armv8

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on AMD Opteron A1100 Server SoCs Feature 4 to 8 ARM Cortex A57 Cores

AMD Opteron A1100 Server SoCs Feature 4 to 8 ARM Cortex A57 Cores

A few months ago, AMD published a roadmap showing AMD “Seattle” Server CPUs based on ARMv8 64-bit architecture were planned for H2 Q2014. The company has now announced the first series of processors that will be based on ARM Cortex A57: AMD Opteron A1100 Series, as well as the corresponding development platform at the Open Compute Project Summit in San Jose, California. Key features of AMD Opteron A1100 Series processors: 4 or 8 core ARM Corte-A57 processors Up to 4 MB of shared L2 and 8 MB of shared L3 cache Configurable dual DDR3 or DDR4 memory channels with ECC at up to 1866 MT/second Up to 4 SODIMM, UDIMM or RDIMMs 8x lanes of PCI-Express Gen 3 I/O 8x Serial ATA 3 ports 2x 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports ARM TrustZone technology for enhanced security Crypto and data compression co-processors On the software side, the company mentionned it is a […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on NVidia Announces Tegra K1 32-bit & 64-bit SoCs with a 192 Core Kepler GPU

NVidia Announces Tegra K1 32-bit & 64-bit SoCs with a 192 Core Kepler GPU

Nvidia announced their newest mobile SoC at CES 2014, but instead of calling it Tegra 5, they went for Tegra K1, as it’s the first to feature a 192 cores GPU based on Kepler architecture, the same as used in PC graphics card. There will be several version of the chip one based on four Cortex A15 cores, one featuring a dual core Nvidia Denver CPU based on ARMv8 64-bit architecture, and Tegra K1 VCM for the automotive market. The company showcased the power of their new processor with an Unreal Engine 4 demo and the same face demo showed last year on an Nvidia GPU card, and Tegra K1 easily outperform older generations games console such as Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, at and the same time consume just about 5 Watts of power, versus 100 Watts for Microsoft and Sony consoles. The GPU in the Tegra K1 also […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Linaro 13.12 Release with Linux Kernel 3.13, Android 4.4, and Ubuntu Saucy Salamander

Linaro 13.12 Release with Linux Kernel 3.13, Android 4.4, and Ubuntu Saucy Salamander

Due to the end of year celebration, Linaro release is a little earlier at this time, and Linaro 13.12 has already been released with Linux Kernel 3.13-rc3 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.24 (LSK), Android 4.4, and Ubuntu Linaro 13.12, which for the first time is based on Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander. Other interesting development include an initial arm64 Ubuntu saucy rootfs (that one?), work to support octa-core 4x Cortex A53, 4x Cortex A57 SoCs, an Android 4.4 KitKat LEB for the Galaxy Nexus, and ARMv8 LSK and Nexus7_2013-AOSP builds have been setup and Android can be now built using llvm-clang toolchain with the related patches submitted to upstream. On a related note, there are also some Midway and Highbank engineering build images for Calxeda server processors, which may not be that useful going forward, as unfortunately the company has just closed door after running out of cash. Here are the highlights of this […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments on AMLogic Processor Roadmap: Quad core Cortex A9 (M8), and 64-bit ARM processors (M9)

AMLogic Processor Roadmap: Quad core Cortex A9 (M8), and 64-bit ARM processors (M9)

We already knew AMLogic is about to release a quad core Cortex A9 SoC, previously codenamed AML8726-M8, but recently renamed to M80X family with 4 different SoCs, but the company has now officially announced the new M8 family, as well as M9 that will feature 64-bit ARM Cortex A5X cores with Mali T7XX GPU. Onda V975m, the first tablet based on M802 processor, was also part of the announcement. Price: 999 CNY (~$164). The new products line is divided as follows: M801/M802 Quad core Cortex A9r4 @ 2GHz with Octo-core Mali-450MP GPU @ 600MHz 4K2K video decoding, Full 1080p decoding (multi-codec), and 1080p H.264 encoding Dual channel DDR3/LPDDR3 up to 4GB 64-bit SDRAM bandwidth HDMI 1.4 up to 4K2K OS – Android 4.4 Kit Kat (Dec. 2013), Google TV version 4 BGA package, 28nm HPM M803/M805 Quad core CPU with Quad core GPU 1080p H.265 decoding, and 1080p HW encoding […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Linaro 13.11 Release with Linux Kernel 3.12 and Android 4.4

Linaro 13.11 Release with Linux Kernel 3.12 and Android 4.4

This release includes Linux Kernel 3.12 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.20 (LSK), Android 4.4 for the first time, and Ubuntu Linaro 13.11 (still based on Raring). Beside Android Kit Kat support, other noticeable updates include initial documentation for LAVA, and further work on ARMv8 support. Here are the highlights of this release: Android Engineering Android 64-/32-bit updated to 4.4 KitKat Fastboot/UEFI – Created Fastboot app design Builds and Baselines Linaro Stable Kernel 3.10.20-2013.11 released – Includes an updated big.LITTLE MP patchset Linux Linaro 3.12-2013.11 released: gator version 5.16 (same version as in 13.10 release) updated big-LITTLE-pmu, iks, iks-cpufreq, and interactive-gov-updates topics from ARM LT updated basic Capri board support from Broadcom LT (generic phy support for USB, watchdog, updated bcm_defconfig) updated big endian topic updated topic to support K3V2 board from Hisilicon LT updated Versatile Express patches from ARM LT vexpress64 support (updated FVP Base model files, added support for FVP […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Linaro 13.10 Release with Linux Kernel 3.12 and Android 4.3

Linaro 13.10 Release with Linux Kernel 3.12 and Android 4.3

Linaro has just posted a blog entry to announced Linaro 13.10 was available for download. This is normally supposed to occur on the last Thursday of the month, but it’s possible the release occurred on scheduled, and the blog post was late, or it may have been delayed because of Linaro Connect US 2013. You can access a summary of the event together with slides and videos of the sessions and keynotes when available. This release includes the Linux Kernel 3.12-rc5 (staging), Kernel 3.10.14 (LSK), Android 4.3.1, and Ubuntu Linaro 13.10 (still based on Raring). Android has been ported and updated to 4.3.1 from AOSP, and the OS can now boot using UEFI. More work has been done on ARM 64-bit (aka ARMv8 or Aarch64) for Android, the Linux kernel, and tools such as uprobes, o-profile, and ftrace. Some new hardware platforms I may have missed before have popped up […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on KVM on 64-Bit ARM with AppliedMicro X-Gene Developement Platform

KVM on 64-Bit ARM with AppliedMicro X-Gene Developement Platform

Applied Micro announced X-Gene 64-Bit ARMv8 Server-on-Chip at ARM Techcon 2011, and later in 2012, they showcased Apache2 on an FPGA implementation of the chip. More recently, they showcased KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) on their X-C1 hardware platform with an actual X-Gene SoC at Linaro Connect Europe 2013, and Linaro has just uploaded the video of the demo. The development board features 8 ARMv8 64-­bit processors, PCI network, up to 6 SATA drives (but only one used in the demo), and they also have hardware fitted into a 1U rack. The demo below runs 4 SMP Linux virtual machines (with 2 VCPUs), including 2 ARMv7 32­-bit, and 2 ARMv8 64-­bit guests, running web servers concurrently on each VM using VirtIO-based network virtualization. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)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 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on ARM TechCon 2013 Schedule – ARM Servers, Internet of Things, Multicore, Hardware and Software Optimization and More

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, […]