Intel has today launched a new product called Data Streaming Accelerator known as Intel DSA shortly. The new device is going to be present inside every future Intel processor with a goal of "optimizing streaming data movement and transformation operations common with applications for high-performance storage, networking, persistent memory, and various data processing applications."

The DSA processor will replace an existing solution that is Intel QuickData Technology, which was previously used for data movement. This new dedicated processor has a much-needed purpose to free up CPU cycles from doing IO work like moving data to/from volatile memory, persistent memory, memory-mapped I/O, and through a Non-Transparent Bridge (NTB) device to/from remote volatile and persistent memory inside a chip. In addition to the usual data movement operations, the DSA processor can create and test CRC checksums for any errors in storage and networking applications.Shown above is the high-level overview of Intel's DSA architecture, showcasing how is the accelerator laid-out internally. Besides the aforementioned features, the DSA processor features many more features like Shared Virtual Memory, Intel I/O Virtualization, device-specific Interrupt Message Store and more. For a full list of features about this processor, please head over to the announcement blog.