Qualcomm has brought the next-level of data centre computing with the announcement of its Centriq 2400 series. This new chip is touted to be the world’s first 10-nanometre server processor and supports Linux platform out of the box.
San Diago-based Qualcomm has designed its Centriq family “to reshape the future” of data centres. As the first in the advanced lineup, the Qualcomm Centriq 2400 comes from the 10nm FinFET process technology. It also includes Falkor CPU and a custom ARMv8-compliant core to enhance performance even with a major reduction in power consumption.
“The Qualcomm Centriq 2400 series processors will drive high performance, power-efficient ARM-based servers from concept to reality,” said Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president, Qualcomm Technologies, in a statement.
While the Centriq 2400 is yet to be available in the server market, Qualcomm has started its commercial sampling. The company even conducted a live demonstration of the new chip running Linux-based Apache Spark and Hadoop.
Attack on Intel
Qualcomm is attempting to steal the march over Intel by developing the Centriq family. The top-end Intel chip supports 24 cores, whereas Qualcomm’s latest offering comes with up to 48 cores.
Also, this is the first time when an ARM architecture is planning to make a move towards servers. It would encourage the market to leverage powerful performance alongside open source software, as ARM-based chips are not likely to support the applications designed for x86 architecture.
That being said, the performance results of the latest development would out following the commercial availability of the Qualcomm Centriq 2400. It is expected to begin in the second half of 2017.
