arm techcon 2013 News - CNX Software

February 15, 2014February 15, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

Applied Micro X-Gene X-C1 ARMv8 Server Development Board is Now Available for Pre-order

Applied Micro X-Gene is the very first processor to use ARM 64-bit architecture (ARMv8), not Cortex A53 or Cortex A57, but a custom implementation, and last year we’ve seen the company’s ARMv8 development board running 4 Linux virtual machines via KVM. The platform, called X-Gene X-C1, can now be pre-ordered to develop private cloud, public cloud, and enterprise applications. There’s limited public information for now, but I could derive specifications from a few places on the web and available pictures: SoC – Applied Micro X-Gene eight core ARMv8 processor @ 2+GHz System Memory – 2x DDR3 memory slots Storage – 4x SATA 2/3 ports + SD card slot Connectivity – 3x 10 Gb Ethernet ports USB – 2x SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports, 1x mini USB port Expansion – PCIe Gen 3 Monitoring DB9 Serial port Power – ATX I don’t know what’s the metallic connector with holes between the two […]

December 19, 2013December 19, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Mentor Embedded ARM Hypervisor Automotive Demo on Freescale i.MX6 Board

Virtual machines are usually run on server or desktop PC to run several operating systems simultaneous. About 2 years ago, I wrote about an embedded hypervisor running Linux and Android on the Pandaboard develompent board, with the goal of separating home and enterprise operating systems in mobile devices so that enterprise data is safe. Since then, virtualization extensions are now part of ARM Cortex A15 / A7, and as well as the new Cortex A53 / A57 ARMv8 64-bit cores, but in my mind at least, those where mostly designed to address the server market. It turns out hypervisors are also useful in the automotive field, where for example, the dashboard and In-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems runs in two separate virtual machines controlling two different displays from one processor. Mentor Embedded showcased such automotive system at ARM Techcon 2013, where they showed a Freescale i.MX6 quad core board, which looks […]

December 15, 2013December 15, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Toradex Colibri VF50/VF61 SoMs Powered by Freescale Vybrid SoCs Sell for as Low as 19 Euros

Toradex Colibri VF50 and Colibri VF61 are system-on-modules respectively powered by Freescale Vyrbrid VF5xx Cortex A5 SoC and Vybrid VF6xx dual core Cortex A5/M4 SoC, which are part of the company’s Colibri ARM computer on modules. Toradex Colibri VF50/VF61 specifications: Processor VF50 – Freescale Vybrid VF5xx (MVF50NN151CMK40) ARM Cortex-A5 @ 400MH, 1.5MB SRAM VF61 – Freescale Vybrid VF6xx (MVF61NS151CMK50) ARM Cortex-A5 @ 500MHz, Cortex-M4 @ 167MHz, 1.0MB SRAM, and multiple hardware accelerated security features listed below. System Memory VF50 – 128MB DDR3 (16-bit, no ECC), or 64MB DDR3 with ECC (8-bit, ECC) VF61 – 256MB DDR3 (16-bit, no ECC), or 128MB DDR3 (8-bit, ECC) Storage VF50 – 128MB NAND flash VF61 – 1GB NAND flash Interfaces via the 200-pin SO-DIMM edge connector (X1): LCD RGB (24-bit), up to 1024 x 768 4-wire or 5-wire resistive touch Audio – I/O (VF61 only), SPDIF In and Out, I2S/AC97 compatibl Ehanced Serial Audio […]

November 21, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Boston Viridis 2.0 and AAEON CRS-200S-2R ARM Based Servers Powered by Calxeda Quad core Cortex A15 SoC

Calxeda unveiled its new ECX-2000 Server-on-a-Chip (SoC) at ARM Techcon 2013. Calxeda new chipset features 4 cortex A15 cores, support up to 16GB RAM, and thanks to the move from Cortex A9 to Cortex A15 supports hardware virtualization. I’ve stumbled across two new servers powered by ECX-2000: Boston Viridis 2.0 and AAEON-CRS-200S-2R. Let’s have a look Boston Viridis 2.0 The successor of Boston Viridis powered by Calxeda ECX-1000 quad core Cortex A9 SoC, Viridis 2.0 features six ECX-2000 cards, with each card hosting two four-core SoCs @ 1.8GHz, and consuming as little as 6 watts of power. The server runs Ubuntu 13.10 operating systems, and OpenStack Havana platform, and would typically be used for cloud computing, distributed storage, and virtualization. Viridis 2.0 is a 4U ARM microserver that, and the company claims this can allow up to 1000+ servers in a rack, or about 1.5PB of data storage per rack. […]

November 5, 2013November 5, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

ARM Based Servers and Servers-on-a-Chip (SoCs) at ARM Techcon 2013

ARM Techcon 2013 took place on October 29 – 31, 2013, in Santa Clara, and several companies announced servers, or chips for server based on ARM technology. None of those are for home used, but for now ARM based servers target enterprise and cloud data. Yet end users may them indirectly when they access social networks such as Facebook, or other online services such as Paypal. Calxeda ECX-2000 SoC After their ECX-1000 quad core Cortex A9 Server-on-chip, Calxeda has announced ECX-2000 SoC featuring four Cortex A15 cores. The new SoC provides about twice the performance, 3 times the memory bandwidth, and 4 times the memory capacity (up to 16GB RAM) of the earlier chip. One of the key advantage of Cortex A15 over Cortex A9 is hardware virtualization that allows support for KVM and Xen hypervisors. ECX-2000 is supported in Canonical Ubuntu Linux 13.10 and can run Havana Openstack. Other […]

August 1, 2013August 1, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

ARM TechCon 2013 Schedule – ARM Servers, Internet of Things, Multicore, Hardware and Software Optimization and More

ARM Technology Conference (TechCon) 2013 will take place on October 29 – 31, 2013, in Santa Clara, and the detailed schedule for the event has just been made available. In the previous years, the conference was divided into Chip Designs day (1 day), and the other 2 days were reserved for Software & System Design, but this year it does not appear to be the case. Whether you’ll be able to attend the event or not, it’s worth having a look at what will be discussed there in order to have a better understanding of what will be the key ARM developments in the near future in terms of hardware and software. There will be around 90 sessions categorized into 15 tracks: Accelerating Hardware Development – This track explores the resources, tools, and techniques that designers can employ to quickly bring hardware to market. Topics include multicore design, ARM IP, […]