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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday November 16 2017, @01:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the core-value dept.

Qualcomm Launches 48-core Centriq for $1995: Arm Servers for Cloud Native Applications

Following on from the SoC disclosure at Hot Chips, Qualcomm has this week announced the formal launch of its new Centriq 2400 family of Arm-based SoCs for cloud applications. The top processor is a 48-core, Arm v8-compliant design made using Samsung's 10LPE FinFET process, with 18 billion transistors in a 398mm2 design. The cores are 64-bit only, and are grouped into duplexes – pairs of cores with a shared 512KB of L2 cache, and the top end design will also have 60 MB of L3 cache. The full design has 6 channels of DDR4 (Supporting up to 768 GB) with 32 PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes, support for Arm Trustzone, and all within a TDP of 120W and for $1995.

We covered the design of Centriq extensively in our Hot Chips overview, including the microarchitecture, security and new power features. What we didn't know were the exact configurations, L3 cache sizes, and a few other minor details. One key metric that semiconductor professionals are interested in is the confirmation of using Samsung's 10LPE process, which Qualcomm states gave them 18 billion transistors in a 398mm2 die (45.2MTr/mm2). This was compared to Intel's Skylake XCC chip on 14nm (37.5MTr/mm2, from an Intel talk), but we should also add in Huawei's Kirin 970 on TSMC 10nm (55MTr/mm2).

Previously: Qualcomm's Centriq 2400 Demoed: A 48-Core ARM SoC for Servers


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @01:24AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @01:24AM (#597541)

    And does it contain an unlocked stage0 bootloader, or is it locked down similiar to modern OEM windows systems with something akin to SecureBoot even though it could have been made fully optional for the plebs, but left unlocked/self-configured for the security minded users.

    Additionally: How does the TALOS II compare to this chip/system? The prices look to be in a similiar ballpark, but this chip has 6 times the cores compared to a dual processor TALOS II.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @02:38AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @02:38AM (#597555)

    Trust zone isn't like IME. If you are in control of trust zone, it is a good thing. If some phone vendor uses it to protect DRM, it is a bad thing. I have dev boards where I am in control of trust zone.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Thursday November 16 2017, @09:03AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Thursday November 16 2017, @09:03AM (#597620) Journal
    It does support TrustZone and also has trusted certs burned into ROM. Customers can add their own certs at purchase time. It's not clear from their marketing whether you can add new certs afterwards, nor whether there's any revocation mechanism.
    --
    sudo mod me up