work with vendors to integrate Intel solutions and products for client, server, embedded and security technologies inside the stadium. In addition, Intel will have exclusive branding and naming rights to one of the most heavily used pedestrian areas at the northwest corner of the venue, currently referred to as the "Northwest Plaza." This area will be re-named the "Intel Plaza" and feature a fan experience zone where fans can connect and communicate using the latest products with Intel Inside.
The agreement also includes an integrated media package that includes radio and television advertising, various hospitality assets, and the opportunity to host events at Levi's(R) Stadium with customers and strategic partners throughout the year.
The new stadium, which lies just a few miles from Intel's headquarters at the Robert Noyce Building in the heart of Silicon Valley, is expected to be a showcase for technology. Levi's(R) Stadium will be among the smartest in the world with an adaptable technology infrastructure, scalable hardware, enhanced game-day experiences and "bring your own device" opportunities.
"Intel is one of the most well-known brands in the world with a deep history in Silicon Valley and an impeccable reputation as a leader in technology and innovation," said San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York. "The vision for Levi's(R) Stadium has always been to provide an individually customized user experience through the use of innovative technology, aligning these two organizations perfectly. We are pleased to partner with our good neighbor as we establish Levi's(R) Stadium as the premier outdoor sports and entertainment venue in the world."
Source : MarketWatch
Intel has taken the wraps off Knights Landing, its next-gen, up-to-72-core Xeon Phi supercomputing chip. The main change is that Knights Landing will be a standalone processor, rather than a slot-in coprocessor that must be paired with standard Xeon CPU. Furthermore, Knights Landing will have up to 16GB of DRAM 3D stacked on-package, providing up to 500GB/sec of memory bandwidth (along with up to 384GB of DDR4-2400 mainboard memory). Knights Landing will debut in 2015 on Intel’s 14nm process, and with a promise of 3 teraflops (double precision) per socket it will almost certainly be used to build some monster 100+ petaflop x86 supercomputers, and beyond to exascale.
The current version of Xeon Phi (Knights Corner) is a PCIe expansion board with an up-to-61-core Intel MIC (Many Integrated Core) chip. These cores are based on the original P54C Pentium core — just like its stillborn Larrabee predecessor — but with a lot of modern additions, such as 64-bit support and 512-bit vector registers.
Knights Landing is a major revision of Knights Corner, making sweeping changes across almost the entirety of the platform. Gone are the P54C cores, replaced with up to 72 out-of-order Silvermont (Atom) cores. These new cores will implement AVX-512 (AVX 3.1 instructions). Perhaps most importantly, though, Knights Landing will be a standalone CPU, with an integrated six-channel DDR4-2400 memory controller, up to 16GB of on-package 3D stacked RAM, and 36 PCIe 3.0 lanes.
Source : ExtremeTech
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Intel Corp is trying to sell its yet-to-launch Internet television service for $500 million and wants to complete a deal by year-end, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Verizon Communications, one of the suitors, has spoken with content providers about a streaming television service, Bloomberg also said, citing unnamed sources.
Intel declined to comment on the report.
Intel's project, called OnCue, has faced challenges getting off the ground since it was officially launched in February. The chipmaker's new CEO, Brian Krzanich, ultimately decided Intel could not afford the distraction and expense, sources familiar with the decision told Reuters last week.
Source : Reuters
Intel will release new Atom chips for smartphones and tablets next year as it chases a goal of boosting mobile chip graphics performance by 15 times and CPU performance by five times by 2016.
The 64-bit Atom chips are based on new CPU and graphics cores and will likely appear in smartphones and devices starting in 2015. The new lineup boasts two high-performance mobile chips and the first Atom chip with an integrated modem, which will be for low-priced entry-level devices.
Intel wants to obtain performance leadership with the chips as it continues to improve battery life on devices, said Hermann Eul, vice president and general manager of Mobile and Communications Group at Intel, during a speech at the annual investor day meeting Thursday.
Intel’s chips are used in only a handful of smartphones as it chases market leader ARM, whose processors are used in a majority of smartphones and tablets. Intel’s upcoming mobile chips will be made using its 14-nanometer process, which could bring performance and power benefits.
By the end of 2014, Intel will ship a high-performance mobile chip code-named Cherry Trail, which will be based on an upcoming CPU code-named Airmont. The chip will have Intel’s next-generation graphics.
Cherry Trail will be succeeded by a faster and more power-efficient chip code-named Broxton, which will ship in 2015 and be based on a new CPU core code-named Goldmont. Broxton will have a different chip design compared to its predecessors, and be built into what Intel executives called a “chassis” to which other components can be easily connected.
Source : TechHive
Dell has started selling a thin and light touchscreen laptop called the XPS 13 Developer Edition, which will have Ubuntu Linux OS and Intel’s fourth-generation Core processors, code-named Haswell.
The laptop, code-named Sputnik, has a 13.3-inch touchscreen and will run on Ubuntu 12.04 OS. It is priced starting at $1,250 and is available in the U.S.
With the Linux OS, the laptop is different from other Haswell-based laptops that largely come with the Windows OS. Dell introduced its first Sputnik laptop a year ago as part of an experiment to bring Linux to ultrabook-style laptops.
While the price may be high for a Linux laptop, it has a full high-definition touchscreen and components typically found in high-priced laptops. The cheapest configuration has a Core i5 dual-core processor and 128GB of solid-state drive storage, while a $1,549.99 configuration has 8GB of memory and a 256GB SSD. Other features include the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.
The Linux drivers have been optimized for components in the laptops.
The laptop will be available in Canada next week, and in European countries in December.
Dell has also started testing Ubuntu on the Precision M3800, which is the “big brother” to the XPS 13 Developer Edition, said Barton George, director of cloud developer programs at Dell, in a blog entry.
Source : PCWorld
Intel Media’s On Cue, the company’s not-so-secret internet-based TV service, was supposed to not only change the way pay TV is delivered, but also upgrade the entire TV-watching experience at home. Now, it looks like it’ll belong to someone else.
According to All Things D, the potentially cool pay-TV service headed by the man who helped create the BBC iPlayer, Erik Huggers, is looking at Verizon as a new home. The mobile carrier would either buy the entire division outright or partner with Intel Media to bring the On Cue service out of the holding pattern at Intel and finally introduce it to fans of pay TV. That may not help Intel up its cool factor, but for the Intel Media division, Verizon is the ticket to millions of potential customers.
Intel Media has been a company-within-a-company since December 2011. But the internal TV business wasn’t presented until February 2013 by Erik Huggers at Dive Into Media. Huggers said that TV viewers could expect the company’s over-IP TV service by the end of the year with smarter bundles and a better user experience. He believed that the experience would be enough to woo customers away from their current cable or satellite service.
In fact, Intel’s On Cue experience is superior in many ways than what’s being currently offered on cable and satellite boxes. The UI of the new Intel media box is impressive. Gone are the station numbers and the schedule grid. They’ve been replaced by a flowing list of networks that can be customized. Stop on a network and you’re presented not only with current and future programming, but also programs from as far back as three days ago that can be watched immediately. It’s like a cloud-based DVR that has already recorded every show. The system and hardware are being beta-tested by both Intel employees and select testers outside of Intel. It’s smart, quick, and not at all what you’d expect from the stuffy chip maker.
Intel’s new CEO Brian Krzanich seems to believe the same thing. He voiced his misgivings about Intel entering the wild and wooly content world during a Reuters interview [[WHEN]]. “We believe we have a great user interface and the compression-decompression technology is fantastic,” he said. “But in the end, if we want to provide that service, it comes down to content. We are not big content players.”
If you’re an Intel Media employee, that’s probably the last thing you want to hear from your new boss. But Krzanich is more focused on Intel’s core business, and more importantly, getting its chips in the exploding mobile market. Nearly every smartphone and tablet is currently powered by an ARM processor. Intel may own the desktop and server market, but its mobile strategy has been lacking. Why deal with the distraction of the completely new business when the the core business needs immediate help? And that’s where a potential Verizon deal comes in.
Verizon has five million FIOS TV customers and over 100 million mobile customers. At launch, Verizon could market On Cue to millions of customers. Because the TV service uses broadband to deliver TV instead of cable lines or satellite, the carrier could bundle the service with mobile contracts or with its FIOS TV service. Better yet, because On Cue can deliver crisp video at as little as 3Mbps, Verizon customers could potentially watch live TV on their smartphones and tablets on the mobile network. Your favorite TV shows would not only live in your home, they’d go with you everywhere else too. In fact, one of the biggest hurdles of mobile TV viewing is already being addressed.
On Thursday, Nielsen announced an SDK to help track traditional TV content on mobile devices. Shows viewed on mobile devices will be added to the general Nielsen rating of those shows. Networks use this information to determine how much to charge advertisers and if a show should stay on the air. It’s the traditional ad-revenue business model that networks understand.
Source : Wired
Intel has
reportedly acquired the digital education startup Kno in an attempt to
expand its business in creating a digital environment for classrooms.
Kno is
an education startup company that started out in the hardware market
then transformed into the software by creating apps that would allow
students to read the interactive versions of already existing digitized
textbooks.
Intel, the largest semiconductor chip
maker in the world, is acquiring an education company such as Kno for
several reasons. First one is the fact that Intel Capital was among the
laundry list investors of Kno. The former had been able to raise some
$73.4 million in funding from the day it was founded in 2009.
Eventually, they led their Series C round in 2011 considering the fact
that in the $37.5 million round, the company's investment amounted to
$20 million.
In its official site, Intel has
published the meaty details of its acquisition. Its latest venture in
Kno will boost the company's global digital content library to reach
titles by more than 225,000 in the higher education and K-12 series
through its already existing partnerships with 75 established
educational publishers. Moreover, the Kno platform is designed to cater
to administrators and teachers, providing them with the necessary tools
that would enable them to easily assign, manage, and monitor their
digitized learning content and assessments. With their partnership,
they can help teachers create innovative classroom environments and
personalized learning encounters that would lead to every student's
success.Source : hngn.com
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The Santa Clara, California chipmaker and other technology companies are betting that what they call the 'Internet of Things' - a trend toward connecting everything from bathroom scales to skyscraper ventilation systems via the Internet - will create massive demand for new electronics and software.
As Intel strives to make sure it's not caught off-guard by future technology trends, its new 'Internet of Things Solutions Group' will report directly to Chief Executive Brian Krzanich, according to Doug Davis, the group's general manager.
"Krzanich is saying, 'I want a higher level of focus on this to help us grow it and put the level of attention on it that it deserves,'" Davis told Reuters on Tuesday.
The world's biggest chipmaker, Intel dominates the personal computer industry but was slow to adapt its chips to be suitable for smartphones and tablets. A three-decade Intel manufacturing veteran who took over as CEO in May, Krzanich has made developing mobile chips a higher priority within Intel.
In September, Krzanich announced that Intel was working on a new line of ultra-small and ultra-low-power microchips for wearable devices like smartwatches and bracelets, along with an ingestible version for biomedical uses.
The new solutions group combines an existing Intel business focused on chips for commercial and industrial devices with Intel's Wind River subsidiary, which sells software for commercial and industrial devices.
"We're pulling together a couple of pieces that are already doing well and we want to accelerate those efforts. This creates a primary focus around 'Internet of Things,'" Davis said.
(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
Via: ROUTERS
A similar system is used in the MacBook Air's SSD flash storage. In 2010, Other World Computing released aftermarket SSD upgrades for the MacBook Air, allowing larger SSD options than Apple's 256GB maximum -- for a significant price. The MacBook Air uses a proprietary SSD connector and board, but OWC was able to design replacement storage options for the computer.
Apple did specify that RAM in the new Mac Pro would be user replaceable, but said nothing about the graphics cards. It's likely that the graphics cards, if it's even possible to replace them, would not be an Apple-approved user replaceable part and could affect the product's warranty, much like the aftermarket SSD replacement in the MacBook Air.
Source : Mac Rumors
OnCue was supposed to allow users to watch live TV, on demand, and other offerings. Intel said it would provide the hardware and services directly to consumers and that the box would come with a camera that can detect who is in front of the TV. More than 300 engineers are working on the project under Erik Huggers, the head of Intel Media. A version of the service running on Intel hardware is testing with 3,000 Intel employees. Goodness knows what content they are running. Chipzilla is having difficulty getting content deals.
Intel has yet to announce any TV programming partners, and Time Warner Cable and other cable TV providers have been pressuring channel owners to shun pacts with Intel and other Internet-based TV providers. Samsung, which ships millions of smart TVs, could distribute the service as a bundle, while Amazon could provide access to its growing library of movies and TV shows.
Apple has just released an updated version of its iMac all-in-one computer. The update is a minor one, unlike the considerable redesign it got at the end of last year, but it brings brand new improved performance and internal specs to the iMac line. New features include Intel quad core processors, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and faster PCIe-based flash storage.
These new iMacs now feature a 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor on the base 21.5-inch model, which is the first desktop with Intel’s Crystalwell architecture, and new Iris Pro graphics. Iris Pro is a new Intel GPU that’s popular on mid-range gaming PCs, and should offer considerable improvements over the previous model. There are also CTO options up to 3.4GHz Core i5 Haswell processors, and NVIDIA GeForce 700 series graphics on the top model, with up to 4GB of dedicated memory.
802.11ac networking means the new iMacs can work with the latest AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule routers, which introduced that wireless standard earlier this year. PCIe-based flash storage should offer speed improvements of up to 50 percent over last-gen models, according to Apple, for faster booting, loading of apps and general system performance. All-flash CTO options now range up to a full 1 TB of storage, with Fusion Drives available in either 1TB or 3TB.
8GB of RAM and a 1TB drive are now standard, with 32GB max configuration options for custom orders. Apple starts selling the new iMac today on its website, and in stores as well, according to its press release. Customers can choose between stand-mounted versions, and ones with built-in VESA adapters if they’re mounting on their own swingarms or other hardware. Prices start at $1,299, and range up to $1,999 for base configurations.
The top-end 27-inch model offers up to 40 percent faster graphics, and combined with PCIe and the new Intel Haswell quad-core processors, that’s a might attractive package for anyone doing some gaming or heavy-duty video editing. Plus, it’s all wrapped up in the slimmer body design, which, as mentioned in my review of last year’s model, is a big improvement on the iMac’s aesthetics.
Source : TechCrunch
OS X® Mountain Lion, the ninth major release of the world's most advanced operating system, which brings popular apps and features from iPad® to the Mac® and accelerates the pace of OS X innovation. Mountain Lion introduces Messages, Notes, Reminders and Game Center to the Mac, as well as Notification Center, Share Sheets, Twitter integration and AirPlay® Mirroring. Mountain Lion is the first OS X release built with iCloud® in mind for easy setup and integration with apps.
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At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, representatives from Google, Intel, Acer and HP showed off a new line of Chromebooks based Intel's Haswell processor family, noted for its power efficiency, not to mention its computational competency.
It was a Haswell-based Core i5 that helped double the battery life of the MacBook Air model launched by Apple in June. The forthcoming round of Chromebooks, which will cost much less than the MacBook Air, won't see quite as dramatic an improvement but the results will still be significant.
"The battery life on the new Chromebooks will be up to 50% better, and the trick is also doing that while delivering amazing levels of performance," said Navin Shenoy, VP of Intel's PC client group and general manager of the mobile platform division, in a press briefing. "And we'll see 15% or more improvement on performance using Haswell."
hat means Chromebooks should last for about nine to 10 hours on a single battery charge.
Google is gaining new hardware partners, too. Of the four hardware partners that have committed to bring Haswell-based Chromebooks to market, two are new: Asus and Toshiba.
The two hardware manufacturers join current Chromebook makers Acer, HP, Lenovo and Samsung. This growing stable of partners suggests demand for devices running Google's Chrome OS has created a meaningful market. Already this year, HP and Lenovo boarded the Chromebook bandwagon, in conjunction with retailers including Best Buy, Staples and Wal-Mart in the U.S.
Caesar Sengupta, product management director for Chromebooks, said Google began developing Chrome OS as a way to unify the multi-screen world through the cloud.
Source : Informationweek
Intel is bringing its low-power Atom chips to the cloud. Today the chipmaker announced the commercial availability of products based on the new Atom C2000, a low-power chip previously known by the codename Avoton. The new chip is designed to bring the power efficiency of mobile phones into the hyperscale environments of cloud data centers.
Intel said the new 22nm chip will also allow it to expand into areas such as cold storage and entry-level networking, which loom as growth markets as data center operators look beyond servers to improve power efficiency across their entire infrastructure.
“As the world becomes more and more mobile, the pressure to support billions of devices and users is changing the very composition of data centers,” said Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of the Datacenter and Connected Systems Group at Intel. “With the Atom C2000, we are signaling Intel’s shift from general-purpose solution delivery to optimized, targeted products that address a range of specialized workloads to delvier greater efficiency to the data center.”
Intel also announced the commercial availability of technology enabling a“disaggregated rack” combining Intel’s servers and silicon photonics technology with new cabling products from Corning to create a high-speed networking architecture. Microsoft said it intends to integrate the silicon photonics technology into its future data centers. The technology has also been tested with Facebook, Rackspace and Baidu.
Bryant said Intel is driving “a fundamental transformation of the rack” in which high-speed networking provides data center designers with new options to distribute components and workloads.
New Applications, New Frontiers for Intel
The Atom C2000, formerly code named Avoton, is positioned as low power, and application optimized for data centers and communications. It is Intel’s second generation 64-bit server SoC, manufactured using a 22nm process, and is the first processor based on the next generation Silvermont architecture. With a focus on high density and high performance, this Atom processor will continue Intel’s drive into the micro server markets and cloud service provider architecture, and extend it into new segments. As a scalable building block, Intel is looking to fit the Atom into new markets such as cold storage, routers and switches, network security appliances, and many other areas.
“What we have seen is the emergence of new applications at the low end of compute,” said Bryant, citing use cases like memcached and cold storage that require a combination of high density and low compute power.
Intel is delivering 13 specific models with customized features and accelerators optimized for particular lightweight workloads such as dedicated hosting, distributed memory caching, static web serving and content delivery to ensure greater efficiency.
Within the Atom Series-C processor family the configurations are highly optimized for the target workload – ranging from 2 cores and 6 watts for entry level web hosting, 4 cores and 9 or 14 watts for cold storage, and 8 cores and 12 or 20 watts for front end web tier (scale-out workloads). With the Silvermont modular design, the AtomC2000 can have 2 to 8 Silvermont cores, with shared 1MB L2 per module, or 4MB. Avoton supports up to 2 channels of DDR3/DDr3L memory, with 25.6GB/s of peak bandwidth.
Not just a typical iteration above last year’s Centerton, the new Avoton with additional SoC functionality takes a large leap forward in power efficiency – with as much as a 65 percent improvement over the previous generation. It also adds jumps from 8GB of memory to 32GB, and includes integrated NIC, SATA and USB. Here’s a look at Intel’s slide summarizing the capabilities of the Atom C2000:
Source : DataCenterKnowledge
The performance improvements in Intel's new C2000 chips will broaden what HP's M300 server modules will be able to do.
Hewlett-Packard officials made headlines in 2011 when they announced Project Moonshot, an effort to create ultra-low-power servers that would include systems powered by ARM-based chips, a surprising move considering the tech giant's long history with Intel.
However, HP in April announced the first Moonshot server modules, which were running on Intel's S1200 "Centerton" Atom system-on-a-chip (SoC). Centerton was designed specifically for the burgeoning density-optimized microserver space and released in December 2012.
Now Intel officials say the next-generation Atom data center chips—the C2000 family, once dubbed "Avoton" for servers and "Rangeley" for networking products—are shipping to systems makers, and HP officials were at the Sept. 4 event to talk about their M300 system, the latest Moonshot server module that will initially run on Intel technology.
HP was one of dozens of data center system makers to talk about new designs based on the C2000 chips, including 11 vendors who are aiming for new Avoton-based dense servers. Some of those vendors include Dell, SuperMicro, NEC and Penguin Computing. Dell's Copper initiative also calls for ARM-based SoCs to power some microservers. At the C2000 launch, Dell officials announced the DCS 1300 platform built for cold storage workloads. -
Intel officials have said the new 22-nanometer C2000 Avoton chips, based on the new "Silvermont" microarchitecture, will offer as much as seven times the performance and six times the power efficiency of the Centerton SoCs. Some versions—there are 13 in all—will offer as many as eight cores.
John Gromala, senior director of hyperscale product management at HP, told eWEEK that the improved performance and energy efficiency of the new 2.4GHz Atom chips will give the M300 greater capabilities over the previous Moonshot servers. Where the previous modules supported such tasks like static Web serving, the performance boost will enable the new M300 to handle such heavier workloads as memory caching, a wider range of Web hosting and interactive Web content.
"There is a big improvement in horsepower available in the two [Moonshot] designs," Gromala said.
HP's Moonshot 1500 enclosure can hold up to 45 server modules, and a standard data center rack can hold up to 450 server nodes. The M300 is designed to fit into the existing enclosure.
The new modules aren't due out until later in the next quarter. Gromala declined to say when Moonshot systems powered by ARM-based chips will start appearing, but added that there will be a series of Moonshot-related announcements during the fall. During the unveiling of the first modules in April, HP officials said Moonshot systems would run chips made not only by Intel but by ARM partners such as Calxeda, Applied Micro and Advanced Micro Devices. - See more at: http://www.eweek.com/servers/hps-latest-moonshot-server-armed-with-intel-avoton-socs.html/#sthash.sHDsWPn9.dpuf
Intel today launched a more powerful chip targeted at the microserver market, which should allow these low-power machines to tackle a broader range of computing workloads.
Microservers are designed for workloads requiring small amounts of processing power that need to be carried out many times, usually concurrently — serving content to users of a popular web page or app, for example.
By carrying out these simple tasks using small servers packed into dense clusters, which consume little energy compared with standard Xeon- and Operton-based systems, companies can reduce running costs and free up datacentre space.
The first generation of microservers — commonly based on Intel Centerton Atom S1200-series chips — were generally used for computationally simple tasks, such as serving static elements on a web page.
Intel's Atom-based Avoton SoCs (System on a Chip) detailed today step up the sort of tasks that microservers can carry out by increasing the processing power compared with the Centerton series. Avoton-based microservers will be able to tackle tasks requiring somewhat more demanding server-side processing when serving content to the web.
"These products are going to get more into areas where there's light server-side computation or in video streaming where there is some decoding required," Gartner research director Errol Rasit said.
Avoton is part of the C2000 series of Atom SoCs. These SoCs are targeted at more than microservers, with Intel also aiming for the chip to go inside routers, switches, network security appliances and cold storage. Intel today also launched another C2000 SoC called Rangeley, which is designed for networking equipment.
Intel expects to "see over 50 design wins" for its C2000 SoCs, mainly on the network and storage side, but with a few "big names" in the "microserver space".
Avoton is available in a variety of SKUs, ranging from dual-core SoCs with a base speed of 1.7GHz up to eight-core SoCs rated at 2.4GHz.
Intel says the Atom C2000 series offer between four to 10 times the performance of its Centerton Atom S1260, or up to six times better performance per watt. With the microserver primarily designed to lower energy costs, one of the most important metrics for microserver SoCs is performance per watt.
Compared with an ARM-based microserver SoC, the 32-bit Cortex A9, Intel is claiming a performance lead of between four and 38 times — see below. Avoton performance is shown in dark blue, Centerton in light blue and the ARM-based Marvell ARMADA XP and Calxeda ECX-1000 in green:
On tests that reflect actual server workloads — such as running the LAMP software stack, Java software and Memcached — Intel also measured a significant increase in performance over the Atom S1260 and competing ARM SoCs:
Intel Atom microserver SoCs are able to address more memory than competing 32-bit ARM-based SoCs thanks to Centerton and Avoton being built on 64-bit CPUs.
Avoton processors can support up to 64GB of memory, and Intel says this additional memory support can lead to a 10–15X performance boost in certain applications. Avoton also supports Error Correcting Code (ECC) memory, which is important for many enterprise applications.
The first 64-bit ARM-based microserver was also announced recently, the MiTAC 7-Star server system, which is powered by the eight-core X-Gene processor from Applied Micro.
Intel said it is "expecting" Avoton SoCs to deliver 2.2 times better performance per watt than 64-bit ARM microserver SoCs.
Improvements in Avoton over Centerton stem from many areas, such as Avoton SoCs being manufactured using 22nm Tri-Gate 3D transistors, and based on a new more efficient CPU microarchitecture known as Silvermont.
Avoton also integrates a greater number of features onto SoCs than Centerton, including integrated gigabit Ethernet, SATA and USB 2.0 controllers — furthering lowering the overall power draw and increasing the efficiency of an Avoton-based system.
With Avoton, Intel has also increased the power consumption of boards at the top end of its microserver range, the most power-hungry boards with C2000 SoCs consuming a maximum of 20W, compared with 8W for the highest-rated Centeron. The lowest power consumption of a C2000 SoC board remains at 6W, the same as Centerton.
ARM-based microservers, such as the Calxeda ECX-1000 with its 5W TDP, have a low maximum power draw, which Gartner's Rasit said might make them a better choice for very simple web serving, despite Intel's claims of better performance per watt.
"When you're looking at extreme low energy and extreme low performance, then some of the ARM architectures will come in at a lower threshold," said Rasit.
"When we're talking about very simple static web serving, there will be lower performance-per-watt products out there that might be better suited [than Avoton]."
However, Intel chips are in the vast majority of servers today, which may sway organisations against the potential disruption of swapping to hardware based on ARM's Risc architecture — particularly when power consumption is similar for both products.
Avoton comes to HP Moonshot
HP will start shipping Avoton-based microserver cartridges in November part of its Moonshot range.
Each Avoton-based cartridge will include a single eight-core Avoton SoC, running at up to 2.7GHz and supporting up to 32GB of memory. Forty-five of these cartridges will slot into a 4.3U chassis, for a total of 360 cores, with each 47U server rack able to contain up to 10 chassis for 3,600 cores.
By comparison, the same 4.3U chassis would fit about four single- or dual-socket 1U servers, which with six- to eight-core server CPUs would deliver a maximum of 64 cores, albeit offering far higher performance than each Avoton CPU core.
Each chassis includes power, networking and cooling infrastructure that is shared between each cartridge.
Customers testing HP's Avoton-based boards include government organisations, financial institutions, retail customers and hosting service providers.
Telecoms operator Ericsson will use Atom C2000 SoCs as a switch controller in its Ericsson Cloud System, which is designed to help mobile operators make their network and IT infrastructure more efficient, when it launches next year.
Whereas the first generation of Moonshot systems, built on Intel Atom S1200-based cartridges, are designed for serving static elements in a web page, Angela Cross, UK and Ireland manager for ISS and software at HP, said Avoton would open up new more computationally challenging use cases for microservers.
HP will be releasing at least two further Moonshot server cartridges in November, including cartridges based on chips not designed by Intel. Earlier in the year HP discussed plans to releasean AMD-based cartridge with integrated APUs (accelerated processing units) focused on gaming and video transcoding, as well as a quad-processor cartridge using a 32-bit ARM Cortex A9-based Calxeda SoC that can scale up to 1,800 server nodes per rack.
What's the future for microservers?
Because microservers are suited to quite a narrow range of tasks, rather than the wider general-purpose computing capabilities of traditional servers, the main demand for microservers is coming from companies that serve huge amounts of content over the web and where electricity bills account for a large proportion of their running costs.
Diane Bryant, general manager for Intel's Datacenter and Connected Systems Group, said: "We have demonstrated Intel's move from a general-purpose compute provider" to "delivering targeted solutions for the various workloads running in the datacentre".
While the market for microservers is expected to grow, traditional rack, blade and tower servers will continue to make up the bulk of the server market for the forseeable future, with microservers expected to account for no more than one-fifth of server sales by 2015-16, because enterprise software like Oracle databases or SAP ERP systems are not designed to run on microservers' lower power, parallel processing infrastructure.
"When you look at a mainstream enterprise datacentre sometimes that doesn't make sense because you're building a datacentre around a number of general-purpose components," said Gartner's Rasit.
"That's why we see large-scale web providers and hyperscale organisations that have a bias towards a particular scale of application where it makes sense — they will very easily see the benefits whereas in a mixed workload environment it will only be an incremental benefit for a small number of applications.
"That's where we're seeing most of the activity in those self-build organisations that design their own systems and that have extreme control over the application code and application architecture," he said, adding that large financial institutions are also turning to microservers to run custom code.
Intel is targeting a number of use cases for the Avoton, such as entry web hosting with the C2350 and C2530, cold storage for the C2550 and front-end web server for scale-out workloads for the C2550 and C2750.
Avoton SKUs
| Model number | Clock speed / Turbo frequency | Number of cores | TDP (Approx max power draw) |
| C2350 | 1.7GHz / 2.0GHz | 2 | 6W |
| C2530 | 1.7GHz / 2.0GHz | 4 | 9W |
| C2730 | 1.7GHz / 2.0GHz | 8 | 12W |
| C2550 | 2.4GHz / 2.6GHz | 4 | 14W |
| C2750 | 2.4GHz / 2.6GHz | 8 | 20W |
Rangeley SKUs
| Model number | Clock speed / Turbo frequency | Number of cores | TDP (Approx max power draw) |
| C2358 | 1.7GHz / 2.0GHz | 2 | 7W |
| C2518 | 1.7GHz | 4 | 13W |
| C2558 | 2.4GHz | 4 | 15W |
| C2538 | 2.4GHz | 4 | 15W |
| C2718 | 2GHz | 8 | 18W |
| C2738 | 2.4GHz | 8 | 20W |
| C2750 | 2.4GHz / 2.6GHz | 8 | 20W |
| C2758 | 2.4GHz | 8 | 20W |
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