ClearFog CX CN9K Mini-ITX 10GbE/5GbE networking SBC runs Linux or FreeBSD
Last year, SolidRun introduced ClearFog CX LX2X networking single board computer offering up to 100GbE via NXP LX2160A 16-core Cortex-A72 communication processor that followed ClearFog CX 8K ARMADA 8040 networking board launched the year before.
The Israeli company is now working on two ClearFog CX CN9K networking SBC’s powered by CEx7 CN913x system-on-module featuring Marvell Octeon TX2 CN913x quad-core Cortex-A72 processor and offering multi-gigabit Ethernet with various 10Gbps, 5Gbps, and Gigabit Ethernet ports.
ClearFog CN9132 Pro
The higher-end version of the ClearFog CX CN9K boards is ClearFog CN9132 Pro with the following specifications:
CEx7 CN9132 COM Express Type 7 module
SoC – Marvell OCTEON TX2 CN9132 quad-core Arm Cortex A72 up to 2.2 GHz (Industrial temperature up to 2.0 GHz)
System Memory – Up to 16GB SO-DIMM DDR4 up to2400MT/s (not included by default)
Storage – Up to 32 GB eMMC flash, SPI NOR flash
COM Express Type 7 board-to-board connectors with
Storage – 2x SATA (Gen III)
Networking – 3x XFI, RX AUI, SGMII (configurable SerDes); PPS/PTP (Precision Time Protocol) support
PCIe
1x PCIe Gen 3.0 X4
1x PCIe Gen 3.0 X2
Up to 6x PCIe Gen 3.0 X1
USB – 1x USB 3.0
Low-speed I/Os – 5x I2C, 2x UART, SPI bus
Misc – RTC
Power Consumption – Up to 15W
Dimensions – 125 x 95 mm
Carrier board
Storage
2x SATA (gen 3.0)
Up to 3x M.2 2240/2280/22110 PCIe x1 Gen3
1x M.2 2240/2280/22110 PCIe x2 Gen3
MicroSD card slot
Up to 8GB eMMC flash
Networking
1x 10GbE SFP+ cage
1x 5GbE RJ45 port with PoE PD
1x 5GbE RJ45 port with PoE PSE
1 x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 MDI
Optional ETH SW with 4x 1GbE RJ45 ports
PTP (Precision Time Protocol) support
USB – 3x USB 3.0, 3x USB 2.0
Expansion – 1x PCIe Gen3.0 X4, open slot (can mechanically support X16)
Debugging – Micro USB for debug (UART over USB using FTDI)
Board management – Micro USB to STM32 for management
Power Supply – 12V via DC jack or PoE PD
Dimensions – 214 x 172 mm
Temperature Range – Commercial: 0°C to 70°C; industrial: 40°C to 85°C
Humidity – 10% to 90%
ClearFog CN9130 Base
If you have a more limited budget or simply lower/different requirements in terms of storage and network connectivity, or power, SolidRun is also working on ClearFog CN9130 Base SBC.
ClearFog CN9310 Base specifications:
CEx7 CN9132 COM Express Type 7 module
SoC – Marvell OCTEON TX2 CN9130 quad-core Arm Cortex A72 up to 2.2 GHz (Industrial temperature up to 2.0 GHz)
System Memory – Up to 16GB SO-DIMM DDR4 up to2400MT/s (not included by default)
Storage – Up to 32 GB eMMC flash, SPI NOR flash
COM Express Type 7 board-to-board connectors with
Storage – No SATA
Networking – 1x XFI, RX AUI, SGMII (configurable SerDes); PPS/PTP (Precision Time Protocol) support
PCIe
1x PCIe Gen 3.0 X4
1x PCIe Gen 3.0 X1
USB – No USB 3.0 interface
Low-speed I/Os – 3x I2C, 2x UART, SPI bus
Misc – RTC
Power Consumption – Up to 11W
Dimensions – 125 x 95 mm
Carrier board
Storage
1x M.2 2240/2280/22110 PCIe x2 Gen3
MicroSD card slot
Up to 8GB eMMC flash
Networking
1x 10GbE SFP+ cage
1 x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 MDI
Optional ETH SW with 4x 1GbE RJ45 ports
No PPT (Precision Time Protocol) support
USB – 2x USB 2.0
Expansion – 1x PCIe Gen3.0 X4, open slot (can mechanically support X16)
Debugging – Micro USB for debug (UART over USB using FTDI)
Power Supply – 12V via DC jack
Dimensions – 214 x 172 mm
Temperature Range – Commercial: 0°C to 70°C; industrial: 40°C to 85°C
Humidity – 10% to 90%
To summarize, there isn’t any SATA port, just one M.2 socket for storage, no USB 3.0 port, no 5GbE PoE port, no STM32 MCU for management, but CPU performance should be the same between CN9132 and CN9130.
Software support and additional information
Both boards have the same software support with Marvell-based Linux Kernel 4.14x or mainline Linux, U-boot, UEFI, DPDK, and FreeBSD with the latter relying on third-party support.
Typical use cases include Network Function Virtualization (NFV),
5G base station, transport network infrastructure, industrial switch router, network monitoring, Smart NIC, secure edge gateway, and Cloud & Data Centers.
Both the modules and ClearFog CX CN9K single board computers appear to be under development, and it’s unclear when they’ll become available and at what price. More details can be found on SolidRun website.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
Now *this* looks like a serious NAS board, probably the most serious one in a while! Actually I could replace my file server with it, it has everything I need. I could even keep the RAID using M2 SSDs, something that even x86 doesn’t provide. I really appreciate having the console accessible by default (without having to keep a hanging TTL adapter). Actually it’s called TX2 but for me the SoC is an upgrade to the previous A8040, in that the regular TX2 cores are *not* Cortex and don’t support 32-bit mode. And when you look at the TX2 offering,… Read more »
Yes, this chip was designed before the Cavium acquisition. When the Cavium acquisition happened, the products under development where renamed to reflect the Cavium naming scheme. Definitely a nice upgrade over the A8040.
Arnd Bergmann
3 years ago
It’s worth noting that despite the name, the “Octeon TX2 CN91XX” chips are not related to earlier Octeon, ThunderX2 or the CN92XX line of chips, but are the successor to the Armada 8K line that was used in the older ClearFog CX 8K. The new board design seems nicer, with m.2 slots instead of PCIe mini ports and more I/O in the top model. The updates on the CPU side seem very small, it runs the same cores at a slightly higher frequency. One minor correction: the on-board storage is listed wrong, I think it should be “up to 32GB… Read more »
Agreed for the CPU, that was my understanding as well (we seem to have responded at the same time). With this said, the 8040 is a really powerful SoC that makes you feel more like using a PC than a raspi, and for the same cores and up to the same frequency… The mcbin we have in our lab don’t have much problem pushing between 10 and 20G of TCP traffic! I’d say 10G is easy, 20G is harder. And that’s with 100% mainline. To date they remain the best ARM boards I’ve used in many aspects, so I expect… Read more »
dgp
3 years ago
Looks really good but I think it’s going to be the same price as a thousand orangepis 😉
I hope it won’t be more expensive than a Macchiatobin, it’s basically the same with connectors rearranged. And it’s possibly less expensive to produce if they can mix baseboards with CPU modules.
Having now looked at the pictures of both just now this does look a lot like the macchiatobin with the SoC moved to a module. Maybe it’ll be a hundred orangepis or less.
10G switches are not *that* expensive if you pick those having only two 10G SFP+ uplinks. You can then have 10G to your server, 10G to your workstation and the rest of the network at 1G per port. I used to do this decades ago with 24x100M+2x1G and it was great.
Precision Time Protocol is PTP not PPT, aka IEEE1588. The 802.1AS subset is associated with Time-Sensitive Networking, also of high interest esp for industrial&auto applications.
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Now *this* looks like a serious NAS board, probably the most serious one in a while! Actually I could replace my file server with it, it has everything I need. I could even keep the RAID using M2 SSDs, something that even x86 doesn’t provide. I really appreciate having the console accessible by default (without having to keep a hanging TTL adapter). Actually it’s called TX2 but for me the SoC is an upgrade to the previous A8040, in that the regular TX2 cores are *not* Cortex and don’t support 32-bit mode. And when you look at the TX2 offering,… Read more »
Yes, this chip was designed before the Cavium acquisition. When the Cavium acquisition happened, the products under development where renamed to reflect the Cavium naming scheme. Definitely a nice upgrade over the A8040.
It’s worth noting that despite the name, the “Octeon TX2 CN91XX” chips are not related to earlier Octeon, ThunderX2 or the CN92XX line of chips, but are the successor to the Armada 8K line that was used in the older ClearFog CX 8K. The new board design seems nicer, with m.2 slots instead of PCIe mini ports and more I/O in the top model. The updates on the CPU side seem very small, it runs the same cores at a slightly higher frequency. One minor correction: the on-board storage is listed wrong, I think it should be “up to 32GB… Read more »
Agreed for the CPU, that was my understanding as well (we seem to have responded at the same time). With this said, the 8040 is a really powerful SoC that makes you feel more like using a PC than a raspi, and for the same cores and up to the same frequency… The mcbin we have in our lab don’t have much problem pushing between 10 and 20G of TCP traffic! I’d say 10G is easy, 20G is harder. And that’s with 100% mainline. To date they remain the best ARM boards I’ve used in many aspects, so I expect… Read more »
Looks really good but I think it’s going to be the same price as a thousand orangepis 😉
Well the older ClearFog CX LX2K Is $1000.00 without ram !
https://shop.solid-run.com/product/SRLX216S00D00GE064C06CH/
Or
ClearFog GT 8K
Compare
Quad 2GHz ARMADA A8040
8GB eMMC
0° to 70° C | Inc. Heatsink
SKU: SRM8040S64D00GE008V11GH
$221.00
I hope it won’t be more expensive than a Macchiatobin, it’s basically the same with connectors rearranged. And it’s possibly less expensive to produce if they can mix baseboards with CPU modules.
Having now looked at the pictures of both just now this does look a lot like the macchiatobin with the SoC moved to a module. Maybe it’ll be a hundred orangepis or less.
If only 10Gb switches etc weren’t so expensive 🙁
10G switches are not *that* expensive if you pick those having only two 10G SFP+ uplinks. You can then have 10G to your server, 10G to your workstation and the rest of the network at 1G per port. I used to do this decades ago with 24x100M+2x1G and it was great.
Example: 2x10G + 8x1G fanless for 130 EUR: https://www.fs.com/fr/products/90130.html
Precision Time Protocol is PTP not PPT, aka IEEE1588. The 802.1AS subset is associated with Time-Sensitive Networking, also of high interest esp for industrial&auto applications.