Late last month, HP has started shipping servers Moonshot processor-based X-Gene, developed by Applied Micro. These solutions are based on 64-bit architecture ARMv8 and include up to eight cores with a frequency of 2.4 GHz. Meanwhile, Applied Micro has made announcement of processors HeliX, which are intended for use in embedded systems.
Company offers two solutions - HeliX 1 and HeliX 2. Both processors based on said X-Gene, but first produced 40nm technology, while others - to 28-nm. In addition, HeliX 2 used second-generation processor cores X-Gene.
Processors HeliX 1 may have 4 or 8 cores at up to 2.4 GHz, up to 8 MB shared cache in the third level, dual-channel DDR3 memory with support for error correction (ECC), a quad-core cluster Cortex-A5, clocked at 500 MHz, as well as support interfaces like Ethernet (2 ports 10G, 1 port 1G, 1 port 1G Management), 17 lines of PCI Express 3.0, USB 3.0 and 6-port SATA 6 Gb / s.
Configuration HeliX 2 looks much more modest. Number of cores may be 2 or 4 pieces, their frequency can be up to 2 GHz. The volume of third-level cache is 2 Mbytes, there is a single-channel DDR3 memory with support for ECC. There is one port 10G Ethernet, four-port 1G Ethernet, line 3 PCI Express 3.0, USB 3.0 ports and one port SATA 6 Gb / s.
Embedded Applied Micro based on ARM architecture interested companies like Cisco, Netgear, and Canonical. Prototypes of systems on a chip HeliX already delivered to customers, the mass production of Applied Micro is going to start in 2015.