Tuesday, October 16th 2012
Intel Atom Gets Feature-Set Overhaul in "Avoton" for Micro-Servers
With ARM gaining a foothold in the micro-server market, with multi-core processors, Intel is stepping up its response. A key component of Intel's next-generation "Edisonville" micro-server platform, Atom "Avoton" will be designed with a formidable feature-set over what the current-generation Atom "Centerton" offers, according to a MyDrivers report based on a leaked company slide.
Atom "Avoton" will be built on Intel's 22 nm silicon fabrication process, with anywhere between 2 to 8 cores, backed by 1 MB to 4 MB L2 cache. The cores will be designed to support out-of-order processing, correcting a longstanding limitation of Atom processors. The cores will likely be designed with a balanced instruction set to maximize performance per Watt. Processors in the Atom "Avoton" series will be clocked around 2.40 GHz, and will support Turbo Boost technology, which drives core clock speed up to 2.70 GHz. Another big feature change is an expanded IMC, which will support dual-channel DDR3-1600 / DDR3-1600L memory. Enterprise features such as ECC memory and Intel VT, will be included. The chips will likely be built in FCBGA packages. TDP for these chips will be under 20W.
Source:
MyDrivers
Atom "Avoton" will be built on Intel's 22 nm silicon fabrication process, with anywhere between 2 to 8 cores, backed by 1 MB to 4 MB L2 cache. The cores will be designed to support out-of-order processing, correcting a longstanding limitation of Atom processors. The cores will likely be designed with a balanced instruction set to maximize performance per Watt. Processors in the Atom "Avoton" series will be clocked around 2.40 GHz, and will support Turbo Boost technology, which drives core clock speed up to 2.70 GHz. Another big feature change is an expanded IMC, which will support dual-channel DDR3-1600 / DDR3-1600L memory. Enterprise features such as ECC memory and Intel VT, will be included. The chips will likely be built in FCBGA packages. TDP for these chips will be under 20W.
18 Comments on Intel Atom Gets Feature-Set Overhaul in "Avoton" for Micro-Servers
I expect them to perform like cores in mobile CPUs of course, but still, getting CPUs with eight Ivy bridge cores in micro-servers would be a great step ahead.
~20W is the max with 8c SKUs for microservers. There will be of course variants optimized for low-power segments.
This new Silvermont seems to have a lot of potential.
My obvious questions are:
1) Will it have a decent amount of SATA connections, or will they have to have an additional chip?
2) Will this atom actually perform like a small IB/SB processor, or will it be another atom?
3) What exorbient fee will Intel charge for the "privledge" of getting on of these processors?
4) When will consumers actually be able to see these in the wild?
Without answers to 3 and 4 this article is Intel looking to get PR without any actual dates. I'm getting tired of that, considering how delayed socket 2011 is. In nearly a year there are just starting to be boards that offer all the features socket 2011 should have had at launch (read: SAS connections for drives). Hopefully, Atom delivers more efficiently....Hopefully...
edison did nothing. he never made anything awesome. he was only a marketer. not an inventor like tesla. name it Tesla!